I had my first bout with sickness
this morning. It wasn’t too bad, but prompted to chug some medicine before headin
g off to church.
Thankfully, God kept me healthy through the rest of the day.
We had church this morning. Church is held at the Prek Eng orphanage 1 for all of the orphanages in Chiang Mai. Once again, I am amazed by the staff workin
g at these orphanages. Along with all of their other duties, they completely put
together and run a full-blown church service every week for all of the orphans, the staff, and sometimes orphans that have “graduated” and are now at surrounding universities.
The worship is a lot like ours, and although they sing in Thai, they only sang one song I didn’t know! They sing contemporary Christian worship, just like at Crossroads! Crazy! A lot of the orphans did special music.
The orphans love the Lord so much. It was incredible to see them yell out and jump up and down praising Jesus. They are such incredible kids. Occasionally babies would wander around the aisles, haha.
They took communion and offering and then it was Eric and I’s turn to teach. Eric spoke on faith and did a really good job. He used the illustration of being on a soccer team and having faith in teammates and how we need to have that same faith in Jesus and to have a personal relationship with him. I built off of that and talked about trust.
Trust is something that God has been pounding into my head over the past year of my life. Specifically trust in decision-making and when we have to wait on him. I encouraged the orphans and staff that God is faithful and that his way is always better than ours. He is fully worthy of our trust, and even if he seems to not answer us right away, he never leaves or forsakes us.
It was interesting speaking through a translator. Tutu’s youngest son, David, translated. He did such a good job! When I was praying about speaking today, I realized how much room there was for God to work in what I was saying. I realized that the words I said would go through my mouth, through a translator and into the ears of people who could potentially take what was said a number of ways. There was so much room for God to work that it didn’t really make me too nervous to actually speak. I just prayed that God would twist the words to form whatever he wanted the group of people to hear. Because I don’t know! It was just a cool thought.
After speaking, I shared a song that I wrote. Music is a really big thing with the orphans, so that was a neat way to connect, even through a language barrier.
Anyways… after church, and playing with the kids, Tutu, Eric, Ashley, David, Birdy (a graduated orphan), and I went to get Callsoy for lunch. It was incredibly delicious, oh my! And I got some Thai iced tea, which was very interesting. Kind of tasted like cream of wheat and milk and tea all mixed together.
We all just rested through the afternoon. It was really nice. I really needed it. Ashley and I ran to the store in the evening to get some DV tapes for my video camera and to exchange some America money for baht. It is hilarious, though, because in Asia they only accept bills that are perfect and crip and not torn or marked on or anything! So I had a good looking bill, and it still got denied once because it was “too old” according to the date… ridiculous. But thankfully the second place we went coorporated.
We picked up dinner to go and some awesome fruit smoothies. It still surprises me how cheap stuff is here. We got dinner for three and three smoothies/ frappaccinos for probably 4 dollars. Woo!
When we got home (only Eric, Ashley, and I were home), t
he doorbell rang and movers from the music store had arrived to drop off all of the instruments for the upcoming concerts! Tutu has been saving u
p a long time to buy instruments and music equipment to use for ministry, prison outreach, and possibly a recording studio someday word has it? Maybe? J
Anyways, they unloaded and I couldn’t believe how much stuff we had! Brand new sound system, soundboard, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, mics, mic stands, music stands, amps, a drum set, a double kick pedal… I still don’t even think I got it all! So we are SO excited for the upcoming concert outreaches now! The prison concert got pushed to Wednesday, but another is not planned for the orphans Friday night! It is going to be so fantastic.
So we played the night away with all of the new equipment. Good day. God is so good and is blessing this ministry so much!
Oh my gosh! I am just so proud and impressed with you guys! Way to go speaking to all of those kids!! You guys are so cute in all of the pictures!