In Thailand the September squad worked with YWAM in several different locations. Team LESS went to a tiny village of 500 people called Mango Tree (in English) and spent a month with Arun and Paeng and their family. They are a wonderful couple and live with Paeng’s parents and Grandmother. Arun and Paeng met at university and felt called to move back to the village where Arun grew up, start a self supporting farm to financially support missionaries and provide jobs in their village. They also desire to plant and support new churches and be Christian neighbors to their community. They are amazing visionaries. They have a ton of energy and jump in wherever God is leading them. We were privileged to jump in alongside them throughout the month in a variety of ways.
Church: Saturday nights they host church on their porch and Sundays were sent visiting other church plants in the area. Worship songs are sung in Thai, there's a lesson and they pray as a group for any needs among the church members. We were re-energized by this simple yet powerful form of Church.
The Farm: Arun is a master of learning new trades. Arun started to learn about Goat farming- an animal he had never even seen before. Three years ago they started with 59 goats and now have over 120 goats plus sheep and a few cows. They have the basic structures built for two team houses (what we called the tree houses). They don't have the financial resources to continue building right now but as they continue to build they will be able to host more and more teams. When someone knows how to farm something, Arun learns how and adds it to his plans to be a year round farm. We experienced this first hand when the boys showed up with a truck full of pineapples shoots and we spent a day planting a pineapple field. From goats to a fish pond to pineapples to Rubber trees... anything is a possibility as God provides the financial resources to keep the projects moving.
The community: Aurn and Paeng strive to be active and caring members of their community. They want to meet needs and have teams out and involved in their town. It's not a rarity to see Paeng and Ma Paeng take off on a motorcycle to go visit a sick neighbor. They also send teams out to visit neighbors and joining in community resources. Our team was able to participate in painting and renovations at the elementary school as they prepared for an upcoming visit from the Princess.
Here are a few blogs our team wrote about our time there:
Thailand ministry video: http://danielgutman.theworldrace.org/index.asp?filename=thailand-ministry-video
Influential and Church: http://jackiezuiderhof.theworldrace.org/index.asp?filename=influential-and-church
How you can be praying for this location:
Pray for energy and encouragement for Arund and Paeng. Praise God for their giftings in hospitality and Ma Paengs delicious cooking. Pray for Debbie and Darren and family (two western missionaries in Thailand who will be moving out to he village in the next year). Pray blessings over the crops that they may be used to support the work of Arun and Paeng and other Thai Missionaries.
Cambodia is amazing and has special place in all of our hearts. Our time there was not wasted; God gave us so many opportunities to do what we are passionate about, and we were all challenged individually and as team. We stayed at a YWAM base in Phnom Penh, and we lived on a street where children were constantly playing outside and parents were out talking and eating together. We were amazed by the kindness and humility of the Cambodian people. They have such a thirst for knowledge, a dedication to their families, and they have such sweet dispositions.
The church we are partnered up with in Cambodia, New Life Fellowship (www.cambodiaoutreach.org), is an amazing church with many different ministries and ways to reach out to the community, meet physical needs, and share the love of Christ. We were given opportunities to serve by teaching English, playing with children on our street, visiting the slums, doing provincial outreaches outside of Phnom Penh, helping with the youth group, working with a children’s ministry called Joy Club, teaching pre-school, reaching out to the street kids, and working with a ministry called Children at Risk (www.cambodiaoutreach.org/childrensministries/childrenatrisk.html). New Life has a plethora of opportunities to do what you have a heart for and what you are passionate about. The first day we arrived, we sat down with Pastor Piset and he gave us all our options and we got to make our schedule.
Ministry of New Life Fellowship Church includes:
We are so thankful for our time in Cambodia, what God is doing there, and what He taught us through the Cambodian people.