Amazing! Already two months and so much to share. I keep saying "oh, we must mention this when we write" and then another week flies by at warp speed.
Since I last wrote we have been quite the globetrotters, travelling to San Francisco, where we ate on the wharf with the seals and watched the cars fly by on Golden Gate bridge.
Since I last wrote we have been quite the globetrotters, travelling to San Francisco, where we ate on the wharf with the seals and watched the cars fly by on Golden Gate bridge.
Then we stopped over in Tokyo, where Christina helped out some Sumo wrestlers and we wandered the lantern lit streets.
In Istanbul, where we wandered the markets and listened to street performers. In London I kissed a guard, rode the tube, made a phone call and Christina nearly got run over by a bus. We've been busy right? No, we just went to a crazy Asian mall that has different country themed floors to meet Gary and Brenda. Then we hung out for a bit and had a lovely dinner with a view. But we have been broadening our international horizons...
As if Thai wasn't enough of an adventure... Christina and I have now officially joined the Hindi group. HINDI?! Oh, yes! And in our group we preach to Punjabi, Urdu, Burmese AND Hindi speakers. But no worries everyone says they are very easy to learn... And as it is only three new alphabets we will be tackling for now (yay! Brittany we learned the Arabic alphabet- who knew), it should be easy right?? My presentation list looks like the tower of Babel. But as Brother Cotton says, it is actually easier to learn two languages at once than one, as long as they are quite different. Um, OK we'll take your word for it!! So you might be wondering what has caused this obvious lapse in sanity...
Well our congregation is currently sponsoring the Hindi group and they only have 3 members, 1 of which is leaving in several weeks. So the need is tremendous. Secondly the food is awesome. Ahem, that probably shouldn't be second :) Seriously though, so many Pakistani families are fleeing to Thailand right now, when else will we have the opportunity to preach to these Muslim families? Since there is a huge Indian/Pakistani population here in Bangkok and no one to preach to them and we love the people, the culture and the ministry; we are now official members of the group, which brings us up to five :) there are three others that come occasionally and might be persuaded to join... need greaters can be quite pushy; I mean persuasive- donchyaknow. Hopefully by October reinforcements will arrive. Here we are celebrating our official arrival into the Hindi group with Rakhi, at a little Indian Restaurant. NAAN!!
My first day in Hindi ministry we met several women who were genuinely touched by our efforts. At every door they offered us something to drink. In three hours we had 2 glasses of water, 2 glasses of juice and 1 cup of chai tea with biscuits. So we'll have to chart out decent restrooms in our territories :) At our last door of the morning a couple invited us in and respectfully listen to Brian as he explained all kinds of things in Hindi that I didn't catch. At the end of the call they told us they had family in the same neighborhood and where they were located. They thanked us profusely for our visit and congratulated Brian on his excellent Hindi skills. They weren't really interested but very nice and hospitable. When we left the rest of the group was waiting for us because it was lunchtime and all the walking and sweating we do merits a good midday meal. As we regrouped Brian and I both wanted to see the other family but everyone wanted to eat so we started to head out, when the householder came out again and said I called my brother in law he is waiting for you. So we broke off from the group and went to his house. They welcomed us into their cool (in degrees) office and asked us many questions about what we teach and why. The conversation was held in a variety of English, Hindi and Thai sentences, as the man is Thai born but Indian and his wife is Indian born but living in Thailand. Eventually he said that he thought he had visited our KH once before, because he was assigned to check it out for the King. As there are only 5 registered religions in Thailand. We of course are well aware of the situation, because we have been requesting official recognition in Thailand for decades. Then the branch would not be under the name Bible students and missionaries would actually get missionary status, etc... We were jumping probably due to the caffeine in the tea but also because we really felt the holy spirit guiding us. The last house we weren't going to get to, ends up being someone who works with the government and might be able to help us get official recognition in the congregation. We were elated to say the least. When we got out of the call we were talking so fast and nearly running down the street to tell the others.
The following day we went to meet one of Rakhi's students who had moved. As we were waiting for them we noticed several Pakistani families in the area. Rakhi started conversing with one family and they were very happy to speak to us and invited us to their home. They speak Urdu and are Muslim, so they had never had the opportunity to talk to the witnesses before. We hope to meet up with them later this week.
Rakhi had an incredible experience last month. She met three men from India on vacation in Thailand. After speaking with them for some time they told her that they had in fact planned to commit suicide and had come to Thailand for their swan song. She shared scriptures with them and they agreed to contact the witnesses immediately upon their return to India.
We've also been supporting the Thai ministry so here are some pictures of that!
It is also the season for people to head home and work, to save up for next year. We had a little going away party for Kendal a week ago. Next Monday Liisa and Rebekka will head home to Finland :( and we will miss them very much. Kendal made us a Thai menu when we arrived so we could order food and not starve to death. Liisa has corrected and translated most of my comments since I've been here and both her and Rebekka have helped us with presentations and in the ministry. We have enjoyed all the fun times with them! They will leave a big hole in our hearts.
Next week we file for our visa's in Jakarta and then head on to Bali to take a little break from all our alphabets :D Hope you are all well!
