We are in Surat Thani now.  Our leader Kate just preached to a very small congregation about Gidion from Judges.  It was great.  At the end 4 people came to the front to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior for the first time.  One of those 4 people was a 15 year old boy named Nos.  He and his 2 friends have been with us all week.  Only one of the 3 boys was a Christian before.  Now Nos wants to know God and have a relationship with Jesus.  God is awesome!  Please pray for Nike.  He is the 3rd boy, who at this point is still Buddhist, but I believe God put him in our path for a reason.  Seeds are being planted in this young man's life for sure.

Surat Thani is great.  We will be here for 3 more days, then back to Bangkok.  Then we fly back to Ft. Lauderdale for debrief.  

Right now I am listening to worship music.  God is filling me up.  I am sitting in the hotel lobby with Buddhist stuff and workers all around me and all I want to do is bust out in tears and praise Him at the top of my lungs!  I have been singing along with the music quit loudly :) The workers at the front desk keep looking at me like they want me to leave, but no matter.  I will continue to worship.  He is worth it:)

Thailand has been amazing.  Sorry I haven't posted in a few weeks, but I have not always had access to internet or when I have been able to get on, I have not always been able to log onto this blog.  But Everything has been great! We did a week of ministry in Chaing Mai with the Hope Church of Chaing Mai.  They were fantastic and kept us busy in the schools.  We loved working with them and miss them very much.  We then traveled to Lamphoon to a little village called Li.  We worked with Li Happy Methodist Church there (the only church in the village).  We had to "ruff it" a little more there (cold showers, sleeping on the floor, unknown foods, sweat like I have not sweated in years), but the people there we so nice to us and we had some awesome ministry opportunities there.  In fact on our last day in Li we were invited to a school in a Buddhist village close to Li.  It was totally arranged by God.  Some of the girls on our team went to an aerobics lesson one night (I did not go :) ) Anyway, they were talking to a woman we had all met earlier that day and another woman came up to them and asked who they were and what they were doing in Li.  They explained what we do and she asked if we could come to her school (she is a teacher in this school we went to).  So the girls told the pastor we were staying with and the other woman spoke with him as well and come to find out the 2nd lady is a teacher in the only school in a 100% Buddhist village.  A monk founded the village hundreds of years ago and the government has helped to keep it going, but for people to live there they have to be 100% Buddhist.  We were told that the last people to evangelize there (many, many, many years ago) were beat up and run out of town and we get an invitation from a teacher to come in and talk to the kids about Jesus!!!  It was awesome!!! We prayed about it a lot... we weren't ever sure we would be allowed in or not until we got there.  We thought we were going to have to teach english, but when we got there they just wanted to see our presentation.  So we were able to meet with over 600 kids and talk with them for about an hour about God and our experiences finding Jesus and what He means to us and the truth in His Word!  We saw kids that were just sitting in amazement, trying to wrap their minds around what we were telling them.  Some were on the verge of tears.  It was an awesome experience.  I thank God for placing me here to experience this!  Then at the end of everything, just before we passed out the Books of Hope to the kids,  the pastor we were there with openly prayed with the kids and had them repeat the pray as he was doing it!!! Everyone on our team was blown away!  God gives us more than we can imagine and then gives us so much more!!! It was out of control amazing! 

We are all doing well.  No one is sick and we are well feed and rested.  We leave Bangkok today for Surat Thani.  We will be there until the 15th, then back to Bangkok.  Then we fly back to Florida on the 17th.  I will be back to Bradenton on the 20th of this month.  

Hopefully I will be able to write again before then.

Thanks for your love and prayers.  Keep it coming.  

Love you.

Marybeth

Thailand is awesome! The country is beautiful, the people are so nice and the food is delicious... fresh and spicy! We have had a lot of success in the schools.  The teachers are welcoming us into teach the kids english.  The kids love our lessons and dramas and they are really receptive when we tell them about Jesus. It is one of the coolest things I have ever seen, to see the face of someone who is hearing about Jesus for the first time! Then to see the kids walking home reading the gospel, not even looking at where they are going, just reading.  I love it!  I thank the Lord for allowing me to be apart of this, to be in this country at this time.  It is a real awakening.  There is a lot of darkness here.  The enemy is very real and you can feel it, like a thinkness all around. I have never felt anything like it before in my life and it is truly a test for us.  But it is a faith building experience also.  The Lord is faithful and He is giving us favor in our work here.

Please keep our team, the national team and churches and the long term missionaries in your prayers.  That the Lord would continue to open up doors and relationships would be made and fortified, veils of darkness would be ripped away and His truth and light would shine in the lives of so many for the first time.  I know the Lord's heart breaks for these people, but He is faithful and we can stand faithfully in the gap for them as well.

I will try to post pictures soon.  We have limited internet access, but I will post when I can.

At the tree

On Friday nights a few of us from Bayside go out to downtown B-town to pass out hot dogs and coffee to the homeless. We have our regulars and there are always new faces as well. We each have our favorites. The people we can sit with for hours and just chat about...whatever. Its been an awesome experience to get to know these people, to share a small portion of life with them, to learn from them (and oh the things we have learned!). But there's a guy who we have all grown attached to. Michael, aka River Mike. This guy is awesome, so sweet and he will definitely chat your ear off about...whatever. Well he is getting on in years and his health is not real good. He was in an acident years ago that caused significant damage to his legs and he still does get around very well. Of course it doesn't help that he is older and doesn't like going to the doctor and sleeps outside on the ground either. Well one friday night recently River Mike wasn't at the court house like he usually is. We asked around about him. We were concerned about him. We know he doesn't get much food on the weekends because it is too far for him to walk to the shelters to get dinner. We usually give him extra food to last him a few days, but he wasn't there. The week before this he was really sick, so when we didn't see him a few of us paniced for a moment. But we asked around and were told "oh yea, Mike's at the tree". So we were led to a Palmetto Palm in the middle of a vacant lot a few blocks away and low and behold there's River Mike with his friends Rob and Shorty, all chillin' under the Palmetto Palm. Mike was still not feeling well, not getting around well and was "bed" bound and Rob and Shorty were keeping him company.
Well Mike was excited to see us as he usually is when we come around. He invited us into his home and we stayed and chatted for a long while. I didn't have much to say that night. I was just trying to put my mind around my surroundings and what I was really seeing. I mean, I've known a lot of these guys for over a year now, I know they're homeless, I've seen them, I've smelled them, I've heard their stories, but I still really didn't get it until I saw were one of them was staying. Seeing him laying on the ground on his cardboard mat lined with a plastic tarp and his friends sitting on their cardboard mats. Hearing them say that Mike found a "good spot". Smelling the surrounding (Remember he is not getting aroung very well these days.) I was just in shock. That doesn't happen to me very often, but I was definitely in shock. So I just knelt down and sat quietly and listen as River Mike and Ed talked.
The conversation started normally, asking Mike how he was doing, making sure he got the food we had saved for him, asking if he needed any medicine or anything else. But then the conversation took a turn very quickly as Mike started to professing his blessings and how God was providing for him and how much he loved God and can not wait to see Him! Now I was in an even greater state of shock. Was I really in this place seeing what I was seeing and sitting there listening to Mike and Ed discussing God and Revelation and the coming of Jesus and what it is going to be like after this life? I was absolutely blown away. I mean I have been in enough Applied small group meetings and many, many other various moments when Ed has absolutely blown me away with God's truth in a moment just when I needed to hear it (and I'm sure he has no idea that was happening at the time) to realize that God works through him in that way. But to hear these words coming from Michael....! I can't even explain it. It was a profound moment for me. He definitely became an inspirational person for me that night. Just to see the faith and longing to be with our Heavenly Father that this man has...I was in awe. I wanted to break down and cry right there, but I was able to hold it in till I got home. With all his adversity and lacks for the essentials, he is so thankful for all he does have, for our friendship, and for the love of Jesus Christ. It really puts a lot of things in my life in perspective. Really, what do I have that is worth complaining about in light of what this person has gone through? His focus is not on the now, it is on the what is to come. That is where I want to spend my time focusing on too.
As I am preparing to leave for Thailand I wonder if River Mike will be here when I get back in two months. I'm not sure, but everytime I pass that old Palmetto Palm I will think of Mike "at the tree".

Columbia

Well as I am preparing for another Impact trip with Book of Hope I am spending some time thinking about my last trip with this organization. It was awesome. Totally wrecked my life! (In the best way that it can be.) We were able to reach so many children in just two days. Close to 2000. When I think about it, it just totally blows my mind. That is probably more children than I have reached through all of the other mission trips I have been on and the ministry I participate in here combined. OUTRAGEOUS!
This trip to Columbia in March is going to be a blast. We have fun people who are willing to step out of their comfort zones going so I know we are totally going to rock it for the Kingdom!
Please pray for us during our time of preparation and while we are in Columbia.