Greetings and more introductions from us here in Thailand. Most of you are aware that there are 4 churches that we work very closely with. One of them is the Kusakoi Church. I talked a bit about them as we had our prayer group meeting at their church on March 5. I have also mentioned in the past that the youth groups of the 5 churches meet every other month for worship, fellowship, food and some fun and games. Things start going about 9:30-10:00 am and end up between 2:00-3:30 pm. There may be anywhere from 50 – about 80 youth in attendance. Many of them are Christians and have accepted Christ already, but there are quite a few that have not made that step yet. We move around from church to church so no one church has too big of a burden. January was at Naratchakwai, March at Kusakoi, June will be at Nong Khon Kaen, August will be at Kuseman, October will be at the Christian Mission.
Kusakoi was also the host for the youth this month, so attached are some photographs so that you can meet some of the kids. We had only 5 teenagers go this time because many of our kids are visiting families and all of our 6th graders were preparing for end of year exams this week.
We departed the Christian Mission about 8:15 am or so and arrived at Kusakoi at about 9:00 am. It was a very good trip – I was run off the road only twice by other vehicles passing when they were not supposed to be doing so. The pastor of this church is Note. The pastor of Kuseman church is Nhum. Both of these two guys work very closely together so they help each other out with activities like this. Note led all the singing and acted as a kind of a MC and Nhum preached the sermon – directed directly at the youth. These two guys are very good.
Prior to the sermon and after the singing there is a period of time when each church presents a song or a skit to show what they have been doing at their church. It is always very informative and rewarding. The girls from our church are starting to get a bit brave and singing in English. – Not requested by me, but because they want to. Bee and Nun are doing a great job with the music program here.
The sermon usually takes us up to lunch time – normally 45 minutes to an hour. If it doesn’t the youth have games planned. After lunch we gather together again and it is quiz time. Questions are taken from the sermon that was preached and everybody has a ball. After this there are a series of more games until it is time to pack up and go home.
A side note that we ask your prayers for. We have 8 teens – these teens teach the younger children in their churches. They will be going to a seminar in Khon Kaen March 19-March 22. Christian Mission will be paying the registration fees and transportation one way (Maeo and I will be driving them over – about 4 hours. We will stay the night and then come back on Tuesday morning) Ulterior motive – we will do some shopping before we come back. 🙂
When they return, all eight teens will come to Naratchakwai on April 3 and prepare a 3 day Bible School based on what they learned in Khon Kaen. After they complete the Bible School here and we have a critique, they will take what they have learned back to their own churches and conduct their own Bible School at their own church. This is another first for us here and ask for prayers that all goes well.
Thank you for your time to read this and more important for your prayers that keep us going. God Bless, John and Maeo.
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