Youth House Antics...[January 09]

Get some paint, apply to faces, do some dances and you have a fun (but typical!) evening at Nakhon Sawan Youth House!!

Tea Drinking.... No-body in the whole of Thailand makes (or drinks!) tea like these boys
- they are true experts!

AJ, Bom and Nam drinking tea.
Tea Party - Partii Naamchaa!
This happens every day at 'tea time' (roughly every hour).

Interactive Club!

Interactive Club - on the Rajabhat Campus

Hockey - and dirty feet after hockey!

A selection of random pics from the last month!

Youth House Logo - on a black board!

The coolest flip flops I have ever seen - no joke.

Associates Retreat, Jan 09 - How many Associates can you fit in a car?

Uthai Thani - escape to the country!

Lady carrying a TV on a motorbike...


And then on a boat...


The local temple.

Uthai Thani - Church

The service

The Wonderful Sisters: Wear and Way

The youth washing up after lunch!

Question: Do I love Jesus Christ?

Answer: I do.

But it's a many layered answer. Because yes, basically I do. But in another sense I don't. At least not the way I should. So I need to stop and check myself regularly to think about how I am loving Him and what it even means to love Jesus in the first place.

Last week I was really challenged by this short summary by John Piper of what it really means to love Jesus (read the whole article here):

• I admire Jesus Christ more than any other human or angelic being.
• I enjoy his ways and his words more than I enjoy the ways and words of anyone else.
• I want his approval more than I want the approval of anyone else.
• I want to be with him more than I want to be with anyone else.
• I feel more grateful to him for what he has done for me than I do to anyone else.
• I trust his words more fully than I trust what anyone else says.
• I am more glad in his exaltation than in the exaltation of anyone else, including me.

When I think about my love for Jesus in each of these categories I realise that it falls short in so many ways. Day in day out other things and people win my affections over Jesus.

So yes, I do love Jesus. But it is the love of a sinner who is humbled to realise that even the ability to love Jesus well can only come from Jesus Himself...because left to my own sinful instincts I choose other things above Him every time.

Oh Lord, have mercy on this sinner.

First Hot Christmas...

Two things I experienced today that have never been part of my Christmas day before:

- The smell of freshly cut grass mingled with sunshine and warmth - a smell you only usually get in a UK spring or summer!

- The problem of my paper crown hat continually blowing off during Christmas dinner as a result of the fan!

Other than that it was pretty similar to being at home, thanks to a lovely British missionary couple who live nearby and welcomed me into their home for the day. Very grateful.

But in general over the last month, being in a new culture for the Christmas period has been wonderfully refreshing. None of that frenzy that is created in western cultures, centred around santa and elves and vague ideas about good will and the potential for human goodness, really exist here.

In Thailand for Buddhists (over 90% of population) Christmas is nothing; and for Christians it is nothing less than an opportunity to explain the real Christmas story to the community.

It is a time to spread the message not of our capacity to bring good will to fellow man, but of God's generosity to us in sending His Son. It is a message not of human goodness but of human depravity and God's goodness in making a way for us to be good as we were meant to be.

Am thankful for the opportunity to experience this afresh in a new place without the familiar added extras.



Pictures:
1.) Lunch with the Trelogans, Carolini and Leeanne!
2.) My first hot Christmas, out in Thap Than, Thai countryside!