30June2009
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Our team is all back together again in Bangkok after a great weekend of ministry in Rayong and Hat Yai. We’re spending the rest of this week painting, cleaning, cooking, hanging out with kids, teaching english and other random things that come up.
God’s been teaching all of us a lot about prayer and about hearing from him. It’s been cool to see how He’s speaking through members of our team and blessing people out of that.
thanks so much for your prayers!
27June2009
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Hi friends…
Our half of the team has had a wonderful couple of days in Rayong so far. On Friday night we visited the new church building (a beautiful old restaurant on the river), yesterday we did a kids program at an art school and tolday we’ll be doing church all day.
Thanks for your prayers! We’ll be headed back to Bangkok to join the rest of the team Monday afternoon.
25June2009
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Hi friends,
This week in Bangkok has been great. We’ve been really busy painting, teaching English, playing with kids, praying, cleaning and of course going to the movies with our Thai friends! Today, 2 of our team is heading to Hat Yai to visit a church plant there. Please pray for their safety and for a good trip. Erik will stay behind in Bangkok for the weekend to help with the youth event on Saturday and the English classes. The rest of us are heading to Rayong this afternoon to serve the Vineyard church there. We’re looking forward to a busy and fun weekend!
Please be praying for us to have energy, health (all doing fine so far) and to bring God’s love and grace wherever we go.
thanks!
23June2009
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just a quick post to say that the team has arrived safely in bangkok without a hitch. we’re a little sleepy (not sure what time it is over there) but generally in good spirits and excited for the time ahead. it’s been really good seeing old faces at the bangkok vineyard…everyone is surprised that a year has passed since the last time we visited.
we will be spending about a week and a half at the church there helping out in different ways–painting, cleaning, helping with english classes, playing with kids, cooking, going around the slums and meeting people and praying over them…
a few things you could lift up for our team:
- that we would get a good night’s rest tonight and adjust/acclimate
- along with that, energy to be present and engage
- that we wouldn’t be afraid to interact with the folks here and that we’d develop deep relationships.
that’s it for now! thanks for your thoughts and prayers!
9June2009
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Hi all,
Welcome to our 2009 Thailand Team blog. We’re getting ready to leave in about a week and a half, some are taking finals, others are trying to finish up projects at work. In any case, we’re all busy and would greatly appreciate your prayers!
You can check this blog periodically throughout the trip to find out where we are, how we’re doing and what we need prayer for.
thanks & God bless!
-Coast 09 team
10July2008
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Hi friends & family!
It’s finally here, and we can’t believe it, we’re headed home tomorrow (well, some of us are, anyway). Two are staying on to go to Cambodia, another to HK, Australia then Malaysia and another to India, but the rest of us will be back in San Diego late Friday night.
We’ve had a wonderful trip… God has done amazing things. We can’t wait to get back to share our stories and pictures with you. Please be praying for us for safe travel and health as we head home. Also, many of us are having a hard time transitioning back already, so please pray for that. We already miss our friends here so much!
thanks!
8July2008
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Hi Everyone,
We finally were able to find seats at an internet cafe not swarming with boys playing violent computer games. In addition, this is a nice hideout from the daily afternoon monsoon outside. We are enjoying our time with the Bangkok Vineyard. The church has a building that they recently finished renovating behind the Khlong Toei slum, which is the largest slum in central Bangkok. Much thought and prayer has gone into this facility. There is an open area and a kitchen on the flirst floor which enables large amounts of food to be served and people to come and hang out. The second floor has a studyroom, a classroom, and a reading room. The third, fourth, and fifth floors serves as housing for families, women, and men. On the roof are views of the neighborhood and will hopefully serve as a small area to play soccer and other games. We have spent the majority of our time here building friendships with the church members and residents of the neighborhood. We have also put on a few programs for the youth, and cooked and served meals for the church and people in the area. Yesterday a few of us accompanied one of the cooks in the early morning to buy food at the largest wet market in Bangkok, some of us spent time cleaning and doing maintainence in the building, and Advait went to a birthday party and led the birthday girl to Christ. Tonight the other part of our team will meet us and we will finish the last few days of our trip together. In the next few days we will debrief our experience and hope to spend more time prayerwalking and visiting the homes of people living in the slums along with members of the church. Please continue to keep us in your prayers for the last few days of the trip. Please especially pray for Eric. He reinjured his back, is in much pain, and is unable to do much other than rest.
7July2008
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hello!
It’s been a while since we’ve checked in. for our half of the team, it’s because we’ve been non-stop busy since arriving here in Rayong on Friday night (I don’t know what the Bangkok team’s excuse is!).
Anyway, we’ve had a great time here with the Rayong Vineyard church, teaching leadership seminars, hosting women’s meetings, preaching and helping with worship on Sunday, and lots of kids ministry (at local schools and in the neighborhood of the church). We’ve had a great time with Jeff (as always), enjoying the culture and food of coastal Thailand.
Today we head back to Bangkok to meet up with the rest of the team. They’re currently serving with the Bangkok Vineyard church in one of the worst slums in the world, Klong Toey. We hope to be a blessing to the people both living and serving there.
Hope all is well back at home. We’ll see you soon!
-Rayong team
3July2008
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Our Lahu team returned yesterday afternoon. It was so good to see our Lahu friends again. We stayed most of the week in Mida and Cha Ti’s house in Hui Kau Lam which also serves as the church in that village. We spent time with the people in the village, playing games with the kids, talking, and praying. We taught in their church service on Sunday morning and walked to several nearby villages, teaching about Jesus, praying for people, and encouraging the small groups of Christians living there.
We visited many villages we had been to in the past and one new village which had recently been relocated to the area. The head of the new village who is also the spiritual leader or shaman of the village has invited our friend Eleh to teach reading and writing and also about Jesus in his house on Sunday afternoons. It was very exciting for us to get to share the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection with them and to pray for people there including the wife of the village leader. We had a strong sense of God’s Spirit wanting to move into the village.
Natalie also did simple medical training like how to care for wounds and what to do in case of fever. The people were very excited about the medical training and the kits we left behind with local pastors and village heads. They asked a lot of questions. Usually there were people at the training with recent injuries Natalie could demonstrate on. One little boy had recently cut his ankle playing with a machete (machetes are common toys for little boys in the villages) and could have used stitches. I’m glad his mother now knows how to keep his wound clean until it heals.
We spent the last two days in Hui Ba Rai, another village where we have friends, teaching, praying, and hanging out with the people there and walking to more nearby villages. In that area, many people are turning to drug dealing and prostitution for income. Many families will send a daughter to the city to become a prostitute and live off the income she sends. We prayed for the villages and for Mong Koon and Na Ha, who have a small church in Hui Ba Rai.
The last night of our time there, we did an outreach program in Bon Poi, one of the neighboring villages with the most trouble with drugs and prostitution. We taught about the enemy’s plan to keep people in captivity, God’s plan to rescue them and the Holy Spirit’s power to keep us safe from oppression (Luke 11:21-26) and asked the Holy Spirit to come. Two men from the village gave their lives to Jesus that night, and we were so excited! One of them was an alcoholic who wanted to be free from his addiction. After seeing our skit in which we physically tied people up with yarn and cut the bonds off of them to symbolize freedom from sin and demonic oppression, he wanted to use our scissors to cut off of himself the strings the people wear around their wrists for protection. We had never thought of those strings when we planned our skit, but he had understood that if he came to Jesus he could not hold on other Gods or special charms. That was a night we knew we were really making a difference.
It is also especially exciting for us to see adult men come to Jesus in these villages where so many of the believers are children and the majority of the people who come to our outreaches are women and children.
The hardest part was leaving so soon all over again. One week is such a short time to spend with such good friends and there is so much more we would like to do. Everyone’s eyes were wet as we waved goodbye to Mida and Cha Ti and to Enoch, our guide and translator who gives his life day after day to share Jesus with the Lahu and got on the bus for Chiang Mai.
2July2008
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Hello Family,
We just got back from Laos this morning around 8am after another 12 hour bus ride—this time it was not as comfortable. The blankets we got on this bus sported teddy bears and roses and smelled less (or more, depending on how you look at it) exciting, but of course, Morgan held onto her own, precious, lavender blankie. Esther kept getting dripped on from the faulty AC, and Advait’s backpack was the victim of spilled water. Jess bought some already-peeled grapefruit only to learn later that the already-peeled peels were hidden beneath the actual fruit and added to the weight and bulging appearance of the package. I used the bathroom during the bus ride and while I was watering the toilet, my right hand on the railing and my left hand on…my pants, the door swung open from a sharp turn. Hooray. But no one looked. I learned only later that the door could click shut if done in a very, very specific way. Advait and I saved some KFC “chicken” nuggets from the previous night for our breakfast on the bus. “yum.”
Anyways, our trip to Laos was awesome. The missionary family that hosted us were a huge blessing to our team. Most days were spent going to the rehab house in the morning, which is a home for recovering drug addicts, to help lead a study or share a testimony, and then attending a group in the evening to do similar work. It was amazing to see daddy minister to people at every single meeting we went to. We spent a lot of time with people and watching as he worked amazing transformation and deliverance for the Lao and for us.
We also attended a water ceremony. And since I’m in an interesting mood right now, let’s order generic ceremony experiences according to excitement:
1. by sprinkling
2. by dunking in chlorinated pool inside building
3. by dunking in chlorinated pool outside
4. by dunking in ocean (San Diego)
5. by dunking in the river Jordan
6. by dunking in a tropical river by a WATERFALL while a large butterfly lands on the leader’s forehead and people swing off of tall trees via vines into the pool of water! (Laos)
Sorry for being so random, but that place was just amazingly beautiful. We had to hike a pretty dangerous, rocky, muddy, and slippery trail to get to spot, but it was well worth it. We trekked slowly, bringing the elderly women and a friend along, who was seven months pregnant! A lot of us kept slipping and falling, and we returned with reddish bottoms, stained by the clay-colored mud. And yes, a butterfly actually landed on the leader’s forehead just as he was dunking the first person to be baptized. (Cool, because the butterfly is the symbol of his “enterprise” in Laos—a symbol of transformation that he uses.
We also played soccer with the people here. It was soooooo fun. I played barefoot because I didn’t have cleats and I don’t like playing in normal shoes. We won 1-0 after a pretty long battle to score and I got the assist! =)
Last thing for now, I promise. Singing with the Lao was awesome. They use a lot of American songs that have been translated into Lao. Playing guitar with a few of the brothers there and singing songs and exchanging chords was where I connected most naturally with the guys. I loved co-leading with two of the friends—it was fun and life-giving just having that connection through music as we gave and took wordless cues from each other during song time and laughed when we led the group in different directions.
I love the Lao people and their food. But more so the people (they create the food, anyways). A lot of the connections I had with the people there had no conversational basis, since we were there for only a week and I only learned the bare necessities of the language like “hello,” “thank you,” etc. Instead, most of the connections I had with the guys there were from encouraging each other. I have been on overseas trips before, but it was still harder than I thought saying goodbye to these friends of mine. Maybe it was because few of them have or can afford using the internet for emails. Maybe it was because the connections I felt with them through encouragement was stronger than in my past trips. Whatever it was, I know that part of me did not want to let go of the friends I had made or the clear work that daddy was doing in those people’s lives in Laos.
Ask me in person or through email for more details about what daddy did for me personally.
That’s all for now!
in him,
Michael Shawn “Henry” Feng
