Looking for God's Leading in your Life?

Here in Thailand one of the most effective and most used techniques for opening doors to reach Thai’s is to teach English. This has proved in many churches to be an incredibly useful tool to encourage timid Thai people to enter the church and become acquainted with the people there. Most (if not all) Thai’s have a paralyzing fear of having to speak English in front of a foreigner and therefore it’s incredibly rare for a Thai to just “walk through the church’s front doors” unless they are personally invited by a friend. Building relationships with Thai’s is by far the MOST effective way to reach them and encourage them to overcome their fear of foreigners.

Over the past year, Drew and Leah Kilcup have been part of our team here in Thailand. Drew has been employed and working full time for a local university, and Leah worked part time in a preschool. Drew has a degree from Northland and also from Lansdale Seminary but neither of his degrees are in teaching or any type of education. Drew and Leah just felt burdened by the Lord to dedicate this year of their lives to serving in Thailand.

The Kilcups will be finishing their school term at the end of September and leaving Thailand to reestablish their lives in America. We have appreciated them greatly as Drew’s teaching position has given us many contacts with the university students and has enabled us to take mission teams into his classroom to teach on occasion.
Now, as the Kilcups return, the door is open for another couple, or single person, to come and take part in this valuable outreach in our community. The university pays a full time salary that Drew and Leah have been able to live on and Leah also receives a salary for her part time work.

The university also sponsors you for your visa and allows you to have the necessary paperwork needed to be able to stay in the country. At this point in time, the university’s needs are great as they have three openings for full time English teachers.
Surin is a wonderful town in the rural, rice farming area of the Northeast of Thailand. There is a pizza restaurant here as well as KFC and a nice ice cream place. Housing would be available very cheap. If you or anyone who know might be interested in more specific details about the opportunity there, please email me and I can share more.

The term here will begin at the beginning of November and would require that you were able to come late in September or early in October to begin the paperwork for you visa. This is an excellent opportunity for someone who is interested in serving the Lord in a short term (year long) position on a developed, foreign field. I look forward to hearing from you!

They say "lower weight and higher rep's" are better.

So, here's a picture I wanted to share with the world. This is one of my favorite Thai men here in the church in Surin. His name is "Grandpa Dee" and he's 76 years old. I've had a chance now to go out visiting villagers with him around the district and I've been able to sit on his front porch and just watch him. The day we showed up at his house to visit him, he wasn't wearing a shirt and I was impressed by how "toned" he is for a man of his age. So, I asked him to flex for a picture. Grandpa Dee has never been to a gym one day in his life but he's planted rice for probably about 74 of the 76 years he's been alive. It just goes to show you that lifting 100 million grains of rice over the period of a lifetime is better for your muscles than lifting weights for a few weeks. Slow and steady always wins the race.

Erica Understands the value of Money

It's true most pictures are worth a thousand words but this one needs a little explanation to fully understand its significance. The girl on the right it "Pot" our neighbor and the 'crazy' one standing behind them is Lindsey, our daughter. Erica is the one with holes where three of her teeth used to be on Friday morning. Let me explain: On Friday AM, Erica and I went out with with two older Thai men for visitation way out in the countryside villages here in Surin.
Erica has had two teeth that have been loose for about 3 months now. She's normally a pretty tough little girl as exampled by her scratched cornea back in early 2007 and her 6 stitches she got from falling in the bath tub earlier this year. BUT, she was not at all interested in pulling these teeth. So, Friday as we rode around in the back of the truck, I encouraged her to pull one out. Within a few minutes she had it and she was really excited. No tears, no help, she did it all herself. I decided to encourage her to pull the other one by telling her that the tooth fairy who normally gives $5 for the first tooth and $2 for the second tooth would give $5 per tooth if she pulled them both on the same day. About 30 minutes later she decided to pull the other one-again, no help and no tears-she just pulled it right out.

That night as I was preparing to put the teeth under her pillow, she said, "I got it Dad!" I turned to look and sure enough, she had pulled out her third one! Three teeth in one day each earning her $5 per tooth for a total of $15. So, now I'm broke and she looks funny but she's got plenty of money in her wallet now.

Hey, What's going on here?

It's been a while since our last post and I wanted to add a couple notes about the MANY, MANY things that have been going on here in Surin recently. During the last 6 weeks, we have had two wonderful missions teams here from the U.S. One was from Lansdale, PA and one was from Hays, Kansas. The first team came with 25 people and stayed with us here for about a week before quickly heading back to PA. The other team that just left this week from Kansas was with us for a couple weeks. Both teams were wonderful and their schedules were PACKED with teaching, handing out literature, basketball tournaments, and having special days at local schools. We loved every minute of it and we especially loved the fellowship with both teams.

Most recently, we had the group here from Kansas lead by Bryan and Sommer Lowery. Both Bryan and Sommer have believed for many years that the Lord was leading them to Thailand as missionaries and this trip has apparently confirmed the idea in their minds. Bryan will be returning to finish his college degree in the U.S. and they hope to be able to return here in a few years. This is very exciting to us and encouraging as Drew and Leah Kilcup will be finishing their time here in September and heading back to the States after teaching here in the local university for over a year.
Speaking of Drew and Leah: Both of them are recovering well after a serious motorcycle wreck that required surgery to clean out and stitch up Leah's knee. Drew made it through with some nasty scrapes and a broken thumb but both are healing quickly it seems.

During the recent missions trip with the Kansas team, I became pretty sick for about 6-7 days and required a trip to the hospital for some shots and medication when my symptoms took a turn for the worse. On the bright side, I was able to drop 11 pounds during those 6 days!

As you think about us here, continue to pray for our ministry here in Surin. Lord willing, we will have a buyer for our building within a couple weeks and we will move to purchase an existing building that we all feel certain will be a wonderful replacement for our existing location. Also pray for our ministry here as Jim and Kathi Hayes will be heading back to the States in late October for a 7-9 month furlough leaving us with a great deal of responsibility and work here.

Thanks for "Keeping Up with the Joneses".
For those interested in knowing, 6 weeks after completing my diet competition with Jason Stover, I am at the exact weight of 237 and he is at 239. Not bad for a couple of formerly overweight Baptist missionaries.