Our big outreach destinations have been prayed over and we have 3 teams being sent to 1. Doi Inthanon , 2. WonGen cafe , and 3. Wanhaeng. We are in the team going to Doi Inthanon for 6 weeks where we will be working and living on a farm in a Mon village. We don’t speak Mon/Thai so pray that we can serve these people with our actions and love. I imagine that we will dominate at charades once we return to the States. We will also be teaching some English while we are up there too. We are packing warm because apparently it gets cold on the tallest mountain in Thailand. We love you guys and will miss you while on outreach! God’s peace, love and joy…

A few things we are thankful to God for throughout our outreach to China:

1) We are thankful for YOU, our friends and family even though we were not together for the holiday. We are thankful for our feast of pork fried noodles and rice. We are also thankful for Chinese bakeries on every block that sell glazed almond bread, caterpillar fun bread, and pound cakes.

2) We are thankful to our gracious hosts in China who accommodated us in so many ways. For the family who allowed us to stay in their apartment with hot water while they went on vacation. For translators and bus passes. For coffee, “over the bridge rice noodles”, stories and encouragement. We really can’t thank you guys enough and we know that God will continue to bless you in China! We also thank you for following up the relationships of the new friends that we made while we were there.

3) We are thankful for meeting tons of university students and getting the opportunity to talk with them in class, English corner, coffeehouses and while they translated for us at the orphanage school. They are all hungry for genuine relationships, English conversation and many are interested and open to the Gospel. 3 people came into the kingdom and many are close behind! We hope to stay in touch with many of our new friends.

4) We are thankful for the hundred of kids that we had the opportunity to sing songs with, play and dance with at the orphanage school and kindergarten. We are thankful for dirty hands, huge smiles, joy and hugs all around.

5) We are thankful for the opportunity to visit registered Chinese churches and worship with our brothers and sisters in a restaurant, in an apartment and the church building itself.  We are thankful for their prayers and encouragement.

6) We are thankful for a safe return to Thailand where we will have 2 more weeks of class before 2 months of outreach. We are thankful for Western-styled toilets again, to see grass and trees all around and for the money-saving Thai economy.  We are thankful for friendly faces who say “sawadeekah” instead of just staring at us while taking photos and a more relaxed-pace of life. We are thankful for internet connection and a phone to stay in touch with you. We were thankful to have the modern conveniences and seeing Western culture in the drastic change of visiting China, but we are also appreciative of the freedoms and landscapes of returning to Thailand.

God bless each and every one of you guys and we hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well! Love, us

1. Continue to pray for flooding in Bangkok. We will fly to Bkk before departing for China.
2. Safe travels to China where we will be for 2 weeks. We won’t have a means of communication, but pray for awesome things to happen with the people we meet and places we go.
3. For rest and peaceful sleep (lots of us can’t sleep) and people are getting sick so pray for healing.
4. Confirmation in our next step that God would continue to align us in the direction He wants us to transition into. Perfect timing, ect.

“Happy (early) Thanksgiving!” everyone! We hope you eat lots of turkey and watch plenty of football for us! Go Tigers!

This week, Donny Zondervan (yes, he’s related to the Zondervan Publishing Company) came from New Zealand to teach us about spiritual warfare.  Probably after reading this first sentence your mind jumps to flashbacks of Linda Blair in The Exorcist.  Good news: if you are a believer, you can’t become possessed.  Possession is taking ownership of something and involves overstepping one’s will. If one is truly possessed by the enemy it is because they have opened themselves up to the demonic realm and they have not submitted their lives to Christ.  Oppression is the correct term to use if you are a believer.  To the Western church, we may feel as though we need to think of extreme examples of spiritual attacks.  However, the enemy tries to use anything in our day-to-day lives to “steal, kill, and destroy” as a distraction.  For example, a lack of sleep, unresolved anger or bitterness, headaches, depression can be the enemy trying to divert us away from the Holy Spirit.

 

This week highlighted a lot of crazy sounding stories of the spiritual war going on in Thailand; stories that include generational curses and physical manifestations of the battle between light and darkness. However, I don’t want to expand on specific examples because the enemy doesn’t deserve credit for distractions and torment. The enemy is limited and we serve an all-powerful and limitless, loving God.

 

I heard a great illustration from Bill Johnson on spiritual warfare – Light is completely superior to darkness. Where light exists darkness has no choice to flee. When you walk into a dark room and turn on the lights there is no struggle between light and dark, the darkness just leaves. When the sun rises in the morning there is no fight between night and day, night leaves. This is the reality that we live in. The light inside of us (Jesus) is totally superior to any darkness that we may meet.

 

Yet, whether you are a believer or not, we can’t choose to “sit on the sidelines” of spiritual warfare and be passive. If this topic scares you, look around you. We are in a constant battle of the heart and mind. Do not fear. God protects his kids in perfect love. You have the keys and weapons you need (Eph. 6:11, Matt 6:6) so use them.  Donny also talked about that often we shy away from warring against the demonic, but we are super quick to wage war against our own flesh and blood.  How fast do we judge and hurt our neighbors? How many lies do we believe?

 

Believe in the truth. The truth brings freedom. Freedom to walk in the light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week, Stan Hankins, from Hawaii and Ambassadors For Christ, came to teach on the Holy Spirit. He gave very Scripturally based lectures of who the Holy Spirit is and it’s function in the life of the early church. He used the illustration of the “95% rule”. In the early church, 95% of what they did was the work of the Holy Spirit. Today, 95% of what churches do could be done even if you took the Holy Spirit away. What is that saying about ministries today? Are they glorifying God, or men?

Of course the Holy Spirit is present in all believers, but at different points in our lives we can be filled with experiences in the Spirit. My experience may look entirely different than your experience. However the holy spirit will always bring identity,unity,liberty, spontaneity, ability, an humility. There is joy. No matter how people encounter the spirit, it is always decisive. Your character will change because you are growing in your relationship with Christ. You are becoming more like his character. Never stop growing!

Mai, our friend who had a tumor the size of a potato on her ovary that we told you about before (read a few posts down) went to the doctor today to review her results. In her earlier check-up the doctor had thought surgery was definitely going to happen even though her tumor was found non-cancerous because it was so big. Much to the shock of her doctor, HER TUMOR IS COMPLETELY GONE! As in, it was there and now there’s NO sign of it!! She said he was running around trying to verify that she was the same “Mai” with this condition. He couldn’t believe it. Praise God! Mai was elated and praising God in the exam and waiting rooms. She said she couldn’t help but attract attention because she was so happy. This intrigued her doctor he he asked her who her God was. She didn’t have time with all of his appointments to witness to him but she testified to him as a walking miracle. God is so big and he loves working miracles today…whoo-hoo! Jesus = won cancer = 0

Visit <http://www.ywamthai.org/news&gt; for more updates on the situation.

PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR:
1) for God to demonstrate a powerful movement of his love through this tragedy that also breaks his heart.
2) for our friend, Gade, who is coming to Chiang Mai for a conference but doesn’t know if she will be able to return home due to the flooding.
3) for a girl at the DNA conference who found out (on her birthday) that her home is completely submerged and all of her ministry and personal stuff is underwater.
4) for aid to be able to come through the flood to help (clean water, food, meds, shelter, ect.)
5) for hope and strength in the Thai community.

6) for ministries in and around the BKK area

22 nationalities, 38 languages spoken and over 150 YWAM staff equals 1 conference with a heart for the nations. Welcome to the DNA Conference hosted at the Chiang Rai base in Thailand. This week, YWAM co-founder, Darlene Cunningham spoke with her team of DNA staffers about the history and vision of YWAM. She is such a down to earth person. She speaks with bold authority and truth using her own experiences she faced with her husband, Loren, and how God has led them on crazy kingdom adventures over the years. Although the Cunninghams have circumnavigated the globe many times to answer their apostolic call to all nations, Darlene would just be so content to fold your laundry, make you lunch and be your adopted grandmother.

David and I have learned so much in just 5 days. We are seeing servant leadership, hospitality, visionary thinking and encouragement being modeled. We have had amazing worship and intercessory prayer. This means that we, as a body, spent time hearing from the Lord about what He wanted us to pray about. Then we focused our prayer time on the things that God brought to mind. We saw immediate fruit from the prayer when an individual from Burma asked forgiveness of the Thai people here for a 1,000 year old history of strife and war. We have met so many people and heard so many amazing stories about God’s provision and faithfulness.

God is showing Himself faithful through the people that we are meeting. I have often heard the statement “the light shines brightest in the dark”. With the stories of ministries to prostitutes in Pattaya, orphans in the slums of Bangkok and direct ministries to refugees of the continuing war in Burma, we see the truth. In some of the darkest places of earth Jesus is moving in the most incredible ways (there are many more stories, just ask). God keeps bringing to mind so many of our friends back home who would fit in really well with the vision of YWAM (ahem….Adam & Lindsay, Erin Young, Rick, Michael Parker, the list goes on …)

David Hamilton taught on “The 5-Fold Ministries” this week (Ephesians 5) and he explained how YWAM has an apostolic calling. This means they operate in many different ways with evangelism, training and mercy ministries being the focus. In fulfilling this calling, YWAM works alongside other international/inter-denominational mission organizations to reach every people group and sub-culture in every way imaginable. We have felt really blessed and privileged to have been allowed to join YWAMs leaders at this conference. The goodness continues next week as Loren Cunningham comes from Korea to speak before traveling to India.

BE PRAYING FOR BANGKOK THIS WEEK!