Yesu Cree mae ya kla

Amen and Amen. Yesu Cree mae ya kla....Jesus Christ is the way. He's the truth and the life. Last night I had a conversation with Solo. I was waiting for my pictures to upload, because the internet is so slow here, and Solo began to share his heart. It was amazing listening to his life, how he grew up, and how he became a Christian. The thing I will always remember from this conversation is when Solo told me that Jesus Christ is the way. He had been searching and he looked into being a muslim (many of the people here are muslim) and he looked into being a buddhist (the predominant religion here is buddhism), but none of these religions had a way to heaven. His search and his longing ended when he found God and he found the way, the only way. He found Jesus Christ. It's incredible the passion he has for God. He is leaving back to his home, which is in a refugee camp. He was supposed to be at the orphanage for two months, and he told me that he has been here for 1 year and 9 days today, praise God! He told me he's so excited that God was able to use him in such an awesome organization. I had the opportunity to go to one of the refugee camps where the Karen people live because they have fleed from Burma, and it is horrible. Our bums in America live better than these people do, and yet Solo still praises God that he had the opportunity to come to this orphanage and that he has a home to go home to. I don't even know if we would be able to praise God for what he is going home to, but he has joy and gratefulness in everything. These people truly know how to have joy even in their sorrows. If you sit and listen to Solo it makes your heart smile.
(ok I just need to let you know that right as I put the last period, I saw something slither by my feet. I heard Solo and Kawee (one of the most amazing girls and one of my favorites) laughing. They told me it was a snake. I jumped up onto my chair, they laughed harder, and looked all over the ground for it. It was already gone. They told me it wouldn't hurt me, but it sure did scare the crap out of me. It's not every day that you're sitting at your computer and a snake slithers by you :))

I had the most amazing church service ever this Sunday. We went to one of the Karen villages, Kamawpoekloe. We first arrived and we walked to the Pastor's house. It was a hut that they built themselves out of bamboo and their roof was leaves. It was amazing! We all walked to the church together. It was just right down the dirt road. It took us about a minute or two to walk there. We all took off our shoes, and then walked into the room. It was just an open building, with no doors and only half walls. There were little children running around with only their shirts on, and me and Leslie watched as one boy lifted his shirt up, walked over to a little rain gutter thing, and peed right in it. It was hilarious! We were cracking up. Then Pastor Winai brought me, Carl, and Leslie up to the front of the church. We stared out at the audience of about 20 all sitting on the ground with their Karen skirts on (men and women) and them staring back at us. We introduced ourselves to the Karen audience- Ya mi mae Andrea (my name is Andrea). As I spoke, there were dogs howling and fighting in the background, a boy picking bugs out of his dad's hair, and children all lined up outside the wall with just their little heads poking over it. Life doesn't get much better than that. We were able to preach to them. I shared a scripture verse and Carl talked about how we are to mirror Jesus and the life He lived. Pastor Winai told us we could sit down and he invited me up one more time. He introduced me to the people again and told them I would be living here for a year. He also told them that if they want me to, I can come and teach English in their village. They said they would love for me to come, so I will be driving to this village and teaching English to the people. God is so good!! What an opportunity to grow and learn from these people who are on fire for God! After he introduced me again, we sang worship! It was so much fun, because some of the songs we sang I recognized and was able to sing in English! They love to hear us sing in English! After the service, a woman came to the front with her baby and asked if we would pray for it. The baby has been having seizures. The other people who live in the village who are buddhists wanted to do a ritual over her baby, but she told them no, because she believes in prayer and she knows God and only God can heal her baby. We all laid hands on the baby, including the children, and raised our voices to God. If you could have heard it, tears couldn't have helped but well up in your eyes. After we finished praying for this woman and her baby, it was lunch time.
We went back to the pastor's hut, and they lined up our bowls with rice and they had the food set up for us. For them they prepared fish (with the bones and skin and everything) in a spicy sauce. The fish is so fishy and not very good. I tried a piece of it because I want to try a little bit of everything they serve us. There hasn't been anything they've served us that I haven't tried- except for the water because that would give me parasites....no thank you (mai kapkunka). They prepared for us, pickled green beans, eggplant-which was amazing, and tofu. There was silverware set out for everyone, but even if they have silverware the Karen people prefer to eat with their hands, so that's what they did. I took pictures of them. They probably think I'm some crazy American because I had my camera and video camera out practically the whole time. It's funny.
After we left this village we stopped by the refugee camp to visit Pastor Winai's brothers. Pastor Winai is from Burma and he is Karen. God blessed him with the opportunity to become a Thai citizen, almost by accident, but his family still lives in the refugee camp. His family is leaving for America in September because of the UN. The UN has a program set up where the refugees can go to a participating country, work for 5 years, and then they can gain citizenship. So praise God, his family gets to leave the refugee camp! We sat and ate cookies with his family and talked. We all prayed together and sang together and then we said our goodbyes. As we drove back through the camp, it smelt so bad. We saw many goats, and I learned that wherever there are muslims there will be goats because they sacrifice the goats, drink their milk, and eat them. There are many goats throughout Thailand.
Today I was awakened again by the delicate sound of the children screaming their passion to God. The children were still home from school because of the buddhist holiday so I had the opportunity to spend more time with them, teaching them and playing with them. I taught the children basic conversation, like What is your name? How old are you? etc. They really enjoyed learning that. Then I wanted to give them a break so we played games. The children are hysterical when they play the games. They get really into it. I had the children play this one game where there were 4 teams. Each team got in one of the 4 corners and they put blindfolds on one of their teammates and when I counted to 3 the blindfolded person from each team had to run to the center and try to be the first one to grab the blanket that was in the center and bring it back to their corner. I got it all on tape because it was awesome!! Sometimes I would take away the blanket once the children were blindfolded and tell them to go. They would all be fighting in the center for nothing....awesome! We played a couple more games and then we all took a break for lunch. While we were eating lunch, Noah gave me a Thai-English dictionary he bought and I read the funniest line in it. One saying was translated into English....in Thai it says my stomach hurts and the book translated it "I feel gassy long time". That's so how I picture Asians speaking :)
After lunch we went into town so I could buy teaching supplies. I bought candy and treats for prizes for the children and I found a jumbo BINGO game. I'm going to use this game to teach English and make it exciting! We also bought a cake in town for Leslie, because today was her birthday. When I came home, I started to organize my supplies and clean my room and 4 girls stopped by my room and asked if they could help. They practically did everything for me. They took the English words that I wanted to hang on the wall in the area where I teach and all the children put them up on the wall themselves, I didn't have to do anything. I took pictures of them and they will be up on kodak :)
After dinner, we had worship. Leslie spoke and then the children gave her words of encouragement, and then we all prayed for her. While we prayed, they got the cake, lit the candles and surprised her with it. We all sang Happy Birthday, and then we gave all the children cookies and punch that we bought for them in town. It was awesome!! We had a blast! Everything just seems to be better here! When God is always present, life is good!!
So I just found out that it wasn't really a snake that slithered by me, it was a mouse scurrying.....probably scurrying away from a snake. Oh the joys of Thailand! So I guess I should get to bed because it is 11:40 pm and I have to be up at 5 am because we are going to a Karen village called Pade. We are going to go worship with them. A Tuesday spent in Pade at 5 in the morning worshipping our God. Life is good!


ps. you can still see my pictures at the same website that I put in my post before this one :)