Outreach Information!

I am so excited to tell you about our outreach to Thailand! Just as of this afternoon, I've received information about where exactly we're going and an idea of what we'll be doing.

Over the past 2 weeks, we have been going to God in prayer about where He wanted us to go and what He wanted us to do. In my last entry, I talked about some of the major things He spoke to us about outreach. Our leaders took that and prayed over the 110-120 outreach opportunities in Thailand and narrowed it down to about 12 locations. We then all individually read the descriptions and prayed over which ones we thought God wanted us to go to. Amy and Dave took our "answers" and prayed over them and came back today with the THREE locations. So exciting!!!

First, I'll tell you that we're going to be leaving either December 28th or January 1st; right now we are looking into our plane tickets, and are trying to get the cheapest price possible. Please be praying for a great deal! Anyway, we'll spend a few days in Bangkok, Thailand for orientation. Then we'll have a couple more days to travel by bus to our first location:

Aranyaprathet, a small town in Eastern Thailand that is right on the border with Cambodia. We will spend 2.5 weeks in Aranyaprathet. Here is the description of the ministry there: "In 2000, the Lord gave the staff at Mercy Ministries Foundation a burden for the people of Cambodia and in 2001 Mercy Ministries became a registered foundation with the Cambodian government. The physical and spiritual needs of the Khmer people is exceedingly great. Our goal is to open a children's home with the same vision for the Khmer children as we have for our homes in Thailand. Along with our vision for this children's home the Lord has directed us to open a preschool / feeding program for children 4-8 years old. Approximately half of the teachers in the public school system are volunteers due to the lack of government funds and the average primary school teacher has a fourth grade education. Our preschool is located in an urban slum and gives many children an opportunity to receive an education, good nutrition through the feeding program, and a chance to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ." You can go here for more information.

Next, we'll be going to Wattana Nakorn, which is a very small town next to Aranyaprathet. Here is a description... "The church in Wattana Nakorn is fairly new with 15-20 regular members... of which 20% speak Khmer, highlighting their Cambodian background. The opportunities are endless as the church has never had a team and is, in fact, located within an untouched region of Thailand. Your team can participate in such ministry as passing out tracts in the area, prayer walking in and around the town, as well as planting rice during the planting and harvesting seasons! Your team will also be invited to go into local schools and teach English to a wide variety of age groups. The church will also ask your team to preach the message, share your testimonies, do dramas, and even lead worship!" I am so excited about this little town! To think that we are able to go to an unreached area of Thailand blows my mind. God is so good! So we will be in Wattana Nakorn for 2.5 weeks too, and we'll also be going to Cambodia for one day.

Lastly, we'll be going to Mae Sot, which is on the Thailand/Myanmar border (western Thailand). We'll be in Mae Sot for 3 weeks. This is a ministry that 2 teams in the past year have gone to, and have had amazing success. I'll give you their description: "Pastor Michael is a Thai Pastor committed to working with Burmese refugees in the Mae Sot area, close to the Burmese border. He has developed a school called 'Morning Glory School' for Burmese and Karen refugee children and he employes struggling Burmese workers to teach the children. He has also begun small community development projects on the school property which help support the people. Ministry opportunities include village evangelism, children ministry, speaking at refugee camps, physical labor, Bible school teaching, and church ministry. This is a great location to minister with and to the Burmese people. Pastor Michael is a hard worker and has many connections throughout the area. Ministry opportunities never run dry here!"

I am so unbelievably excited for outreach! Please be praying for the outreach coordination to come together, as well as our ministry development, as we plan sermons, worship, dramas, activities, studies, etc.

Thank you so much for all of your thoughts, prayers, and encouragement. I am so blessed to have you partnering with me.

Thankful

I am so blessed because of you! A huge thank you to all of you who have been emailing me and sending me mail. It's so great to hear from you! I miss seeing all of you, but I am having an amazing time here in Oregon. God is teaching me so much!

First, I wanted to let you know that we have a new staff person on our DTS. His nameis Amos, and he isn't doing too much with us yet, because right now he's coordinating the Go Conference. He's from Hawaii and is married to Ellen, and they have 3 children: Camden, Kayla and Cassie.

The weather here has been awesome. It actually didn't start raining until this past Sunday! I was kind of excited to see the rain, because I had heard so much about how frequently it rains here. But today is gorgeous-- probably in the mid 60's, the sun is out, clear blue sky... just awesome! There has been so little rain, but even when it does rain, it's more of a mist than anything.

Last week our teaching was "Nature and Character of God", and it was so powerful! I really enjoyed our speaker, Kip, who is from Tyler, Texas. He was very genuine and really took an effort to get to know us. He talked a lot about God as the Father and also we looked into a lot of Hebrew words about how God grieves over sin and things that have happened to us. The bulk of the lectures this past week though were about the Holy Spirit and the gifts that come from it. It was a great week!

Last Saturday we did the ropes course here on base. I was not looking forward to it at all. I don't mind heights, but dangling by just a rope very high up makes me so uncomfortable! I was the only one that was really fearful of things, but I'm happy to say I overcame my fear. One of the things we had to do (that I probably won't do again) is the "giant swing" where you swing 75 feet up in the air. SCARY!!! But we really bonded as a team because of it.

This past week was probably the hardest week I've had here: Plumbline. Ever since I arrived, I heard so much about plumbline. "Just wait for plumbline!" or "I cried every day during Plumbline." So needless to say, we were all anticipating this week. So what is plumbline? A plumbline is a tool used for building things straight, and it was used as a metaphor of us living our lives aligned with God's principles, values, and plans for us. Our speakers were Terry and Linda Praetzel, who are from Salem. They taught us a lot about different kinds of "walls" that we put up between us and God and/or us and other people. We had to allow God to examine our lives and speak to us about the root of the walls that we've put up... usually because of things that have happened in our childhood. Needless to say, it was a very emotionally draining week, ending up with all of us going through a public confession and healing process. It was so scary to be so vulnerable with everyone, but I'm happy to say that God demolished some of my walls! If you have more questions about this, email me, and I'll be happy to talk more in depth about it.

Right now we are in prayer about where we're doing our outreach in Thailand. God has spoken a few things to us: 1) We'll be working with children 2) We'll be working with refugees 3) We'll be going to more than one place (probably 3 places) and 4) we'll be going east and then west. Right now we're focusing a lot on the borders of Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. I will let you know as soon as I do about where exactly we'll be going! I am so unbelievably excited! :D

Thank you so much for all of your thoughts, prayers, letters, emails, etc etc. I miss you all, but what a blessing to have your support! I love having you be a part of this. And please let me know how I can involve you even more.

Now I'll leave you with a few pictures...


Younsoo, 23, from South Korea... asleep in the car


The guys made us brownies!














Darcey, Rachel, Mike in the kitchen... this is where I work every afternoon.


Darcey, 19, from Salem, and I


Mike, almost 20, from southern California, and me


Mike and Darcey


Darcey and Mike being silly ;)


All of DTS (minus me) in the lounge at our dorm


Darcey and Younsoo


Younsoo and Darcey


Younsoo, Darcey, me


Mike "trying on" Darcey's hair... we do have serious moments, I swear!


Rachel, 17, from Salem

There's so much to say!

Wow, I don't even know where to begin! I have been having an incredible time.
This past week, our lecture from Monday through Tuesday was still with Al Akimoff and it was about intercession/prayer. Then from Wednesday to Friday it was "Relationships" with Dean Sherman. I had heard a lot about Dean before I even knew much about YWAM, because there has been a rumor that the Simpsons character Ned Flanders was modeled after him (in looks and voice tone only, not personality!) Sadly, the rumors aren't true, but there is an uncanny resemblance. He was a terrific speaker, though. I learned SO much from him about relationships and love. I expected his lectures to be just about romance, and even though that was a huge part of it, the emphasis was on loving one another. It was just very powerful. The book we're reading right now is Intimate Friendship with God by Joy Dawson. At first glance, it seems like a very fundamental book filled with things I already know, but after reading it more carefully I am getting a lot out of it. Right now we have Kipp Gaines here and he's speaking about "The Character and Nature of God". Oh my goodness, it's going to be a powerful week, but I'll get into that hopefully next weekend for you!

I have been challenged and stretched so much since I've been here. This past week, I helped lead worship twice... yes, you read that right. I really felt God convicting me to use my voice to give Him glory, and so I did. The first night was last Tuesday. We have a service called "The Rising" which is like a church service, and the whole base attends, as well as anyone in the community. The second time was on Friday, and that was just worship for our DTS class. Strangely enough, I was more nervous the second time! But it is an incredible thing. I've been so fearful to sing in front of people for so long, and it's a huge release to let that go and just trust God. He is awesome!

Also last Friday we did our first community outreach, which was basically just talking to people downtown. Salem has a rather large homeless population. Anyway, we split into teams and I was with Vlady, and also Ryan who is on staff here and coordinates our local outreach. We were "required" to talk to at least one person and hopefully have a conversation about God and eventually pray for them about something. Both of them went first and then it was my turn. I was so scared! I just didn't want to do it. But as soon as I walked up to the man I needed to talk to, I just felt this huge blanket of fear completely fall off of me. It was awesome; I was so free! And my conversation with him was the most successful one our team had. So that was really, really encouraging.

I finally went to the coast this past weekend... and saw the ocean for the first time! It was beautiful! I have so many pictures to share, but I forgot the chord that connects my camera to a computer... so until my mom mails that to me, you will have to wait. But I'm dying to show you everything that's been happening!

Really quickly, I wanted to give you some things to be praying for...

Outreach- that we'll get our outreach schedule confirmed for Thailand and be prepared to minister to the people there. We're hoping to be able to work in refugee camps with Burmese people. We also will probably teach english in schools, and a ton of other things. As soon as I know, I'll let you know!
Money- even though my personal fees were paid for by you (God is awesome!), a lot of my classmates still have money that's owed. Collectively it's about $15,000! Also, because our DTS was so small, even with all 7 of us paying our personal fees, it's not enough to cover the DTS costs. The staff here has thrown in as much as they can, and they really believe in us, and know there's some reason we're so small. The Galileans are doing a ton of fundraising just for us. God is great. Please be praying that the base will receive what they need! Thank you.
Focus- please be praying that we'll be focused on Christ and cultivating our relationships with Him.

Gosh, there's so much more to say, but I am exhausted and still have homework to do tonight. I want to leave you with this song that Dave played the first week I was here. It really touched me, but he doesn't know anything about it. I can't find any information on Google about it. If you know who sings it or where I can get a copy of it, let me know... Dave's not even sure what it's called. But anyway, it just describes so much of what I feel right now!

I have this longing inside me
This longing to know You the way I am known
My heart is waiting, anticipating a touch from the One that I love
I am Yours, You are mine, touch me now
Let love awaken and flow with abandon to You

I want to love You the way that You love me
To love You with that kind of love
So pour down upon me a river of longing
A fountain that flows from your heart
I am Yours, You are mine, touch me now
Let love awaken and flow with abandon to You

I know there's only one thing I have needed
And that is what I'm looking for
Help me to find You and hold You and keep You
Forever the Love of my heart
I am Yours, You are mine, touch me now
Let love awaken and flow with abandon to You

I want to love You the way that You love me
To love You with that kind of love
So pour down upon me a river of longing
A fountain that flows from your heart
I am Yours, You are mine, touch me now
Let love awaken and flow with abandon to You