Sunday was a great day! In the morning we went to a Christian church that was in the middle of Chiang Mai's Red Light district. They sang many songs for us & had a new gospel band, Hosanna, sing for us. Brian preached the sermon & Stephen translated for him. We also sang 4 songs for them during special music. After service, they served us lunch at the church. Thai people are such gracious hosts! On our way back home we stopped at a day market.
Most of the congregation were former prostitues & still living in the area. So, they asked us to pray for two things for them. First, that they would be able to find a full-time minister. Second, that they would be able to come up with a plan to move to a new location away from their bad habits & build a new church there so that they have room to grow.
In the afternoon, Stephen had a meeting with this church to discuss a plan. He then taught a graduate class on 1 Corinthians. We had a small church service with just our team & a few of our new Thai friends in the evening. Stephen asked if anyone had a testimony they wanted to share of how God had blessed them so we could praise Him together. A man stood up & told of how on our last trip, his mother-in-law had been really sick & the Thai doctors told her she would only live 1, maybe 2 months. She came to one of our clinics & we treated her. She then lived 15 months & just passed away last month. He told us that because we helped him, he was going to sacrifice his time & drive us around this week while we're here.
Kristen & Ellen arrived around 11:00pm Sunday night & had no trouble the whole way here! Praise God for their safe travels!
Monday started by watching the Super Bowl. We didn't watch for very long because we wanted to get set up for an afternoon clinic at the Training Center. We were going to go to the bank to exchange money, pick up the swine flu vaccine, & go to the pharmacy in the morning before having the clinic in the afternoon. Well, as soon as we started setting up, people started coming in. So, we saw patients in the morning, wrote down what they needed to be treated with, & they waited until the afternoon to pick up their medicine. A group went to pick up the vaccine while we were running clinic, so people got the vaccine in the morning.
After lunch, we went to the pharmacy & got all of the medication they had that we needed. When we got back to the Training Center, we packaged up the medicine & passed it out to everyone who waited several hours for it.
Our day finished with a Korean barbecue, which is sitting around a charcoal fire in a bucket & grilling different meats on a tin that looks like a hubcap with slits in it. Around the edge is boiling water to put Chinese cabbage, morning glory, & meatballs in to boil. We all sat around & cooked our food & ate with chopsticks! It was SO delicious!
We're now packing everything to head to the village tomorrow, Tuesday. The ride is about 3-4 hours away up a mountain. Stephen says it will take a lot out of us so we will just have clinic on Wednesday & Thursday and come back to Chiang Mai on Friday. We more than likely won't have internet service in the village, so check back for more updates on Friday.
A couple things to be praying about:
- That we will be able to get the typhoid vaccine from customs before we go to the village
- Safe travels to & from the village
- That God would prepare the hearts & minds of those we will see in the village. The village is not a Christian village, so we will be reaching many people who do not know Christ.
Serving Him,
The ACC Mission Team
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