Songkran water festival

We finished the summer camp just in time to play in the water during Sonkran, Thailand's yearly water festival. Sonkran is actually the traditional Thai new year. Water is "sprinkled" on people as a blessing. However, that "blessing" has turned into an all out water fight of major proportions. This year, Sonkran was from April 11 - 16. Poople stand at the side of the road with hoses and buckets spraying and dousing everyone who passes by. Others ride in the back of trucks with water buckets and throw water at everyone they see. A few people throw ice water. A few people color the water various colors. A few people add powder to the rinse. This year, for the first time in Chiang Khong, there was a cordoned off place where people played in soap suds. Yes, I did say soap suds. On the lighter side, there are also boat races and beauty contests and concerts.

I personally stayed dry and cool by driving the truck up and down the streets of Chiang Khong with the girls in the back of the truck playing in the water. And a good time was had by all. :-)

Summer camp 2012

March 19 - April 11 2012

We held a summer camp for the boys and girls who live with us. 10 girls and 6 boys attended. The staff consisted of Bible students doing summer internships with us as well as other Bible college/college students that have lived with us in the past.

Weekdays started at 8 AM with Old Testament history taught by Jaelyn followed by 2 hours of English. English was taught by Pha, a Hmong American who is here visiting. It's such a blessing to see Hmong Americans have a heart for the Hmong here in Asia. Afternoons we broke up into smaller groups for a more enriching learning experience. The theme for the afternoons was Christian service. La taught a group on teaching the Bible to children. Pha taught a group on sharing personal testimony/evangelism. Jaelyn and Yua taught on leading worship. Chai taught piano/keyboard. We now have some budding musicians!! Many of the students can already play guitar and one of the boys can play drums. Every evening we had a time of games/worship and teaching from the Word. The worship was student led and the Bible students shared from the Word on a rotating basis. Late afternoons and evenings were filled with games and sports and everyone had a blast! Yee, pastor Somboon's wife even did a short seminar on basic first aid which everyone loved. Nu did a short seminar on waiting for the person that God has for you rather than getting married quickly. That was the highlight of entire time for some of the students. The last night, the 11th, we had a banquet and the students shared what they had learned. Time and space don't permit me to share everything, but I would like to share a few highlights.

God is raising up a few worship leaders among the students, cheifly Daniel.

Esther (a nickname) has decided to give up reading teenage romance novels in favor of reading the Bible and has given her books to me to hold onto.

Nai shared a Bible lesson with the children in the village where we are teaching children for the first time ever. She really has a gift!

None of the boys had ever done anything like this before and the first day there was nothing but complaining from the boys, but the testimonies from all of the boys at the end was that it was really fun and nothing like what they expected.

For the first time in a long time I've seen our students, both boys and girls take an active interest in teaching children in the village and they are really get into teaching and spending time with the children in the village. And, most importantly, they have a heart to do it.

Some of our students actually wrote their own worship songs to teach the children in the village. The songs are totally awesome!!