Stickywrites

Fa la la la la…la la la la!  We are getting geared up for a very busy Christmas season here in Thailand.  There are Christmas trees for sale at local malls, peppermint mochas at Starbucks, glittery gold streamers on our neighbors patio,  and Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas” playing at department stores. (If you don’t know this song, you should). Prep time has begun – Andrew and I are playing Mary & Joseph in a lip-synching Christmas story this Saturday at Mahathai, a slum area our team has been involved with in our community.  Our Thai interns have the Christmas story tape in Thai that will play while a big group of us acts it out silently…this should be interesting since when we did our first run-through I will still moving my lips when I was supposed to be acting surprised the angel had appeared to tell me I would be pregnant with baby Jesus; then Andrew and I were still “travelling” to Bethlehem when we were supposed to already be talking with the innkeeper.  Oh well.  Hopefully the families at Mahathai will understand.  Most of them will be hearing this story for the first time – so pray that even through our acting blunders they will hear the true reason for Christmas!

We are also having a Christmas party with our English students at our Friday night Get-Together.  We will have Christmas cookies, carols, a White Elephant gift exchange, and Andrew will be sharing the true meaning of Christmas and why we have moved  here – not entirely to teach English – and he’s doing it in THAI!  Yay.  This is a huge endeavor, so pray pray pray for this as usually our Friday night Game Nights are fun and superficial as we still get to know many of the attendees and students.

We will also have a Thai worship service on Sunday, the 17th, for Christmas and have invitied basically all our contacts in this area  – friends, fellow Christians, street vendors, food vendors, former colleagues…it should be big and great and we are praying God will work through this service to share the Gospel with those who haven’t heard it.

We are also going to Nong Khai this week, for 2 days, to discuss our plans for the coming year with the pastor there, Samran.  Please pray for these plans to be made and for us to have willing, servants hearts as it is hard to think about being away from our team and Bangkok for an entire week each month!

My basic theme for this post is (da da da da DA!)= PRAY.  For the Christmas outreaches, services, parties, interactions, relationships developed, EVERYTHING that will be happening in the next 2 weeks.  Pray for us as we miss our families, friends, the Christmas-ey feeling here in Bangkok heat, the decorations, music, everything.  It’s not my first Christmas to be out of the country & away from my family, but it is Andrew’s and it’s STILL very hard for me and him.  Thank you that we have each other and our team around us.