hey everyone!
this blog is a bit late, but we were all too tired to blog on the last night.

we have now parted ways and i am blogging from malaysia! since we last blogged, we have done quite a bit.

we attended sunday service at the local Surin church where Tham Fuan preached. The team also sang "How Great Is Our God" for the members. They really enjoyed it. this service was special because there were also some Korean missionaries there on short term as well.

After service, we enjoyed a really yummy lunch provided by the church (we had kuey chap, which are noodles in this thick soupy gravy sauce). we there had a chance to fellowship with the members of the church.

after church, we had some time to kill before our flight back to bangkok. so, we hung out at our favoutite store...TESCO LOTUS! (a superstore) yesss. and headed for the food court to eat in ubon for the last time.

then, it was time to say goodbye as the lim family dropped us at the airport. we then boarded our flight and flew back to bangkok.

at the bangkok airport, someone from teh hotel came to pick us up in a really dodgy van. julee and ed got a bit worried as the radiator started splurting out hot liquid and steam INSIDE the car, next to the driver, near where dave was sitting. it was quite an experience, and this happened all the way to our hotel!

when we got to the hotel, we decided to settle in and then check out bangkok city to have our last dinner together. so anyway, we found a night market we thought was called the "Silom Night Market" and caught a taxi to head to this market. in the taxi, we managed to fit the entire team plus the driver, in a five seater taxi! we told the driver where we wanted to go, and he seemed a bit confused. so, anyway, he drove us to Silom Road. We then asked people and thought that the Silom Market was down the street, so we walked and walked, but couldnt find it. In the end, we decided to eat in the Robinsons (like Myer type shop) food court. but when we got there, the food court looked shut. so, we decided to take the sky train (which costed us 20baht each) to MBK (a huge shopping centre) instead, as Julee said there was a really good food court there. So off we went to MBK. when we got there, Julee noticed that the food court had changed significantly, and it was now really clean. as we ordered our food, we realised that the food has also gone downhill since Julee last ate there. after a while, Julee figured out that we were in the WRONG food court, and that this food court was mainly for foreigners, and true enough, after we asked a lady, she said that the better food was upstairs. so after our dinner, we headed upstairs and found that this was true! we had all eaten our dinner, so we only had room left for durian sticky rice. ARGH, our dinner without the lims was terrible!

after this, we caught a cab back (with a driver who had NO IDEA where he was going, and kept trying to make us pay him more), and then we realised that we'd read the map at the hotel wrongly, and it said "Silom Road at Night" not "Silom Night Market", so we realised that there was NO "Silom Night Market" and thats why everyone seemed so confused!

anyway, we just laughed and headed off to bed. this was our last night together, and were all now going our seperate ways.

hope you guys had fun and were touched by following our adventures and misadventures online. we definitely have a lot to tell you all when we get back to church.

may god continue to bless you all, and please keep praying for our safe return, and a safe, relaxing holiday as we really need the rest! continue to pray for Miao, and her family, and the whole Mekong region.

God Bless,
the Team.

Hello fellow blog readers!

Today we did lots of kids ministry! We started off the day with a devotions from Dave. Then, we had breaky, and met Mark. He drove us to the local church in Ubon. There, we ministered to about 150 over Compassion kids. We sang songs, performed our skit and played games. We had lots of fun running this program.

Then, the church provided lunch for us. It was really yummy, and we finally had our first GREEN CURRY in Thailand so far!

After lunch, we travelled to the Warin village. There, we ministered to about 50 kids. We made balloons, played games, performed our skit and sang songs. We hung around afterwards at a house owned by a church member. We fellowshipped with them and then left.

We are now in Starbucks paying 10 times the price for internet it costed us in Surin.




Our Starbucks friend: Boy; who helped us so much, cos he's the only one who can speak English around here! He gave us a free muffin!

Tomorrow is our last official day of missions. Continue to pray for us! We will be attending the same Ubon church as we did for the prayer meeting and kids ministry today. So please pray as we finish off!

Thanks for all the prayers!

Love the TEAM!

[Yesterday; Friday 11th Jan]

Hey everyone!
We are now back in Ubon Ratchathani, where we first started our missions trip. Today, we started off the day with another buffet breaky (this time in the Nevada Grand Hotel or Ubon International Hotel). Then, we had a short devotion sharing from Tong. After this, we went to visit the “Ancient Rock Paintings” which were about an hour’s drive away from Ubon city.

The walk to see the rock paintings was harder than yesterday’s climb up Mukdahan’s National Park. We had to keep stopping for breaks as everyone was always puffed!

We had lunch there, and it was again really yummy! Fried rice, pad see eew (like a Thai version of Char Kuew Teoh), veggies with fish and a really nice mince pork with chili rice dish.

After lunch, we went back to our hotels and then walked to Tesco (a local “Superstore” where it’s like a supermarket and K-Mart all in one). We looked around there for a while. Then, a few of us went swimming (Ju Lee, Danica and Ed dipped her legs in the pool).

We then had dinner, where we had really yummy chicken rice and siew yok (roast pork). After dinner, we attended a prayer meeting at a local church in Ubon. We prayed with the local believers and Tham Fuan and JuLee both shared something.

So that was our day today! Tomorrow is another exciting day, as we run a kids ministry program for 150 over “Compassion kids” (an organization), and then in the afternoon, another kids ministry program at a village in the Ubon province (Warin village). It’s going to be a packed day, so please continue to pray for us!

We do appreciate all your support so far, please continue to uphold us in prayer, as it’s not over just yet! Please continue to pray for good health, as Dave, JuLee and Tham Fuan are all falling sick! Pray that we get enough rest too, so we don’t get too tired.

Thanks again!
Pratcha wei porn (God Bless you),
The TEAM! (Dave, Ed, JuLee, Tham Fuan, Tong & Danica =)

Today, we woke up, and had devotions, shared by Tham Fuan. Then, we had breaky in the hotel (eggs and weird sausages which tasted like flour). We then got picked up and went to visit a local Christian village. When we got there, a whole bunch of little boys came out to meet us. They said hi and wied (greeted) us. They were so full of joy and happiness. Their joy was really contagious, and anyone who was feeling sick or sad would’ve been cheered up in an instant as these boys were pure sunshine! We made heaps of animal and sword balloons for them. We played with them, took pictures with them, gave them lollies and then prayed for them, and the whole village.

After we left, we went to have lunch (duck noodles & pork trotters rice). We then hopped back on the bus and travelled to Mukdahan. We then visited a market in Mukdahan, which was quite interesting. We stopped for caffé & chai yen (coffee & iced tea). After this, we travelled to the Mukdahan National Park.

When we got to the National park, all we saw were rocks. Rocks and some dead, withered plants. We went for a huge walk in the National Park, and saw some very interesting rocks! We were dead tired by the end of it, so we all had coconuts! After this, we drove for two hours, back to Ubon Ratchathani where we are now. We dropped our bags at the Nevada Grand Hotel (which is by far the grandest hotel we’ve stayed in yet!), and went out for dinner at a really nice restaurant which was on stilts in the water. We had really yummy fish, soup, rice, lard-na & veggies!

Now here we are at Starbucks, paying 150baht ($5) for an hour of internet usage! Fortunately, this card doesn’t expire for a month, which means we can use it again tomorrow!

Thanks for all your prayers and support so far. We all really appreciate it.

To our prayer partners: Please continue to pray for the lady we met in Surin (Miao) and also her daughter who suffers from epilepsy and brain retardation (Koy). Pray that Miao has the wisdom to lead her family, and the strength to look after everyone. Also, pray for a church elder we met in Cambodia, who is suffering from TB, as well as abuse from her husband. Pray that God heals the TB, or provides funds for her to get it fixed by the doctors.

We still have lots of kids ministries, meetings and services to run, so continue to pray for us!

THE TEAM =)

PS. REMEMBER TO CHECK OUR PHOTOS! There are heaps!

http://s249.photobucket.com/albums/gg213/mekong2008/

On Wednesday (9th of Jan), we had devotions, ate breaky (mm yummy noodles), and travelled by bus to a nearby town. There, we met with local believers in front of a lake. By the time we got there at 2 PM, they’d been waiting for us since 8 AM! We had a very interesting lunch; on the menu was: Grilled red ants, Raw red ants (and their eggs), Red ant soup with free range chicken, Pork mince and Red ants, Bitter leaves with river snails and grilled fish all eaten with white/purple glutinous rice. MMMM YUMMY! These foods were the village delicacies too!

We then sang some songs and Ps. Mark shared with the believers there. It was a great encouragement to see these believers with such strong faiths. We then visited three local churches. It was yet again an encouragement to us all to see these Christians faithfully worshipping in these buildings though they were half finished, or the church building was really hot. We then drove back to our hotels, and went out for dinner where we had some really YUMMY pork rolls and other local dishes.

On Tuesday (8th Jan), we had devotions, and enjoyed our last buffet breakfast in the Thong Tarin Hotel in Surin. We set off for the Cambodian border in our van. When we got there, we passed Cambodian immigration. At the Cambodian side, we set off to a nearby village on motorbikes! That was a really fun trip, except for the part where Danica and Hazel were on a bike by themselves and the driver drove us almost the whole way to the village, and then suddenly turned back because he said our passports were stuffed up. Fortunately, they met Acharn Chan Chai (a pastor from Surin we were travelling with), who cleared everything up for them, and they were safe to go back on the motorbikes and be driven to the village.

When we got there, many of us were overwhelmed at the amount of kids that were present. We were expecting about 100 kids, but over 300 showed up. These kids were really different to the Thai kids. We realized that these kids had no food, clothes, or money to buy toys. These Cambodian kids were far poorer than the Thai kids. The Cambodian kids were much rougher. They would talk and snatch things much more that the Thai kids would. So, we were a bit amazed at the difference it made, just across the border. We ran a kids program, where we sang songs, played pass the parcel and gave out lollies to the kids there. We also gave them lunch (provided by the church in Surin) and blankets (the ones we raised funds for at Christmas) to their families. The poverty of these kids and families really struck many of us, and made us think about how lucky we were to be in Australia. JuLee gave some medical advice to the medical guy there (who wasn’t even a doctor!), and helped him with diagnosing some villagers.

We also saw some kids at the Cambodian/Thai border who were very poor, and possibly orphans. They would offer you their service of holding the umbrella over your head, in exchange for 1baht. These kids were really dirty, smelly and scrawny. Off to the side of the immigration offices, you could see a few kids looking through a pile of rubbish. These kids were looking for food, and possibly anything they could sell. These kids would come up to you, and ask for money. We ended up giving them lollies. These kids touched many of us, and really showed us how lucky we are, yet again.

After this kids ministry, we took the motorcycles back to the Cambodian/Thai border, and drove back to Surin where we once again enjoyed the yummy food of “the Bowl”. Then, we drove for five hours all the way to Mukdahan (near the Lao border). There, we found our hotel, had dinner at another night market, this time near the Mukdahan town hall. We all tried to fall fast asleep (which all of us eventually did), while outside, we could hear very, very LOUD drunken people partying and singing “happy birthday!”.

Hey everyone!

This is actually take 3 of the same blog. For some reason, the internet didn’t load it up the first time, and then we ran out of internet credit the second, so hopefully, we don’t have to write this blog a fourth time!

We haven’t blogged for the past few days because we have been really busy! We have had a really good couple of days since we last blogged, and so much has happened.

Yesterday, we started off the day, with yet another buffet breaky at our hotel (we were all getting sick of rice, curries and congee, so FRUIT was the choice!). Then, we had a great devotional, sharing, prayer and worship time, where Tham Fuan shared a quick devotion. Then, we all got ready and headed off to a border village where we attended a church service which lasted three hours (most of which was in Thai!). This church was in a tent, in the middle of a road, so we should be thankful for our primary school! Tham Fuan preached a message encouraging the believers about this new year, and Ed helped out in worship by playing keys. Danica and Ed almost went deaf, sitting in front of the amplifier for three hours, on full blast. Their amp was also much bigger than ours!

We then had a really yummy Thai lunch while fellowshipping and talking to the believers. We then got the great opportunity of handing out Samaritan’s Purse Christmas Shoe Boxes to the kids. This was a great joy, as it was awesome to see the boxes we pack in the hands of the kids. The kids were all really excited and patient as they all received their boxes.

We then ran a kids program, in the middle of a field in the village. This was really fun – both for us and the kids – and they really enjoyed the games, skit & animal/sword balloons!

After this, we headed off and stopped by at a food market. Here, we saw many bugs and rats that were cut in half (and JuLee gave us all a biology lesson!). We bought some baby coconuts, and drank them all, YUM!

Then, we went back to rest for a while. We had dinner at a Thai hawker shop, eating Thai style chicken rice (which was like Hainanese chicken rice) and it was really, really yummy! After dinner, we went to a fellowship meeting with the local Surin believers. There, we all shared a bit about ourselves. Tong shared his testimony, and Tham Fuan encouraged the ministry leaders. Ps. Mark Lim then called for an altar call, and we had the great privilege of praying for all of these believers.

We then stayed back to fellowship, and we met a man who was Thai but had been living in Kentucky, America for the last 30 years. He told us many stories about when he worked as a coal miner and told us about his testimony. Many of the believers were an inspiration to us, and we learnt a lot from them.

After this, most of us went to sleep, but Dave and Ed went for a Thai massage which cost them 300baht for 2 hours (in Aussie money, $10)!

Today, we didn’t do any ministry. We visited a silk village about half an hour away. There, we looked at the stuff on sale, and learnt about how silk was made. We were amazed at how much work there was in spinning silk.

We then had lunch at what was a very rural-in-the-middle-of-nowhere hawker shop. We had the yummiest noodle soup with wontons. Then, we drove to BIG C (a combination of a supermarket and something like K-Mart) to buy some snacks and lots of water for our long travels tomorrow.

Then, we came back, and went to the internet café. This is when the internet crashed, while we tried to blog!! Anyway, then Danica, JuLee & Ed went swimming with Hazel and Neil. Then, we had a short debrief, and went out for dinner at our favourite (Julia calls it “back by popular demand”) eating place – the Surin night market. We had such yummy food!

Then, we went to visit a lady by the name of Miao, who owns a coffee shop near our hotel. She works during the day at a finance company, and at night, she works at a coffee shop. She takes care of her two daughters: Nong Gai and Nong Koy (Nong Koy has epilepsy & mental retardation, and she’s mute), she adopted one daughter, and she looks after her niece. She faces many difficulties in her life, including looking after her ill daughter as well as supporting her large extended family. She has only recently found the Lord, and through this has found a lot of joy. She now has hope for the future. Please pray for her, for her daughter, the whole family, and to uplift her spirit. Pray that God will grant her joy and wisdom as she cares for her family.

Thanks for all your prayers and support. We will probably be blogging very much on and off for the next few days as we’re not sure when we can access the internet, so keep checking!

You can view all the photos of this trip on this website:

http://s249.photobucket.com/albums/gg213/mekong2008/

You can also contact Dave or Ed (but please note that we are four hours behind you all!)
ed: +66 80 161 4680, dave: +66 80 161 4681.

God Bless,
The Team!!