Major Outreach? Check!

Hello Everyone!

Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve had access to technology! I must admit I’m going through a little bit of culture shock right now. Three days ago my team and I got back from our main outreach on Doi Inthanon. It was an incredible experience and I don’t even know where to begin!

First off, I will tell you about our living arrangements. When we arrived in Kuhn Wang Village (a Black Hmong village of about 800 Black Hmong people), we pulled up to a cabin that is meant to house about five people—there were 19 of us. To say the least, it was a bit of a squeeze. The idea of “personal space” went out the window in the first hour, and by the grace of God, all of us got through the outreach still liking each other! In fact, being together 24/7 made us grow closer together and caused us to get more creative in how to get away with Jesus, which for me meant learning how to read my Bible while being plugged into my Ipod. We had to boil water unless you wanted little friends in your stomach, and there was no heat except for the wood fireplace that smoked out the house. Since we were on the highest mountain in Thailand, some nights it would reach in the low 40’s Fahrenheit. That was hard for many of the Thais considering they’d never experienced below 50 degrees Fahrenheit in their life!

Our outreach actually did not involve a ton of ministry time but manual labor. We worked with a missionary couple named Bruce and Dia Taylor. Our days were long, but it taught us how to rely on God for physical strength. We would eat breakfast at 6:30, have a prayer meeting at the Taylor’s house at 7:45, and then start work at the tea fields at 8 am. Lunch was from 12-1, then work again from 1-5. Dinner was at 6 pm followed shortly by team time at 7:30. We were exhausted by the end of the day, which was understandable considering many of us were not used to doing manual labor for 8 hours a day. Why we did so many hours of manual labor and not ministry was because, well, that’s what the Hmong people do! All of the Hmong families farm, and most of them would work in their fields over 8 hours a day. By working all day and still finding time to spend with God we were being an example to other believers in the village on how to still make God a priority—despite the lack of time. Being so busy was not easy either. Most, if not all of us left that outreach very different people than we were when we first came. Learning how to live with 19 people and continually being exhausted taught all of us a lot about ourselves, and we had to COMPLETELY rely on God for our physical, mental, and spiritual strength.

My highlight from outreach was probably the home stay. Our team broke up into groups of three and for three days and three nights we stayed with Christian families within the village. My group stayed with a sweet older couple with their son and pregnant daughter-in-law. The older couple welcomed my group and I with loving arms and required us to call them Auntie and Uncle. They treated us like their honored guests; always making us eat loads of rice and giving us lots of time to rest between work. It was so great to be able to continue to visit them and build relationships with the during our free time after the home stay as well. Their daughter-in-law actually had her baby a week before we left and we were able to see their precious little girl when we said goodbye to them all. It was a great privilege to be able to walk with them during that exciting time.

Also, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays us native English speakers got to go and teach English at the local primary school for two hours. I worked with the fourth graders, which was a very new yet rewarding experience. I learned that I actually have somewhat of a talent for teaching, which doesn’t surprise me considering both my mom and grandma are brilliant teachers J. I loved getting to know the kids and despite the language barrier (I’m afraid their English was quite poor) we still got to build relationships and share the gospel with them. I was able to make some very special little friends J.

I feel like I could go on talking about main outreach forever, after all, it was 7 weeks! I enjoyed it so much, and although it was hard; I learned and grew so much through it. This last week at the base is debrief week. We will be lectured by the staff about re-entry and culture shock, and then we graduate on Friday. Less than one week left of DTS! I can’t believe it! Our God is so incredibly faithful; I could not of done this without His grace and your prayers, thank you! 

Below are some pictures from outreach! Enjoy!

Blessings,

Hanna

Our Cabin

Our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree!

Everyone at Christmas dinner

Beautiful Doi Inthanon. With the grace of God we summited those cliffs!

The local church

On top of the cliffs (that is our village below)

Victory!

Last church service

Some of my 4th graders

The local school we taught at

Tea fields we worked in!

Traditional Thai costume for our Thai dance performance at Hmong New Year

Playing games with the students

All us English teachers with the 5th and 4th graders

Outreach is Here!

Hello Everyone!

I am so sorry for my lack of blogging recently. Our life here on the base has been incredibly busy as usual.

However, I have some very exciting news! I found out last week where our outreach is going to take place. We are leaving this next Sunday to spend 7 weeks in a village on Doi Inthanon! Doi Inthanon is the tallest mountain in Thailand and from what I’ve heard it’s one of the prettiest places in the country. We will be spending our time up there in a village making buildings, digging trenches and most of all, farming rice! We will be fully submersed in the village life and be able to reach out to the locals through daily conversations and serving them. I am very excited to see what it’s like to live in a mountain village. There will definitely be plenty of opportunities for personal growth (for example it will be absolutely freezing and there’s only one bathroom for 20 people!) but it will be a great learning time for me.

As for the last couple of weeks, we have mainly spent our time on base wrapping up our lecture phase and preparing for outreach. This last week we had a man from the Philippines named Joel Bringas come and talk to us about having a clear conscience. It was not a week full of pressure and guilt rather a time where people could share past mistakes and receive healing and release. It was a great week and unified our school tremendously. This week is our last lecture week. We have a Norwegian man named Eivend Freeon talking to us about the Two Kingdoms. He is an old time YWAMer (started at the Switzerland base with Loren Cunningham!) and has many amazing stories about the revivals he has been apart of in China. I believe that this week is going to be extremely interesting and a great way to end our lectures.

These past couple of weekends I have had a lot of fun as well! Last weekend my classmate Sarah and I went to a sort of zoo called Tiger Kingdom and got to play with tigers! She played with the bigger cats while I decided to stick with the babies J. They were so adorable and soft! It was loads of fun and an experience I will remember for the rest of my life!

Yesterday (Sunday), a big group of us from the school went to a nearby limestone waterfall and swam. It was so incredibly beautiful and so much fun! The water was warm and since the waterfall was made of limestone we were able to climb up it from bottom to top! It was definitely a good way to spend our last free weekend together as a school.

This will probably be my last blog post for a while. As you may have been able to guess, a mountain village does not exactly have internet (let alone electricity), so I will be leaving my computer at the base. However, I will make sure to tell you all about my outreach when I get back in February!

I hope that everything at home is going well, and as always, remember that I am praying for you all!

Blessings,

Hanna

P.S. Below are some photos from Tiger Kingdom. Enjoy!

Feels Good to be Home.

Well, I’m home! My Thailand home at least! China was awesome. It was an incredible experience that I will never forget. It stretched me physically, emotionally, and definitely spiritually.

            Unfortunately for the safety of the people we worked with who live in China I have to be very careful about what I post on the internet. However, I can tell you vaguely about what we did. Everyday, a ministry we worked with would split us into teams and we would go on prayer walks, teach at schools and speak English with local university students. My team mainly went on prayer walks and spoke with university students. We went to what they called “English Corners” and helped the Chinese students practice their English. It was great. I would spend up to two hours talking with a single student. We would talk with students about various things; culture, traveling, family and school. We would build relationships with them and continue to see and talk to them when we would go back to the university. There were a couple students who I came to love dearly and continue to pray for. I also had the opportunity to go to a couple underground churches and fellowship with Chinese believers, which was incredible and so encouraging. I was also able to go to a large “registered” church. China does actually allow churches but they just must be registered with the government. That means they are closely watched with surveillance cameras and restricted on what they can preach. It definitely made me way more thankful for the freedom of religion that we have in America. I got to spend an afternoon going to the slums and playing with the kids at a school as well. Chinese children are absolutely precious!

            Below are some photos that are safe to post. I hope you enjoy them! When I get home I would love to share the rest of my photos and tell you more stories, but I want to be wise and not cause trouble for my friends back in China. As for now, I have started a new week of lecture and the topic is relationships. I feel that this is going to be a week where God is going to reveal a lot in my heart and bring healing. I am excited to see how God uses this topic to draw me closer to Him.

            We still have three more weeks left of lecture and then we go on our long-term outreach (December 15-Janurary). The staff here still has not let us know where we are going but I promise to let you all know as soon as I find out!

            I hope all is going well at home and know that I am continually praying for you.

Blessings,

Hanna

My team and I at the university

A couple girls I got to play with at the school

A poor family we often visited in the slums (notice the skyscrapers in the background)

Probably the most shocking thing was how close the slums where
to new development.

Enjoying an afternoon at the park (ignore the weird Chinese guy 

in the background)

November? Already?

China here I come!

This weekend my team and I leave for China and I am so beyond excited! I’m afraid I’m not supposed to go into much detail about our trip, but if you want to know more you are welcome to email me! I will try and post some safe photos when I get home.

As for the past week, it’s been great. We had a really good speaker named Scotty come and talk to my school about God’s calling on our lives. When I was first told about the topic I was like “Oh, great. A charismatic speaker is going to come and tell us to ask God about our destinies.” But it was actually not like that at all. Scotty simply told us stories about his walk with God, and how the most important part of fulfilling God’s will for our lives is being obedient to Him. I found this really encouraging being a young adult who is still pretty unsure about what God wants to do with my life. One moment I feel called to international missions while the next I’m heartbroken for the broken within my own country. It’s all very up in the air for me but God spoke to me through Scotty and said that I simply need to just wait, and in the meantime obey Him in everything I do, even daily activities. Because it’s all of those small daily choices that greatly affect tomorrow hence the future as a whole.

Now for the present. Yesterday a Thai guy named Judah in my school invited all of us to go to his village to celebrate the rice festival. About ten of us rented a song thaew and took a two-hour drive up the mountains into his isolated rice-farming village. It was the most beautiful drive I have ever taken. The mountains were so incredibly tall and there was so much lush vegetation. I could not help but be in awe of my Creator as I looked upon rice-covered valleys and cliff-faced mountains.

When we arrived in his village we saw that everyone (about 150 people) were gathered having their harvest celebration service. We quickly discovered that Judah’s entire village is Christian, which is extremely rare in Thailand. After singing some worship songs and playing with the kids, the village treated us to lunch and we ate delicious white rice with meatballs out of banana leaves and pumpkin soup. After we thanked and prayed for Judah’s family, we hopped back into our food filled song thaew. The village was so generous to us even though they have so little. It was a classic bamboo-grass roof village on the side of a mountain. It was absolutely beautiful.

This next week a missionary named Stan Hankins will be talking to us about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I am excited to see how God speaks through him and how He continues to move us as He prepares us for China.

Thanks again so much for all of your support and prayers. Please continue to pray for my team and I in the next couple of weeks as we venture into another country!

Blessings,

Hanna 

Here are some photos from our visit to Judah's village:

Just a glimpse of our beautiful ride. Wish my camera 

was better at capturing the beauty!

A couple of boys we played with at Judah's village.

My classmate Sarah and I

Yummy Lisu Food!

All of us with Judah's Family

Sorry it's been so long!

Hello Everyone!

My apologies for it being so long since I last posted on my blog, it’s been so busy here on the base! Between book reports, learning traditional Thai dance and being sick with bronchitis I’ve been stuck at the base a lot not really being able to escape to an internet café. So, now I will try my best and catch you guys up on a few highlights of the past couple of weeks.

I know that one of the biggest highlights of my trip so far was going to the elephant camp this last Saturday. We had a scientist come from Connecticut last week to talk to us about Creationism and on Saturday him and his son invited students to go to the elephant camp with them. It was a bumpy ride up the mountains to get to the camp but it was totally worth it! For only 15 dollars we were able to ride elephants on a trail for about 30 minutes (we even got to ride on their heads!). And after, our speaker decided that he wanted to go river rafting at the camp too. And since it was a last minute decision he treated everyone to it plus ice cream afterwards. We were so incredibly grateful! It was an awesome experience and I was so excited to cross “river rafting” off my bucket list J. It was also great bonding time with my classmates and good team building!

On the base, things have gotten quite busy. The realities of our lecture phase flying by and our China mini outreach coming up in about 2 weeks has finally hit. An hour of our free time is now being used for Traditional Thai dance practice, because we are going to be doing Thai dances during out outreach in Kunming, China. Thai dance is not as easy as it looks. For the most part it is very slow and most of the movement are in the hands and fingers, but it requires so much balance I find myself falling every few seconds. The positions they make you put your fingers in too amazes me. Thai dancers stretch their fingers like ballet dancers stretch their legs. I don’t understand how professional Thai dancers get their fingers to stretch back so far! I can hardly make mine straight!

As for the schooling the past couple of weeks have been very interesting. Last week as I said a very successful chemist named Jeff Romine came from the States to our little base. He was very informative and professional with his presentations, I felt like I was back in a college class! Dr. Romine had a good heart though.  Him and his son stayed at our base so they were very involved with our activities throughout the week. It was great talking to them and getting to know them.

            This last week we have been learning about telling stories. A team from a ministry called Simply the Story (STS) came and ran workshops in how to professionally tell stories and get every treasure out of them as possible. We hope to be able to use this new skill in both our mini and long-term outreach.

            As for the bronchitis. Yesterday I finally went into Chiang Mai and got checked out by a doctor. I’ve been fighting a cough and sinus thing for about a month now. After I realized there was no way it was going away on its own I decided to go to a doctor. He took one look at my throat and told me I had bronchitis. Yay! To be honest I’m just glad that I can finally get better. But please continue to pray for healing especially since China is coming up.

           Well, I hope all of you are doing well at home. Remember that I am constantly praying for all of you.

Blessings,

Hanna

Below are some photos from the elephant camp. Enjoy!

Sarah, Venessa and Gam

It's like riding a small dinosaur! (At least what I imagine it'd be like riding a small dinosaur)

So gorgeous!

Quite the bumpy ride!

Victory!

One Month!

           It’s crazy to think about that I’ve been in Thailand for over a month now! Ah! I arrived here on September 6^th and now it’s October 9^th. My God is so good! I can’t believe how far He has taken me in just one month. It has been a hard month I won’t lie, I’ve dealt with a lot of homesickness and confusion about if coming to Thailand was the right choice for me. But God has been faithful. In this past week He has spoken to me through quiet times, dreams, and other people. I am no longer struggling with homesickness and I am confident that this is where I am supposed to be. Jesus has supplied me with a wonderful family here. He has given me roommates that I can invest in, talk to, and pray with. Through multiple attacks of physical sickness and homesickness I have learned to be humble and ask for prayer. God has really been showing me the power of prayer and how much it can be used to encourage one another. My roommates are very passionate with prayer too, they firmly believe in its power to change lives and to trust God for the results. That has also been a significant learning curve for me while I have been here. I have always had questions about prayer and the purpose of it. But through intercession time and praying with my friends I have began to realize why it is so important especially in the mission field. I always thought it was simply a one-way channel of giving requests from God and hoping that he eventually answers. But with YWAM I have learned that it’s very much a two-way channel and that we need to be very expectant of God to answer, because He will. But what we need to accept is that “no” and “wait” are answers too.

            Anyways, long story short, prayer is just one of the many things I have grown in while being here in Thailand. I am so beyond excited to see how I continue to grow through the rest of school, China outreach, and the main outreach.

            I also have a prayer request. My classmate Lauren and I have been fighting a nasty cold in this past week and a half. Please be praying for healing because it just doesn’t seem to want to go away. My symptoms are drainage and coughing (which keeps me awake at night and its very irritating) and Lauren’s is stuffed sinuses. Thank you so much for your prayers because I know that they are heard and God uses them according to His good and perfect will!

Blessings,

Hanna

Sunday Night Walking Street Market

Hello Everyone!

Yesterday was an awesome day. A large group of us ventured into Chiang Mai early in the morning and attended church. There are a few small churches around Chiang Mai so we all went our separate churches. A few classmates and I went to the TLC Center, which is a small church full of staff from all of YWAM Chiang Mai. The service was translated so there was a good mix of local Thais and foreigners.

After church, a few of us went to the Central Airport Plaza mall which is the largest mall in Chiang Mai. It was huge! Since we were all waiting to go to the walking street night market at five we decided to burn some time by going to the movie theater at airport plaza and saw Stolen. After seeing the movie and doing some shopping, we went to the gate entrance and walked around the famous sunday night walking street market and did more shopping. It's so hard to use self control at the markets because everything is so beautiful and so cheap!

My classmates Sarah and Gam and I decided that we were tired and wanted to leave the market early and go to a cafe and wait for everyone else to finish shopping. On the way to the cafe we ran across a massage place that had very reasonable prices. With the pain in our feet from walking around all day we decided to treat ourselves and get a one hour full body thai oil massage. It was amazing! And it only cost 7 dollars! Definitely was the highlight of my weekend.

Once the massage was over it was time to meet up with the rest of the team and head home. We got home at 10 pm and crashed because we were all exhausted from walking all day. 

Below is a few pictures of our adventure on Sunday. 

Enjoy!

Blessings,

Hanna

All the western girls after church

The famous gate entrance into Chiang Mai

Sunday Night Walking Street Market!

Ronald McDonald, Thai Style!