Friday, February 02, 2007

Moving!

Hey everybody... Our time here in Chiang Rai is coming to an end quickly. Monday afternoon we'll be getting on a bus and taking a three hour trip south to Chiang Mai. Our last couple of days here will be fun. Tomorrow (Saturday) we'll mostly just be around the Youth Center, hanging out with the kids we've gotten to know over the last month. It's been fun to see our team really get to know a lot of the kids. It seems like each of us has 2 or 3 that we've really clicked with. It'll definitely be a hard transition as we have to say good-bye to the kids. On Sunday, we'll be visiting a church up near the border of Burma. We'll take a brief visit across the border and visit Burma for little while. Gotta get Zara into as many different countries as we can!

The focus of the second half of our trip will be very different than the first half. We will have two main types of ministry that we're working with:
1. We're working with a couple different organizations that work with women coming out of prostitution. Most of what we'll be doing will be centered around education (us getting educated). Because we're only there for 3 1/2 weeks, our involvement will be somewhat limited. But we're really praying and hoping that our eyes would be opened to this enormous issue that is so prevalant here in Southeast Asia. The organizations we'll be working with help to provide education and training for the women, enabling them to get jobs. The issues surrounding prostitution here are myriad, so we're hoping to get a glimpse into this problem.

2. The other thing we'll be doing is hosting an English club for University students at a University that is very close to the house where we'll be staying. Basically all students here really want/need to learn English, so that's an easy way for us to meet people. Our desire is to build relationships with the students we're able to meet. When we came here 4 1/2 years ago, we met some friends that we still keep up with, and who we'll be seeing when we get to Chaing Mai. We hope that our team can also build lasting relationships with people here.

Thanks for your continuing prayers. We appreciate them. Things have been going really well. You can be praying that Zara does well on the bus ride Monday.

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