Wednesday, 12 August 2009
(my room, complete with guitar, bed, laptop, coke, Bible, 2 pillows, fan, and fridge! see if you can spot them all)
today was a tiring day! it was good that i could sleep in, so i only woke up at 9am. there were no kids to wake me, because today is mothers' day in Thailand, which is a holiday. anyway after breakfast we started work on laying bricks at the church backyard. first we put sand on the ground to level it, and then spray water onto the sand to firm it up. this took us until lunchtime. after that we started to put the bricks on the ground, knocking each brick on its sides so that it fits nicely with the others. there were more than a thousand bricks, so it took us until dinnertime, but alas there were not enough to finish the whole backyard. so there is still a quarter more to go, which will require about 500 bricks i think. a couple of church ladies also helped us out, including a total of 8-9 guys including me, so some of us could take a break if we wanted. we were served very well too, with regular serving of soft drinks, fruit and even iced coffee! it felt very good holding the cup of ice coffee in one hand, and a brick in the other. the ladies even stood above us with big umbrellas during the heat of the afternoon, though in the end i still got burnt. anyway it was a good workout for me, my 1st exercise for some time. i hope i don't wake up tomorrow feeling sore all over!
thank God for leading 1 of the youths to salvation! her name is Ploi, and her mom and grandma are Christians, but she was not. however, according to pastor Anong, she always comes to church to help out with the childcare centre and attends church service. the pastor has always asked her to accept Christ but she would refuse. but yesterday, when pastor Anong casually asked Ploi if she was ready to accept Christ as her personal Lord and Saviour, she said yes! i was very happy for her too because she's one of the youths whom i got to spend more time with. she helped me when i went shopping for some stuff at Tesco-Lotus, and i went to her place with pastor Anong before. she's also learning Chinese so it's very interesting to try to talk to her in Mandarin. i have been speaking Thai almost all the time, so it's refreshing to be able to speak in English or Mandarin. i really hope that by the end of the 2 months, i'll be able to have a good grasp of Thai, because as of now i still don't understand everything. only when simple words are used, and when spoken slowly, then i can understand fully.
tomorrow is another rest day for me! but at night i'll be going for another cell group, where i will have to share my thai testimony again! even though i'll be reading exactly the same thing as before, i think i'll be nervous again, so i pray for God to strengthen me.
giving thanks at 21:55 :)
david chow en yuan 