This is Thailand

This is Thailand, a phrase me and Eugene used often when we saw something just unbelievable. Here let me share and perhaps by the end you will understand as well.

Daily carpool! This was a hard picture to get because both cars were moving pretty fast!
Detention, Thailand style
MANGO STICKY RICE ICE CREAM! SO GOOD!
I'm not even sure what to say.

Packing it on! no need to shop for another year!

A very cool bathroom I used. Twice!
A sign in front of a restaurant down an ally. It was very busy, so apparently it was true that it was tasty
MORE BUGS
worms, YUM

I'll try and continue to post things of substance. But Wednesday I am going to Irvine for a week. See you when I get back on easter sunday!

Patrick

The Last Night In Thailand

Its been a great trip it really has. I met a lot of new friends and saw a part of the world that seems so foreign yet so beautiful. I think the running theme of this whole trip must be "the harvest is plenty, but the workers are few." Thailand has so many missionaries already here, they're called "farangs" meaning the meat of guava (the white part, so it basically means white people but is used to refer to foreigners)

Even though there are so many missionaries, they're are relatively few Christians. I think I mentioned earlier that there are more buddist temples then there are christians in thailand.

The english camp we as a church started 9 years ago was passed on last year to another organization and they've reached out to other local christian groups. The future is bright for our engineering english camp. Elder Aleck met with the president of the university the other day and the president has heard of the english camps work and he likes it a lot and he wishes every faculty (meaning school in the university not just engineering school) should have a summer english camp. All the teachers laughed at this when we heard, because we were so tired from teaching just one week. And there are 25 total faculties. As one teacher put it, "we do serve a big God."

This was my teaching assistant, Acts. Theyre a new component this year to the english camp. theyre here to offer teacher assistance and also to create lasting bonds with the students so that once the teachers leave the camp, the students will be able to build lasting relationships with christians already present on their campus. Acts was really helpful especially walking me through Thai customs and social norms. You wouldn't believe what is insulting, so when in doubt...copy everyone around you.

This is a picture of one of the wild dogs that roam thailand, but this one is nice and he only eats cake. I offered him non-cake food. He refused my offering and was slightly offended.

Eugene has his birthday every year in Thailand for the past 9 years that i know of. Everyone wish him a happy birthday when we get back okay?

Some teachers, well this was the US team minus me and Beverly. I took a picture of all the green foods we had in Thailand

And last but not least, I would like to introduce you to my class! we took our classes out to eat lunch on the last day. Look how happy they are! starting from the left its Min, Natt, Mew, Ohm, Acts, Me and on the right closest to us its Nam, Yee, Moo, and Pound.

The other classes are in the back. roughly around 50 people and our total bill came out to be under 3000 bath( pronounced Baht). I think the converstion rate is 32 bath to a dollar. so 50 people ate for under 100 dollar. WOW

I Loved Thailand. I could live here someday perhaps. Thank you for all your prayers, and I am grateful that God blessed me with unemployment so that i could come to this trip and be blessed again in thailand.

My prayer request is that if you could pray for our teaching assistants that they may maintain relationships with the students and show them Jesus. And 36 students out of around 100 expressed that they wanted to know more about God from our questionnaire. Please pray for those students and for the rest that a seed has been planted and that God will grow his spirit within them.

Goodnight and God Bless,

Patrick

p.s. I will still be updating because there are many days i missed including some funny things i must share but i'm too tired now. So please keep checking back!

Thailand Day 7: Wednesday Carnival

Today is Wednesday. And it went very well. Thank you all for your prayers. Class was wonderful and I even have an hour of rest between classes and our dinner to rest and to write this update.

I promise when i have time I will fill in the other days. but for now an abridged version.

After class today we held a carnival with another christian organization which we're passing on the english came to. The point of the carnival was to bring the students out of a learning environment and to give them a fun environment where we could build relationships and also show God in our lives to them.

Australian Hot dog with CHEESE!!!

That Kid with the peace sign is named Ohm, yes like the physic unit. Hes in my class. In the background is an 8-player guitar hero.

Gabe do you recognize the big guy? He was apparently one of Gabes students last year. Theyre playing sort of another game. Most of these games were custom made by an australian missionary with a PhD in mechanical/electrical engineer (i forget which)

I have a prayer request. Would you pray that the students again come out tomorrow night to another dinner where there will be a sermon. Tonight was just a testimony. The testimony was based around a verse that the speaker could not remember. The verse was "Follow God's will and your path will be laid out before you. Pray that God has moved their hearts.

May the Grace of our Lord be with you,

Patrick Sun

P.S. Your prayers its really making a difference. I did get rest today and the students seem to really be enjoying themselves.

chaos

sorry i have no time between prepping for classes and redoing workshops to post. I will post something of interest as soon as i find time. but i spend probably 2 waking hours a day in my room and those are all on lesson plans and workshops.

Please keep me in your prayers, because i am simply exhausted and constantly unprepared.

And for my students that they are enjoying and learning and that the find Jesus.

In God's love,

Pat

Thailand Day 4: Sunday Service

We went to a church in Thailand and it was majority Caucasian which surprised me too. We didn't go to the CMO church because all of the members were still in the mountain celebrating the wedding. The speaker was very passionate and compelling.

Two things stood out to me personally. The first was that he calls his Cancer a blessing. Its a blessing he says because it is able to strip away his pride, jealousy, prejudice and make him fully rely on God for support. It humbles him and makes him appreciate life. It helps him ignore the little things, the often times petty things in life that cause jealous and lust and greed. It allows him to concentrate on God.

The second idea was about grace. Often times people use the forgiveness aspect of grace to forgive sins, however God also grants a pre-emtive grace to keep us sin from the first place. And most people under utilize that part of grace. The saving grace that keeps us from sin as opposed to the one that absolves our sins.

Sorry I'm starting to fall behind on my posts because we just started the camps and its very time consuming. Today we were up at 6:30 and got back to our hotel around 5. And I have to prepare lessons for each day so my posts will be less frequent. I'm sorry

I have a prayer request concerning the english church i went to. Most of them work for a school called Grace. And they just spend thousands of dollars developing the school and building things like a pool for their students, however the government just recently deemed the land that they built the school on was illegally obtained so now theyre in the processes of repossessing the land right after they just finished building the school. Can you pray that God's will be done concerning this matter, that he preserves the school so that it can be a launching point for future leaders spreading the love of Christ. Pray that God changes the hearts of the government officials. And if it is his will to remove the school, pray that he will comfort those who work and attend the school.

Praise God,

Patrick

Thailand Day 3: A Mountain Wedding

It was a wedding banquet of a Thai and a Hmoung. The bride was Hmoung and the groom was Thai. It was a beautiful wedding in the mountains neighboring Chiang Mai. (which is kind of rural, but they recently got electricity so they have those bright bulbs all around the village, its like all over the mountain seriously)

CMO has built a church in this rural village and i think its partly why we're here at the wedding haha because the bride is a member of the church. The Groom's mother is actually a fortune teller and refused to allow the couple to marry knowing she was a christinan, but eventually she agreed. We're all grateful that God has moved in the mother's heart to allow them to marry even though she does not believe. It also showed me some of the struggles that other christians face outside of my normal day to day.

My one prayer request today is that you pray this newly married couple, Jed and Leek that they have a fruitful marriage and that Jed comes to know our Lord. Pray that the Lord strengthens their bond and that the Holy Spirit dwells in their marriage.

"O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever!" psalms 30:12b

Thank for being with me as I am in Thailand, and Thanks for all your prayers and continual support. And thank you for those of you who posted! it really makes me feel like people are reading this. I am grateful for your opinions and comments on what we're doing here in Thailand. And i am completely sincere when i say I hope you will express your views without hindrance, I am blessed to be able to see different perspectives.

God's grace be with you,

Patrick Sun

Thailand Day 2: Food and Transportation

Day 2 was simply adjusting to the time change. I woke up around 2am which is my customary wake up time in the US (11am) and I went back to sleep and woke up at 7 for breakfast. The real work doesn't start until Sunday when we start our meetings and shopping for supplies leading into our first day of class on Monday.

God has been everywhere as he always is, but in Thailand I really feel his blessing and favor especially being born an American. I feel I've been exceptionally fortunate to have been born in a country where not only do i live extremely well, but also the fact that knowing our native language and being able to teach can greatly improve a person's quality of life simply by the fact that they can take higher paying jobs. In this season of my life i feel that I have received enough blessings for a lifetime and they're still coming. I feel almost guilty and the chinese upbringing is telling me that I have not earned or deserve any of this. Which is completely and utterly true! But by the grace of God we are blessed, so instead of kicking myself and feeling guilty I receive with a thankful heart and excited to pour my blessings out to others when the time comes.

One other thing, it is said that there are more temples in Thailand than Christians in Thailand. Yet I am amazed how gentle and kind the Thai people are. Even though a majority of them have very little, they are very warm and kind people. I get so many smiles i don't know what to do with them, so i've been returning them as fast as i get them. Personally as a christian, most of the time I am no where near as kind as the average Thai person. It really puts my own attitude into perspective. Especially my motivation to be kind is Jesus's sacrifice on the cross.

Prayer Request: I hope you will continue to pray for the holy spirit to speak through my team and that the Lord prepares the heart of the students that they may receive the gospel.

some pictures following the theme of my day, transportation and food, because sometimes it seems like thats all were doing, we're driving to another food place. did i tell you the food here is DELICIOUS!?

We're eating lunch at Pizza hut, JK its 198 dollars my goodness! haha the conversion rate is 30 baht to 1 dollar. do the math and its still pretty expensive considering you could get some crickets and a thai ice tea for about 1 us dollar

MMMM!! delicious, true missionary food. I'll bring some home for all of you to delight in!

This is a girl in a wheel chair driving a converted moterbike, crazy. its a motor bike and a normal bike, and a wheel chair. CRAZY! you will definitely be seeing Jesus if you got into an accident in one of these

Jethro in one of the taxi's taking us to a EAT. this kid can only smile one way look at that. and he has deemed me his new best friend yet continues to ask my name on a daily basis

Family vacation! thailand style

Thanks be to God,

Pat