July 10 (continued) – After lunch, we rested in the nice comfortable auditorium until the meeting with the hospital staff started at 1:30. The BH kids again started with some icebreakers and we proceeded with our program. Eric shared his testimony about his father undergoing surgery for cancer and how God healed his voice even when the Doctor thought it was likely he could not speak again, and Alice shared about how she gained compassion for the poor and disenfranchised because of what she saw on this trip. Dr. Apithan then shared his testimony, which was supposed to be 5 minutes (10 with translation) but ended up being 30 minutes long, so long Ben had no time to preach. Dr. Apithan shared how his Christian friend challenged him to believe in God and how God answered several of his prayers as a lad, including using buying dogs to reconcile him to his brother. God used his testimony so when the survey among the nurses was taken at the end of the meeting, 13 indicated they had prayed to accept the Lord and another 33 said they were interested to know more about Christ, out of an audience of about 100 or so. God works his wonders and in ways we did not expect, like yesterday at the women's prison when Sue gave the invitation and Ben did not preach again. We then returned to Dr. Glome's clinic ostensibly to rest, but in reality to surprise Joe with a birthday cake. Dr. Vilavun lured Joe and Fiona out to buy snacks for tomorrow morning for the group and in the meantime, someone sneaked in a birthday cake so when Joe and Fiona returned, there we all were to surprise him, quite successfully. Marshall prayed to thank God for Joe and bless him. We then went to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant owned by an elder of the Trad church. Again we had another fine meal with very interesting dishes, including a garlic scallop dish with scallop freshly caught today. Instead of losing weight on this tour, it appears we will all gain weight the way we are treated here in Trad and Bangkok. After dinner, we went to the Trad church for their 7 PM service. They meet in their own building with an upstairs sanctuary that seats about 100. The room was quite filled including all of us, but the room was not air conditioned, so it was warm. As hot as it was, the worship was even hotter. The worship leaders and the congregation sang with great passion and enthusiasm and we felt refreshed by the worship even as we were drained by the heat. We sang the best of all our concerts today at this hot church. Joni and Jaspher shared their testimony, and at last Pastor Ben got to preach his sermon (he did preach earlier in the morning to the HIV patients). Ben spoke powerfully on "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" and blessed the congregation. We were each given a gift (actually, in the morning meeting, we were each given a T-shirt personally designed by the children at the hospital) from the Trad church, most of us getting a towel with the church name embroidered on it. We were also treated to some milk and yogurt, given by a young man we met "by chance" at the gates of the prison yesterday. He was selling milk products for his mother-in-law and just as we arrived there, apparently a non-Christian, but he was attracted enough to search us out and show up at the church tonight just to give us something. We think God is leading this young man and his new wife into the fellowship, through this "chance" meeting, but of course, there is no chance meeting where our sovereign God is concerned. During the meeting, we finally got a phone call (but couldn't talk) from Daya Pradhan, our FECAI director who came to Bangkok to minister to the Nepalis and because we will be going to join the Nepalis tomorrow night. The Nepalis are a socially oppressed group who come to Thailand on work visas, and then get their passports and visas stolen so they can't go back and forced to work for slave wages or be arrested. Sue said the same thing happens to Thai people who go to Israel to work, so this social injustice is something that happens world-wide and is another example of our sinful nature. July 11 – Today is travel day back to Bangkok and visiting the Nepali church. We were going to get up early and swim at the beach in this beautiful resort, but God has a sense of humor. It started to pour from about 4 AM with thunder and lightning, making it dangerous to swim. We met to do devotion and debrief at 8:30 and loaded up to leave at 9, stopping to pick up the rest of the BH team, about 8 adults and 5 the 5 youths who sang with us, who stayed at Dr. Glome's clinic (her house is behind her clinic). Own who sings tenor has been staying with us the whole time we were in Trad including our devotion and debriefing time, and has really become part of Vision versus the other Thai youths who join us occasionally. Own is seeking for a deeper relationship with God so remember to pray for him. We made it back to the Bangkok Christian Guest House by 4 PM, barely in time to meet up with Daya at 4:30 since we had to check in, unpack, and sort out our laundry to get our clothes washed that we need on Sunday. We spent about half an hour with Daya as he shared about the FECAI ministry, and he left to visit some Nepali church members when we went to McDonald's for dinner. We got to the Nepali church before 7, but because most of the Nepali work as maids and other blue collar jobs, could not get there until later so the meeting started at 7:30. We sang for a half hour to a very appreciative audience. Most of the Nepali here come from Myanmar, so when Marshall talked about the songs, they had to be translated to both Nepali and Burmese. After we sang, the Bible students sang and danced for us. Today is a special meeting with three congregations joining at the Myanmar Christian Assembly, a very nice building with air conditioning. It was primarily a fellowship time together with fruits after the short service. One of the congregations actually meets on Monday nights at our Guest House and we met the pastor of this small group, a young man from Pakistan. During the fellowship time, we met Debbie, a young lady with a remarkable story. She met and married a man who died of HIV AIDS shortly after she was married so she contracted the disease also. A few months ago, when Daya came, she told Daya she didn't want to take the AIDS drugs anymore. Daya protested and told her to see the Doctor. Four months later, when Daya was back in Bangkok, Debbie came and told Daya that her Doctor said she no longer had AIDS, that she was completely cured! Another young man shared how he was suffering so badly from headaches he wanted to kill himself. A friend invited him to the church and he said during worship, he felt peace and his headache got better by 50%. The next Sunday, someone prayed for him and he was completely healed. This reminded us again to pray for the blind lady who accepted Christ at the rehab center.
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