False Teacher visits Lopburi

Two Sundays ago we went to meeting organised for a visiting healing preacher from Singapore at a local Lopburi hotel close to where we live. Many of the churches in Lopburi decided to not have their normal Sunday morning services and go to this healing service instead. They didn't organise his coming, but since he was already coming they thought it might support it. Although I didn't understand some of what was going as things were in Thai, the sermon I had no trouble understanding as it was in English and translated in to Thai. The main message of the preacher from a passage in the book of Samuel concerning sacrificial offerings was that we had to give offering to God so that he could bless us and give us miracles. He seem to make out that God needed our offerings to enable his blessing to occur. Jesus was hardly mentioned and of his all sufficient sacrificing and offering of himself which is the most important and significant sacrifice. I could see where the sermon was leading to ... the appeal at the end with offering bags all nicely laid out at the front of the stage. The urge was there a number of times to shout out "Don't listen to this man - what he is teaching is not true". Unfortunately, I don't have the Thai yet to say this, and no one really knows who I am so they'd think I was the crazy one. We didn't have the opportunity to stay around to talk to this man as we had to get the children home. I felt so sad for the Thai Christians getting such terrible teaching and for the Thai pastors who let their congregations sit under this teaching. Please pray that the people who listened to this man have not been lead astray on his account and pray for the Thai pastors that they never let this happen again.

Day in a Life - 9am

By 9am I'm usually in my first lesson. This is my current teacher. She has been working at the Language Learning Centre (LLC) for over 7 years. In her job interview she when was advised that this was a Christian Centre, she replied, "That's o.k. Buddhism and Christianity believe similar things." The missionary language supervisor at the time firmly replied that they definitely were not. Some time later she became a Christian through the witness of the student and Christian teachers at LLC. She is currently preparing me for my module 5 language check on Friday! She is a very good teacher and I've enjoyed studying with her.

Day in a life of a new missionary - 8:50am

Over the next couple of weeks I want to show you some pictures of a normal day for me at the moment. Perhaps you could pray for them (and for me) that we may be able to have the opportunity to have deeper conversations and hopefully become friends.

This is my sticky rice lady at the local market. I pretty much go her stall every morning after I drop off the kids at childcare and pick up 5 packets of dried beef and sticky rice and 1 packet of dried pork and sticky rice. I eat one when I get to school and leave them on the morning tea table to share. It costs about 20 cents each. I've had a few conversations with the husband/partner of this lady who also works at the stall but when they are busy selling it is hard to find the time for more than a quick hello and a smile.
Here is my half eaten package from this morning. Very yummy.

Walking

This is A walking with the help of a walker. Hopefully won't be long before he walks.

Today I (Rich) had a conversation with the lady selling iced coffee. Invariably the first question they ask is whether I am Japanese. She asked me which language school I go to. A dreaded question because the school is not in a well known street so difficult to explain. I buy my iced coffee from the same place so hopefully we will be able to further our conversation on another occasion.

Please pray for more opportunities to develop friendships with people we meet.

Buddhist Centre to Seat 2 million People

During our Bangkok field trip last week we visit the Dhammmakaya Cetiya Temple on the outskirts of Bangkok. What they are doing is quite startling. This Buddhist sect is building a temple site which can seat 2 million people. It claims to be "the largest venue for mass meditation and prayers for Buddhists and peace-loving people of the world". They have designed the Temple to last at least 1000 years.
The yellow dome you see in the background is made of 300,000 small buddha statues. Followers of Dhammakaya had to pay approximately $1200 to buy one of these statues and have their names engraved on it and placed on the dome. Here is an extract from the sect's website: "The size of the individual personal Buddha image is 15 by 15 centimeters, widening to a base of 18 centimeters. Donation at any amount is appreciated. Anyone donating a certain amount of money for building a complete Buddha image may have one’s name or the name of a beloved ‘inscribed’ on the base of a personal Buddha image. In fact, world peace is shared and is the shared duty of everyone. It cannot be created by a single person or a single religious group alone. Hence, world peace needs everyone to make it happen. As such, the personal Buddha images on the Dhammakaya Cetiya are a witness of mankind’s effort to help create world peace for mankind.
"http://www.dhammakaya.or.th/VisitorZone/detail_page_01_en.php

It is quite unbelievable isn't it.

Dancing Baby

Our youngest son loves music as this video will show. At the sound of music he stops everything and sometimes breaks out in a dance.

Sick again

This week has been a difficult one with both children being sick. A first caught a bad cold from the carer at childcare and then he developed this terrible rash. Then L caught A's cold which lead to an ear infection which he is on antibiotics for. Then L developed a rash (possibly from the antibiotics). Yesterday, we returned to the childcare and found out that A slipped on the floor while crawling and hurt his left arm. Every time he moved his left arm he was in great pain. He had partially dislocated his elbow. In God's grace at the moment there is a missionary at the language school who is a doctor and he was able to pop's A's elbow back in place (and diagnosis L's ear infection too). When it rain it pours as they say. Hopefully we are over the worst.

birthday video

Thought I'd give a video a try. Enjoy

Holiday Pics

Some more holiday pics - Feeding the giraffes at Chiang Zoo

Happy birthday

It was A's birthday while we were on holidays. Our children dressed up in traditional Korean birthday clothes. It's actually A's birthday but L wants to get into the action too. A and L have great fun together and we are so thankful to God for them.