Last Visit to Bang Sai Church (by Delores)

At 3 P.M. Donna, Emily, Allen and I traveled by Taxi to a very up-scale Mall in Chon Buri. Louise met us and we traveled the rest of the way with her to the one-room B**mese Church at Bang Sai. This is rented every other Sunday. It is painted white with beautiful blue tile on the floor. A bit difficult to sit on for three hours!

Pastor Isaiah preaching

Here Pastor Isaiah from the Lighthouse Church comes to teach & preach to young B**mese believers.

These young men and women, in Thailand illegally, work at the local factories and live in severe poverty. Their housing is deplorable!

Some have become believers, so Pastor Isaiah is starting a new church at this location.

After teaching three young men and one young woman, others started to arrive. Then time was spent in worshiping God through music. Oh,could they sing!

Even though I couldn’t understand what was being said I felt the presence of God in the room. Pastor Isaiah started to preach to the whole group. After at least an hour or more he went around the room looking into their faces and asked each one if they would receive Jesus into their hearts. Five men said yes!

What an experience to see the Holy Spirit work in the lives of the Burmese people. We presented a Thai Bible to a woman who is struggling with aids. She was so thrilled! These new believers are so passionate in their devotion to God.

We then all prayed in unison for these new believers.

After the service a typical B**mese supper was served. It was prepared in the same room.

What a blessing to experience God at work in Thailand!

Last Evening at the B**mese Market and Lighthouse Church - Sunday, Feb.17, 2013

After a rest at our hotel, Allen, Delores, Donna and Emily went to Bang Sai with Louise and Pastor Isaiah, while the rest of us left for the evening service at Bo Thong at the Lighthouse Church. (Note: see Delores' post for their experience).  

We arrived early enough to wander over to the market down the street before the service.  It struck me that although it is not a very nice area, and we were the only "farangs" (foreigners), we felt totally comfortable and safe.

People hanging out outside the Lighthouse Church.

Kevin with a very friendly couple who were selling corn.

fresh produce

Janelle trying some local food

Goldfish, anyone?

always plenty of peppers!

Seafood was plentiful & delicious

not what we'd find at our local markets

yum!  and in Shane's right hand is his drink-in-a-bag:  note the pink straw!

making fresh papaya salad

one of these fish actually escaped (and was caught again)!

the offerings were never boring!

This was ubiquitous fare: some kind of meat and veggies all cooked up and in a bag to go - the ones we tried were delicious (and very inexpensive)!

Durian fruit?

After enjoying the interesting market, everyone gathered at the church for the service.  To our surprise, quite a few of our Thai friends had come to join in as well!  We started with worship: what an incredible experience to have all three languages and people groups worshiping together!  Some of the songs were familiar.  Apparently Jonas knew one of the songs in German, so at one point we had 4 languages going!  I closed my eyes and thought "this is a taste of what heaven will be."

"All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord; they will bring glory to your name." - Psalm 86:9

 Brenda and Yvonne shared testimonies from our group.  This took quite a while, as they had to be translated first by Dave into Thai, and then from Thai into B**mese.  It looked a little charades-like at times, as they all tried to find the right words in each language! Again, every time a scripture was referred to, everyone opened their Bibles and found the passage and read it together aloud.

After the service, we all mingled and visited while the chairs were cleared away and the food brought out.  In honour of us, our group was seated at a table, and we were given a special meal.  It was very kind of them - and typical of the generous hospitality with which we were consistently treated (we can learn a lot from them in this area!), but I actually missed sitting on the floor with our friends!

Esther & Carol

Sue & Kathryn

Sue & her husband, Tu

As it neared time to leave, Dough asked me if I had a copy of the words for "This Little Light of Mine".  I did, and went to get them.  As I gave him a copy, I asked how he would figure out the tune.  He looked at me like I was missing the obvious, and replied "YouTube"!  I keep forgetting how tech-savvy these guys are!  Well, even though he may have been able to find it online, Jessica and I picked up the guitars and got everyone to sing it again, so that they could practice.  We started singing, and before long a big group had grabbed song sheets and joined this impromptu sing-a-long!  What a lot of fun!

Kiersten (TREK), Dtoom, Muk, (Kevin), Dough, Shane...

Mint

Mint, Jessica, Kathryn, Josie...

Judy , Yvonne, (Irene), Kara, Ajaan Naat...

Jessica was awesome!  She offered to help with guitar from the start, even though
she was just learning.  She worked really hard at it and learned a lot of songs.
Then when the guitar broke, was fixed, etc.  She just rolled with the punches and
was just willing to serve any way she could!

Our group had brought a guitar to give to Pastor Isaiah, and in the end I left my guitar (the one Jessica had used) for the Bethel Church.  It would have cost a lot to fix it at home, and Dtoom had gone to so much trouble (and done such an amazing job!), that I thought that they should have it.  They teach guitar to kids out of Bethel, so hopefully one more guitar that fits smaller hands can be of use there.

It was bittersweet as we said our final good-byes, and headed back to the hotel to hear the exciting report from Delores, Allen, and Emily.