Cornerstone Presbyterian Biblestudy

We are well and truly on the deputation trail now. I shared at this Biblestudy last night and I didn't get lost on the way! Speaking at Sunday School and Bible reading for Lisa at Christchurch this Sunday.

First Christchurch Biblestudy

Being on home assignment one of our roles is to report back to our sending church and to those who have been faithfully supporting us. On Tuesday night we shared with Tim & Em's Biblestudy (above). This Biblestudy wrote letters to us (pen and paper kind - amazing for Gen Y'ers) and prayed for us and it was great to be able to meet them in person.

We are looking forward to sharing at many other Biblestudies.

Linking up with a student from Lampang

The woman on the right was a student of mine in Lampang. Her husband (left) had already come to Australia and was studying English while working as a Thai masseur. After returning to Australia I was able to contact them and meet up for lunch last month and yesterday to spend the morning together. I helped work out how to use the ferries at Circular Quay.

I was invited by the leader of the Thai Diaspora ministry in Sydney to come visit their English teaching outreach sometime ago and I'd arranged my meeting with my Thai friends for the same day. So I invited them to come along with me. They didn't stay for the lesson but did sign up and they will start coming from next week.

It is not an easy life live in Australia. Sometimes they work until 3-4am and then have to go study English on top of that. They have left their 3 year old daughter with their parents back in Thailand. They hope to eventually be able to have enough money to bring her over to Australia.

It was encouraging to see so many Thais attending English classes (around 20?). Also I was surprised to a see some shops with Thai writing only! Obviously there are a reasonable numbers of Thais living near the city.

Fishing trip

On our to do list while in Australia was to take our son fishing. He'd asked us several times in Thailand to take him fishing but we weren't able to. So when one of our friends asked us what we needed, Lisa mentioned that our son would love to go fishing. So our friend organised this fishing trip. With some help our son was able to catch a couple of fish. The one in the photo above we threw back.

But these 2 Trevally were able to be taken home to eat.

I was left to gut the fish for the first time in my life. Our friend suggested to fry the fish with some olive oil, salt and pepper.

Viola. O.k. It doesn't look so great but it tasted fantastic. Special thanks to Wayne for organising the trip and serving us so wonderfully.

My childhood photos

They say that a picture can tell a thousand words. Well these photos are worth at least a few laughs to those who know me now. I dug these photos up from my parent's house.

Feb 1981, a preschool photo in Korea just before I left for Australia

Can anyone pick me out in this photo?

1981, A few months later, kindergarten in Australia

Not hard to pick me out (tip: click on the photo to make it larger)

Obviously, my parent's had not been able to get us a school uniform yet. At least I had the right coloured shirt (thought not exactly the right shade of blue). My brother was wearing a red shirt and stuck out much more than I did in his photo. I know how my parent's must have felt because I put my son through the same thing when he went to school in Thailand. Funny how your memory changes of things. I thought there was only 1 other Asian kid in my class in those days. But I can see at least another 2 in this photo.

School photo, 1987

As I was looking through these photos (I have all my class photos from 1981 through to 1987) I could remember all my teachers names still from year 3 onwards (Mr Higgins y6, Mr Bishop y5, Mrs Baker Finch? yr 4, Mrs Thompson yr3). I was curious as to where all my classmates have ended up in life. I started doing a google search with their names just for the fun of it. The third name I searched proved fruitful. She is currently a lecturer in Law at Sydney Uni. I remember her being very smart in yr 6. I recently saw one of my classmates in an annual report for airline company and found out that he was as the CEO of Asia Pacific Aviation. I wonder what other things google will find out.

The other thought I was left with was wondering how my life would have been different if we hadn't moved schools so much and I had the same set of friends from kindergarten through to the end of highschool. That would have been special, but something my kids will probably not enjoy either.

Lampang Team & the Spiritual Battle

Photo of the Lampang Team a week before we left

Reflecting back on our first term in Thailand, it's hard to believe the number of crazy experiences in our short 2 and half years. It seems that at least a normal 10 years worth were crammed into 2 and half.

How can I forget getting a call from my wife telling me to rush back to the languauge school because a fellow missionary has been hit by a car while on her motorbike and having to ferry this missionary to the hospital in my back seat. Then trying to translate for my friend with only 10 months of Thai. How can I forget our neighbour's pitbull terrier sinking its fangs into our househelp's thigh while trying to protect my wife and baby daughter. How can I forget having a tyre blow out going at 120kmph on a 8 lane superhighway on the way home from Bangkok.

I think of the number of missionary who have had to suddenly return home because of cancer or some other serious medical problem and can't help thinking is this normal?

This week our team member had a car accident in Lampang driving to the Lighthouse for an outreach activity. Sure I could be overspiritualising, but I couldn't help thinking that this was another attempt by Satan to discourage our team members. In Thailand, we didn't need much help in seeing that we were part of a spiritual battle.