Thailand update - July 5th

Thailand update, July 5Th.

Hello again from Thailand. Wow! What a fun day we've had so far.

Momma Tan guided us through the tropical gardens today. We had our usual team time first thing in the morning, and then travelled to the gardens at 8:30am. We just returned. It's 3:00pm.

There were some cultural shows that were amazing, elephant shows that were nearly unbelievable. How do they teach an elephant how to throw darts? How do they teach elephants to dance to disco music? Or, play basket ball. Bowling? Soccer? Wouldn't that be a cool job to have? Teaching an elephant how to throw darts?

Everyone on the team (except for me) did some awesome prayer walking through the gardens. What made it so awesome was that they did in on elephants. Yup! That's right! They rode elephants through the gardens and prayed over the Chinese people there, the garden grounds, and asked special prayer for the owner - that his heart will be softened and will allow future distribution on the grounds.

Wendy made a new friend today. He's much better looking than Paul. I'll try to post a photo.

I may have made a slight typo in yesterday's update. We distributed over 100 packets, not 200. To date we've distributed 150+ packets. I was told this number exceeds expectations since we're in a very slow tourist season.

Every member of the team is doing wonderful. It's exciting to be able to look a Chinese national in the eyes as you hand him/her a bible, and see the joy in their expressions. It's also very sad to see others who have no expressions. They are very empty and lost. Wendy described them as being zombies. Completely lifeless and cold.

Something I forgot to mention yesterday was about how we prayer-walked the walking street. The walking street is one of the main attractions of this town, and is about 1/2 mile of shops and bars on either side of a cobble-stone street. This is a very dark and evil place. We split up into teams of 3 people each and staggered the teams apart. We walked down to the end and back, covering the area with prayer. It was intentional for us to do this during the day light for safety reasons. When night falls, that street is very evil.

As I walked down the street it felt as if I was being stalked even though most of the time nobody was behind us, or near us. Everyone in our team returned untouched physically, but extremely touched emotionally in one way or another. What an eye opener to see such a place.
In contrast, distribution immediately following the prayer walking was exciting and satisfying. To be a part of leading people down a golden path to Christ, to know you have been used by God to affect potentially thousands of people's eternal salvation. How can you not feel extremely humbled, blessed, and fulfilled? Our God is an awesome God!!! Our God is more powerful than any evil we face, on the walking street or anywhere else.

The rest of today is for the team to chill, rest, swim, walk the beach, take naps, whatever. We will probably regroup around 7:00 for dinner. We'll probably walk down the road to eat... uh... Italian or German food. <-- This cracks me up!

I'm still photo challenged. I hope to get some pictures for you soon.

YBIC,

Jim

p.s. Yes, mom, I remembered today is Mandy's and my 10th anniversary.