NTM Part 10 - THANKSGIVING

On our journey to Chiang Mai on Friday 17 Oct, we had a weight problem due to the stuff we were bringing up: Puppets bag (12kg), Art n Craft bag (18kg) and Goodies bag (17kg). Our team's total baggage weight exceeded by 12-15kg. The staff was about to charge us and she was asking her assistance to add up on the calculator the total weight of our individual bags. Her assistance failed a couple of times and she was also unable to do it. I dont know why but i think God caused her to be confused. She looked up and saw the long queue formed behind us and then she said to me "OK, you can go now" and that was it. WOW, we saved about $150 and thank God for this. Amazingly and awesomely....haha....God enabled us to get them all checked in with no extra cost at Tiger airways.

But we had problems with AirAsia in Bangkok airport. Their policy is one passenger one checkin bag of 15kg, which is what we paid for. Any extra bag will have to pay 100baht each and if exceed 15kg in total, got to pay extra. We needed to check in the stuff we brought and so Eld John and Susan (the two lightest bags amongst us) hand carry their luggage up. But we forgot one thing, i.e. to take out the shampoo, liquid stuff and put into another person's checkin bag. Oh boy, we didnt realise until our hand carry bags were screened inside. Unbelievably, Susan's bag was scanned and contents ignored but eld John's shampoo and body cleanser had to go to the bin. Angela gave her extra bottle to eld John so he need not spend money to buy new ones. And so you see, not all staff were vigilant. Susan could have been a "terrorist" and made a B O M B with her shampoo and stuff.....LOLZ!

Thank God for enabling Laura to teach in Sunday School about responsibility & Hendrick in VBS on repentance.

Thank God too for the preaching of God's Word. Heard from the team that John, at the age of 19, was able to expound God's Word in great depth. I missed his preaching due to sickness on Monday.

Eld John's message on Prodigal Son brought reminder about God's great love and compassion towards us. His message on Jonah during morning devotion was equally engaging and powerful, reinforcing obedience in our lives. Robert's preaching on King Uzziah, who sought God and was blessed till "his heart lifted up to destruction", gave us precious lessons too.

Thank God for Robert & Dara's hospitality towards us. Not forgetting Abigail's lovely cooking who whipped up Hainanese Chicken Rice (Dara's recipe), sumptuous thai food with Tom Yam and Prad Thai. Grace cooked Brownie for us too but i didnt get to taste it coz too much food to eat on that birthday celebration night.

Thank God for keeping the weather dry for us when we needed to have our activities outdoor. He send rain on Wed night to water the earth and gave us cooler temperature the next morning.

Just before we left CHOL for Chiang Mai, Robert brought us to the padi field to show us the future site for the school building. God willing, Dara upon finishing her thesis, will be working in some public school for few months and thereafter granted a licence to be the principal of the new school. We were also shown the site for the church building.

Padi field

Robert gave us stalks of wheat to take home for home deco and that was what some of us were holding in this pic.

Future Church Site

Group Pic before we left. Abigail, the No 1 cook, is the lady beside Eld John. She shared with us about how in the past she was not able to rejoice but now she could and since then, she had been smiling everyday for Jesus.

Thank God for a blessed time of serving, learning and fellowshipping in CHOL. Will show more pics during mission echo. Next to blog will be our holidaying in Chiang Mai.....stay tuned!

P.S. I left out one animal in the insects' blog. Do read if you can coz i just added it there. :)