3 months: Abridged
I haven't blogged in a couple months now and a lot has happened since then. In the middle of November we left Honduras. Leaving the country was a bigger change than I expected. We had a three day debrief before leaving Honduras. During this time our leadership made a few changes. My team leader Katie was chosen to lead as one of our squad leaders, along with a guy from another team. With holes in two teams they decided to switch it up a little bit. It was time to say goodbye to the little family of five I got so close to over the past 3 months.
(From left to Right) Me, Abby, Andrew, Kevin our leader, Riely, and Andrea.
After getting set up with all new teams it was time to leave. Arriving in Thailand, the four teams got split up and sent to different parts of the country. My team got sent to Tak Fa, a small farm town in the province of Nakhon Sawan.
A Month in Tak Fa
We spent all of December in Tak Fa. We lived in a small house on a primary school campus. Naturally, we were surrounded by children 24/7. Children were the center of our ministry. We were taken by our contact, Pastor Pairot, from school to school to teach english. Along with teaching english in the morning, we would teach them about the true meaning of christmas in the afternoon. This outreach challenged me. I couldn't translate english phrases into thai, nor did I have a translator. We even had to come up with our own teaching materials. Most of the time they would walk us to a classroom and say, "Ok, you teach two hours." Each time my mind raced "What in the world am I supposed to teach these children for two hours?" I spent a lot of time defeated by this challenge. "I can't speak thai so there is no way I could teach these children about Jesus" I defaulted to teaching them basic phrases such as: "How are you?", "I am fine thank you, and you?", "My name is______", etc. One day I brought my guitar into class and decided to teach them the song Jesus Loves me. In that moment I got hit with a dizzying excitement. I got to tell these little children that Jesus loves them. That He loves them big or small, weak or strong. It was beautiful! Through this God taught me He is so much bigger than I think, He's certainly bigger than language barriers. His love transcends language barriers. It's no coincidence that the only children's song I knew was Jesus loves me. Teaching them about Christmas was a great follow up to this. We would do a nativity story skit, then the Pastor would give them a message about Jesus. It was awesome. We couldn't escape children even if we wanted too but that was good for us. It helped show me how much God truly cares for them and how much I really should. I have a feeling our ministry with children is not over yet. We might be involved with them in South Africa.
Kanchanaburi
After our month in Tak Fa the entire squad met up in Bangkok. We spent a few days there and finally split up again, guys and girls. While the girls are ministering to woman who have been trafficked in Phuket, us guys are having a manly month in the Jungles of Kanchanaburi. We are living on a YWAM property with a thai couple, Arun and Pang, along with their parents, Ma and Pa. Yes, we get to call their parents Mom and Dad. This family is so on fire for the lord and have been making a pretty big impact in Kanchanaburi. Before they got there very few people knew about the Gospel and now the whole area has heard the good news. This area needs a lot of prayer because many people have heard but not many have accepted Jesus into their hearts. Our ministry is to serve the family and the local farmers by working on their farms. We serve them like Jesus and share His love wherever we go. This will be a very manly month of living in our tents, toiling in the hot sun all day and night, and washing up in a lake every day. In the past few days we have crawled through tapioca plants to pull up an irrigation system, spread straw around rubber tree fields, and laid out some piping for irrigation. It's shaping up to be a pretty solid month. We leave Kanchanaburi early February.
Well, that has been my life for the past couple months. I love questions so feel free to ask me anything.
Also, we are trying to raise money to bring our squad leaders to South Africa for debrief. Please read this blog and give if you feel led. http://nikkiziegler.myadventures.org/?filename=i-have-a-question-for-you
