Sand in our toes, and the sun on our noes.

Well all we are down south, soaking in the glorious sunshine and thanking the Lord for it constantly.
We are on the island of Ko Samui, and staying at a little hostel right on the water. It is stunning here, and way hotter than what we have experienced thus far but we are all loving it.
We arrived here after a really rocky ferry experience that left us all a little sea sick, so after a bit of rest and prayer we were ready to go out and see whats here. The island is beautiful, with moutains covered in palm trees, and amazing blue water we all had a moment of "could outreach be allowed to be this good?" well let me tell you folks, it is. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to upload any of my own photos yet, so you will have to make due with a couple from google until I get a chance to update the album.



Ministry here has been pretty up and down. There are so many people who just come to lay on the beach and sleep, which could be totally awesome at times, but also makes it tough when some people just don't feel like talking. Despite a few challenges we have begun to really get in our groove. We invested in a team volleyball because there are some nets here and it is has been awesome. The first day we bought it we had decided to play that evening and to invite whoever we met during the day out to play. Well Malori and I met this one guy named Stefan at a restaurant and he was delighted that we invited him out. And that is where it started. After 3 more days of volleyball (Stefan coming out to all of them) and meeting some other awesome people, we were really feeling encouraged. Stefan also joined us to go see one of the local waterfalls and we ended up spending the whole day together laughing and hiking and having some really deep conversations about the Lord and what Christianity means. It has also been really cool because Stefan is also from Switzerland, and so him and Luca have been chatting away lots. That night we were having worship and Stefan decided to join us, so we ventured out to find Elephant Rock, but when we discovered that it was simply a big rock on the side of the road and nothing we could actually stand on, we decided to look around a little more. I stumbled upon this random set of stairs down towards the water and decided to check it out. Well, praise the Lord, it was stunning. It took us to these group of rocks that went out over the ocean and you could see all the city lights and the moon and stars reflecting off the water. Incredible!
God has been providing us many blessings and opportunities to have some awesome conversations with Stefan, and hopefully He will continue to.

We will be heading to Ko Pha Ngan on Monday. We are hoping to find even more ministry opportunities there as the crowd is supposed to be a little younger than here. Stefan is considering coming with us so pray that we will continue that connection.

Prayer points:
-safe travels to Ko Pha Ngan
-good accomidations that allow us to build connections with people
-more of a connection with Stefan
-health
-continued energy to strive for more in our ministry and not just be content
-that we would fearlessly proclaim the mystery of Christ as we ought to.

God Bless.

Dumbo, Disney, and Dreams

Sa wat dii kah! (hello in thai)

Well it feels a little bit like this blog is long overdue, and I'm sure some of you are feeling the same. So for that I apoligize. When I last blogged we were in Chiang Mai and loving it. Well that didn't change, we ended up staying about a week and a half there and made some really good connections with people. Chiang Mai become very familiar to us, and we would even have our daily routine of seeing Tip, about 3 times a day. Tip is the sweetest Thai lady, who makes the best fruit shakes any of us had ever had, and all for less than a dollar. Crazy!
Well, in Chiang Mai we were able to meet with an organization called Lighthouse ministries. http://www.lighthousethai.com/
With them we were able to meet a couple other YWAM teams from around the world. The main reason for meeting with them was Red Light District and Bar ministry. We were able to get encouragement from teams who had done it before, and advice from the Thai woman Emmi, who runs it. So for the next couple of nights we went out and experienced first hand what it was like. The first night we did some prayer walking throughout the area, and had a conversation with a man that we had met in the cooking course we had done prior. He was super curious about what we believed, and even said he would go and look up more about christianity. The second night we went into the bars, a little bit uncomfortable at first but then ended up having some awesome conversations with people. It was a challenging experience at times, just seeing the brutality and horrific truth of what goes on there.
We spent a couple more days there, and made some more connections with people, including this awesome family from the states who sold everything and just started travelling about 10 months ago and are still going strong. We found out they were believers, and were able to encourage them in their faith as they were really feeling the effects of not having fellow believers around them for so long. The daugher, who was about 20 was even interested in doing a DTS after we chatted with her. So be praying for them, as they continue on their travels.
After heading out from Chiang Mai, we made our way up a constantly curving mountain road, to a little town called Pai.(pie) We settled into our riverside hostel, and even had a lovely surprise when the other team, as well as a guy we met in Chiang Mai, met us for dinner. Pai was a neat little place, that was a little frustrating at times, as it was harder to meet people than we would have thought. We  had a few conversations with a couple girls we met at our hostel and the occasional other one. The highlight of our time there had to of been going on an elephant trek. We rode them up and down hills and we even went into the river with them. Overall it was an awesome day full of memories we wont ever be able to forget.

Our time in Thailand was nearing the date of the end of our visa, so we decided as a team to make our way down to Cambodia. So starting at 8 am we made our way, by bus back down to Chiang Mai, and then found a sleeper train to Bangkok. The sleepertain was surprizingly nice, and as Luca says "the toilet has a really nice flush, I like this very much, I pressed it several times" Unfortunately the food on the train wasn't so nice, and Ben was struck by food poisoning. We arrived in Bangkok only to get on another bus and head to the border. So after 36 hours, and lots of prayer for Ben, we arrived in Cambodia, and Ben is feelings tops. Praise the Lord.

Our plan is to spend a couple days here, seeing Angkor Wat, and hopefully meeting some awesome people before heading south to the beaches of Thailand. God is good, and has been providing us many good opportunities to share our faith and His love with the people we meet, and safe travels.

Prayer points:
-more opportunities to meet people, and share our faith
-safe travel as we head down south in a couple of days
-continued health and safety

Team photos

Here is a link to a photo album on facebook with some of our photos thus far:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/album.php?fbid=10150376985735322&id=613735321&aid=599183

we are now off to Pai. Pray for safe travel, and that no one gets cars sick on what is supposed to be 4 hours of constant winding.
cheers.

Squatty potties, tigers, and lanterns

" May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope and the power of the Holy Spirit" Rom. 15:13

For starters let me just say happy new year to you all! 2011 is here and what an amazing start to the year it has been. In my last post I mentioned we were on our way to Chiang Mai the next day. Well after 2 very long bus rides, and freezing on the second one we made made it Chiang Mai at around 4 am Dec 30th. After some much needed sleep we went out to see the town, and were all overjoyed when we found an awesome hostel to stay in and met people within 10 min of being there. Such an answer to prayer. We chatted with them for a bit and then went our seperate ways, only to see them again about an hour later, where they invited us to join them in going to the Tiger Kingdom. So the five of us (ben stayed back to do all his leader organizational duties) piled into the back of a pick up truck and made our way across town. As we drove we talked about love, and the importance of it, as well as shared our stories and what brought each of us to Thailand. We arrived and filled with nervous excitement we made our way into the tiger cages. The guys went in with the BIG tigers and were able to pet them and take photos, then all of us made our way over to the baby tigers and got to play with them for a good half hour. Possibly the cutest thing I have ever experienced.

On the way back from the tiger kingdom we were able to get into a really deep conversation on faith and religions. We were really blessed to create a strong bond with these guys and even give them something to think about. We continued to run into the over the next couple days and were even able to give them a bible before they left. Pray thay it would spark their interest and they would read it.

New years eve in Chiang Mai was definitely an amazing experience for us all. After a good time of worship in the park in the morning we were eager to make some more connections. The hostel we are staying at has a roof top bar, and were having a free bbq and party for new years. So we were able to hang out up there for a lot of the night. We had some awesome conversations and were awed at the amazing view of thousand of floating lanterns being set off in the sky, as well as fireworks in every direction you looked. It was a great evenning with some awesome Godly conversations.

On the first day of the new year our team spent the day fasting and praying for Thailand. We took three major aspects, political, religion, justice, and prayed for them instead of eating. The day was incredible. Between team times and personal times with the Lord it was an awesome way to spend January 1st.

Today was our day off and the much needed rest and relaxation was much appreciated by all. We were able to catch up with family from home and well as our dear YWAM family from around the world. We also were able to go to a church in Chiang Mai, that was an international church, and completely in english. It was absolutely amazing to be back in the Lords house again worshipping with lots of other christians. We were able to share in communion with them, and even had a nice surprise when two people from the other team were at church as well.
So far Chiang Mai has been awesome and we are all excited to see what the Lord has next for us.

prayer points:
-direction as to where to go next
-opportunities to get connected with christian organizations in thailand to assist them
-continued connections with people
-boldness

take care.