A busy time at for the Asian Gospel Outreach

Here's an update from Mike on the Northmen team.

Hello all from Thailand, Today was a day of travel, preparation, buying, wedding rehearsal and such. All on Thai time of course. Scott is really having trouble with Thai time. He wants to do everything like in America. Now Now Now! That does not work here. Tomorrow is the big wedding (rehearsal tonight and I must remember in Lisu there is no kissing of the bride. Nick when with Norman and Joseph today to complete the marriage deal. He got off with two water buffalo, final cost arrangements yet to be set. I think we are sending the couple south to the beautiful beaches of Thailand for about four days. Then they will come back to work here with Ahtapa and Leah. Nick is ideal for the work. The kids love him. Athapa trusts him and knows him fairly well. Ahlemi is already a part of the family and Nick might as well be.
So tomorrow morning busy, busy. Wedding at 10........ish. But before that all the cooking and final prep. We hauled home enough food for an army from Changmai today. Radishes,
big withe ones for greens and to dice into the stir fry, mustard greens, oranges, squash, onions, garlic, two or three other kinds of greens; Oh yes, another pig is being slaughtered as I write. That makes three since we have been here. Grandpa no longer has this job. Chatchai is now in charge and boys do it all. This piggy will be stir fry for the multitude tomorrow.
Hopefully things will settle down Friday afternoon after all leave. Maybe Saturday we will do a little travel and some evangelism. If we meet here Sunday one of us will preach or maybe two. Dennis has been leading the kids early morning devoitons and he does a great job. (for you early riseers that happens at 4:40 am). Then the kids work on the rosetta stone program (english study) and breakfast before being off to shcool. Of course no one will go to school tomorrow. We need to do some finish up work on our stairway project yet but it will not take long. It is usuable. We have the material in hand to build the learning center score table. Hopefiully we can get that all cut out and maybe even get started putting it together before we leave.

So long for now. I will try to get someting off tomorrow after the wedding. Who knows what is going to happen. I am wearing native Lisu pants and shirt. Nick will be in tux and Ahlemi in a rented gown. Later. Mike"

Update From Ahtapa and Mike

I received two updates today. The first is from Ahtapa (the head of the Asian Gospel Outreach), and the second is from Mike (the director of the Northmen Ministry and leader of the team that is visiting this week). Ahtapa also sent pics. I will try to add them to our flickr site.

"Greetings to you from Thailand. We are all doing fine here in the land of Smile. Thank you very for your prayers. The two major aiports are back to full services now. Yeh, There was time of concern and worry and doubt but now we all got through that moment with God's help. Big thanks for your prayers.

We had wonderful Norhtmen meeting in the jungle. We got home and all the ladies had prepared big Thanksgiving feast for us. The sermons were excellents. The theme for this year is "Content In Christ"

there were 50 people.( Adults and young boys). The weather was nice. Not as cold as last year but cold enought that we had to set big camp fire and got around it.

We will be busy in building more score station for our learning center. We also need to put at least one more stairway up to the building. We have Mike Steere, Norm Miller, Dennis Moss, Scott Davison, and Nick Papi to help us for these projects. By the way Nick Papi will get marry with Ahlemi on this coming Friday. This another main event coming soon.

Well I have to stop for now. I need to take the bath before it get too cold. Have a wonderdul day of worshp and fellowship.

YOur brother Ahtapa and family."

"Hello All, We are home and all went well at the Northmen meeting. Ahtapa has written about that so I will let Terry send it also. I think there were about 50 of us. The fellowship was great and we saw many old friends. Coming back here we shared in the annual Thanksgiving assembly and meal. It was great as usual. We are tired but happy and glad to be here. Tomorrow we will begin work on outside stairway to the learning center and also the
score station for the learning center. This school system is real neat and we will fill you in on it more as we observe and talk with the kids who seem to be very excited about it. The outside stairway is necessary so kids will not have to go up through the boys dorm. In other words the learning center is the upper room of the building we built two years ago. The property Ahtapa is looking at is really interesting and we will be discussing that more through the week. We still need to sell our Northmen property in Ogemaw County to pay for the school property here.
Weather is beautiful with sun and warmth although chilly at night. We will be buying some blankets and a new wash machine (pump gone on the old one). That is the way we use the funds some of you have sent to be used here.
We had no major travel problems and in fact arrived here much sooner than we thought we could. God was at work and we thank all of you who prayed. Tonight we are relaxing a little and a devotional time later. We will be off to bed early because its back to school tomorrow for the kids. Friday they were off due to the King's birthday. Things are ok here in this area but be praying for Thailand in general. Norman and Scott are out checking out the village. If they don't get back by dark we will go find where they are wandering. The kids will find them easy.
I will try to write tomorrow and let know how the stair way is coming. Cost of that will be one of our projects also. As will the cost of the score center. In Him love, Mike"

Update on the Northmen team and our house sell

An update on the team visiting the Asian Gospel Outreach I received today:
"Hi all, just a short note to let you know that the men arrived safely at the hostel on Thurs.morning. Will be leaving Fri for the mountains and the Thai Northmen. Thank you for all your prayers. Terry"

As for the house, the sell fell through. The buyer got cold feet...something about his possible divorce. I don't know. So anyway, we've lowered the asking price from $89,900 to $85K. It showed again today. Please continue to pray.

The loss of George

The study of missions has made me more aware of cultures and cultures within cultures. It's really interesting to watch how people interact. It's particularly eye opening when you step out of your own for a season and then return.
I have recently been amerced in to the Kentucky blue-collar world, and I find it quite amusing. I stopped to listen to a couple of men talking at the job site today. They thought I was interested in the conversation, and I was to a degree. But what really intrigued me was the fact that one of them was speaking English with such a country slur I had to make an effort to follow. It was like another language.

One dear friend invited me to his "place" for lunch. He owns quite a bit of land a long the river with a number of rental properties, but he's living out of several tents and a RV trailer. He's planning on turning his "new" box truck into living space as well. His house burnt down about 5 months ago, and He's working on rebuilding, but the kicker for me was the lumber delivered today, not for the house, but for the new deck he wants me to help him build over the river.
How people determine priorities and lifestyles is fascinating. He loves his simple, debt-free living, and even his wife seems happy.

This Thanksgiving brought a bit of a downer for him though. He had befriended a couple of wild, white geese. They knew his voice. As he would walk down toward the river and call, "George!...Lucy!" And they would start honking.
He went to visit his daughter for Thanksgiving, and when he returned, Lucy was alone and honking inconsolably. These sort of geese mate for life. Someone must have shot George for their family feast. My friend was so angry the next time I saw him, he said, "I hate people." He took time off to make Lucy a home on the bank out of bails of straw.
Today when we went to lunch, he made sure to feed her. "I gotta' keep her eating through her morn'n."
One of his friends was there and asked about her mate. He seemed upset as well to hear of the loss and agreed to help get her a new partner.

Some would argue that these folk have their priorities messed up and need to change their lifestyles, and how this all meshes with my Christian views of priorities and such is up for debate. But I'm gleaning some insight from the riverbank and learning a bit about love from this culture within my culture.

Travel prayers

I got an offer on the house today (Praise the Lord!! It's been on the market for 4 months), but the offer is very low. I'm making a counter offer this afternoon. Please pray that I will have wisdom, and the house will sell soon. The sooner it sells the better we can prepare financially for our move to Thailand.

Here's an update from Mike I received today:
"Hi All, Thanks for your many, many prayers. God indeed answers. We leave tomorrow morning with the same basic schedule. We will not be going anywhere near Bangkok and will arrive in Changmai about the same time we would have the other way. Thanks much. We will let you know when we arrive. Mike"

Travel trouble for Mike

One of my advisers (Mike Steere) for our Thailand move is trying to visit Ahtapa this week, but I got this message from him yesterday:

"Hello All, I know this is earlier than you expected but we have a desperate need. Due to some problems (prostestors) in Bangkok our part of the flight going there is canceled for now. We need you to pray for two options. 1. The airport there will open up before the 2nd of Dec. 2. A flight being altered from Thaipei to Changmai to Amsterdam will have an opening for the four of us when we need it. Pray please. we will have another bulletin for you when we get more info. The situation in Thailand is in Bangkok and so we are in no danger going to Changmai. Our problem is getting there. Thanks Mike"

Heidi's Thoughts About Honor vs. Justice

I personally think that honor is better than justice; because well if you honor someone you usually respect them and put them first. It says in the Bible, put others first; love your enemies ,treat them with love and care just like you would your son, daughter, or even a pet that is very dear to you. It says pray for those who persecute you. It also says commandment num. 5- honor you father and your mother like kings and queens.

So I have to say I respect that command; and I try my best day by day to follow that command. As I was told by my dad, friends, pastor, and many of my grandparents.

Justice I’m not that sure about. Some people say that when someone is about to get someone back for hurting them they sometimes say “justice is served…” or something like that.

Some people are in the army or in the marines; they sometime just do it for the justice of their country or maybe because their close friend is in it; but quite frankly I can’t see God holding a gun and shooting at men, women, and children. The people they are fighting against need to be taught how to love. Not only that but they are very thirsty for the word of God. They may not show it but you should know in your heart that they do. If you don’t know that; that’s fine but don’t point a gun at them.

People have been fighting in Iraq so much that they have killed so many men. So now they are fighting for justice, even though they are running out of men. So they are recruiting children; and women. Soon they won’t have anything to fight for.

So no offence to those who I am talking about; the whole war thing pretty stupid. If you’re fighting for justice of your country, just stop fighting period.

Why not show some honor to them. Like I said in my first paragraph; love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. So if they (the people we are fighting as of now) are considered enemies then don’t kill them, don’t even hold them hostel. Let them live their life how it is; and if you can try to help make their lives better.

Its called changing the world. So if you want to be famous. Love, learn, and live try to change the world. Don’t join the army and the marines because its cool; in fact try not to do it at all. Try to make honoring people your goal in life.

Life with out honor would be a catastrophe. We (us kids) would probably not be here this very day if we didn’t honor the law, our parents, ect. What if we didn’t honor police authority? What if we didn’t follow the lights? This world would be a disaster. When all we have to do is honor authority.

So my vote has to completely go to honor.