Viva Pattaya City

We've now been in Pattaya for one and a half week, and here we have a diverse ministry, but we're all working with the Tamar Center in central Pattaya. The girls' ministry includes english teaching for women formerly in prostitution and outreach to bars in the walking street three times a week. The boys take part in the prison ministry, distributing food, water and medicines (and also a word of God ;) to the prisoners of two prisons here and hanging out with the local youth at The Crossing. We also take part in some prayerwalks together with the Tamar center staff. This is a ministry more of a serving kind, but we see alot of hope as we are ministering. In the prison they are generally very excited to hear a word of God. The girls of our team also get to pray for many of the women working in the bars, and they also feel that God is moving. We have also enjoyed distributing Chinese bibles at the Bali Hai Pier. We have learned some Chinese phrases and shouting out to the Chinese tourists at the Pier ;) niha-a-aa-aa-uma!!

It's been very good to get to know the staff at the Tamar Center, and to see their hearts for the people living in this city. We've also taken part in the slum ministry, sharing food and hope with the people of the Pattaya slums. Next week we will take part in a youth camp in 5 slums of Pattaya.

We are having a really good time together as a team, eating rice all the time and having some teamparties every now and then :D The ocean holds a temperature of at least 30 degrees and the air-temperature is around 40 degrees (Friday had 43 degrees).

Hannah in one of the bars - outreach with the Tamar Center

We're singing "min baat er saa liten - og havet saa stort" in the biggest slum area of Pattaya City

Hannah and Ingis giving out food in the slum

A guy from the slum, victim of a motorcycle accident

The kids are drawing God, Jesus and themselves on cut-out pieces of paper

English teaching at the Tamar Center

Worship at Tamar

This is from the Sunday service in a hotel-church. The topic was creation, and we were all supposed to use our own creativity in the beginning of the meeting. This is Linn's masterpiece.

The girls threw us a "boys-party" since the team has quite a few girls in it. They bought us t-shirts, pizza and a real actionmovie.

They also invited Alicia Keys to come. (No, it's really not Linn..)

Magnus, 29.04.2009. (Actually, the calendar in Thailand shows 29.04.2553) (Years after Buddha)

Back again!

Now we're in Pattaya, south of Bangkok. For two weeks we've been far away from the sivilized world, this time further north of Chiang Mai close to the border of Myanmar. The Karen people is considered an unreached people group that is located both in Nothern-Thailand as well as in Myanmar, in the Karen State.

In the beginning of the 1st week we visited the Karen YWAM-base outside a smaller city called Mae Sot. From there we started going from one village to another, having Children Ministry and open air meetings. In the end of the 2nd week we joined a youth camp, arranged by the local Anglican Church. About 95 youths were assigned for the weekend and our team got to have a 3- hours-teaching with them for 3 days.

We left really encouraged about God's work in people. We got to pray for many, and God with His mighty power and true love touched many individuals in different ways, among them through healing.

Coming down from the mountains after visiting two villages, we had to wait for about 3 hrs in front of a river due to flood, before driving across it.

Having fun in the back of the truck!

We actually celebrated Easter with movie and Easter Chocolate from Norway! Yeah!(Karen YWAM Base)

3 beautiful girls wearing "Sarongs", Karen clothing!

This is Hsaw Moo Paw - our Karen contact person!

Playing "The Shark" with a bunch of energetic kids!

The Youth Camp! Try to find Hannah... ;)

Imagine having 7 people in this "Tuktuk"!

Resting in a village...

We got to have some drama practice with some kids. This is "The Halleluja"-drama..

Cheers!

- Ingeborg B. Eriksen

Picture time!

Today we had our last day with the great and joyful kids and staff at the Home Of Joy here in Chiang Mai. It has been two very active and good weeks where we have gotten to work with our loving an serving, and we will definentely all miss these wonderful kids and the devoted staff at this place. Such submission and joy in the Lord are not to be found many places! It's been a real privelige to be able to invest into the future generation of Thailand in this way, as we really have a lot of faith in these kids.For some nights we have been doing some night evangelism, reaching out to the poor, tourists and men and women in prostitution. It touches us to feel God's bleeding heart for these people, and we've been able to build some relationships and to pray for some healings. Tomorrow is however a new day though, and we are off to new adventures in this colourful and diverse country. The two next weeks will be spent in the mountains in a more Northern aerea, in villages located close to Mae Sot. This will be weeks with lots of evangelism, a youth camp, childrens ministry and what more, amongst the originally Burmese Karen people group. Very exciting!
Please keep us in your prayers still, by that you can make an enormous difference!


Worlds biggest Buddha statue

On our day-off we went to a village where we did some random elephant riding and bamboo rafting. We do especially recommend the rafting part:)




Blessings, peace, over and out -Ingebjoerg-

First days in Thailand

We've now been in Thailand for almost a week, and we're enjoying it alot.
We started in Bangkok, and stayed at the YWAM base for 3 days. We got a cultural introduction, including a treasurehunt to get to know the culture a bit. We tasted fruit we've never seen before at the market, eaten delicious thai food, and visited 3 buddhist temples in Bangkok.

Saturday morning we arrived in Chiang Mai, and we are now working at the Home of Joy, with 4-6 year old kids. These kids would have been street children, but they are now living together with Kathleen and some other staff at this house, which is just like a home. For these to weeks to come we are playing with them, doing some practical work and joining their field trips. On Sunday we went to a beautiful waterfall with them.


(The automatic publishing dates and times are not correct.)

- Magnus, 3/24/09

:) :) :) :) :)

heyheyhey, we're finally here!!
Loving it so far, and the temperature is nice and cozy:)

Well, we've gotta go, but we'll soon be back to update you further!

Thank you so much for praying for the journey, it went by blessed and relaxed.

Smiles from the land of smiles :) :) :) :) :)

here we go

wow, I'm so excited!!