Phang Nga, Thailand

Our team is now in Southern Thailand where we will spend the rest of outreach phase.  Some things have changed for us since we have been here.  My co-leader and I both agreed that our team was hard to manage because we were 12 people.  We found it overwhelming to try and disciple everyone with our different leadership styles.  Fortunately, a staff person from YWAM Sunshine Coast came out to visit for a few days.  I mentioned Merv in last week's blog.  He suggested that it might be more effective to split our team up.  This allows us to put more responsibility on the students and allows us to challenge them to step up.  We also can give more attention to each student on the team.  

So far, it has been much better.  The students had mixed feelings about leaving one another but I know this was the best decision for our team.  I have already witnessed people stepping up and taking more initiative. 

So far, my team has been working with a church here in Phang Nga.  Of a town of 50,000, there are mostly Buddhists and Muslims here.  We have had a chance to go into a couple of schools and teach English.  We are also helping out with a community center this week that is building a fence and a coffee shop.  The challenges here in Thailand are new, but the work is very similar.  I'm hoping to see the students gain an understanding of how much people need to hear the the Truth here.  We have been so blessed with this opportunity and have already seen so much here.  Compared to Cambodia, the quality of life is much higher here.  The food is phenomenal, but we have had a lot of sicknesses over the past week.  Please pray that our team gets healthy and that we seize any opportunity we have to share with people here.