As the Months Rolled By

The primary cause for global warming is probably due to the fact that the earth is getting closer to the sun, and that would explain why days and weeks and months fly by at such a rapid pace. Maybe I am wrong but it would help to explain why this blog has not been updated in ages.

Here at a glance is what has happened since April.A new school year began in May, with a few new students in the vocational school program.

The number of kids in Namjam increased as well.
May helped teach English to the Vocational school students during her Summer break.

Meanwhile a new generation of artistic scholars are emerging in the Linchi Orchard.


In July we were saddened by the death of Loong La. He was the Shan community leader who welcomed us to begin our work in the Suan Luang neighborhood. Many hundreds attended his funeral.Several of the youth in our program helped with the funeral wearing their traditional Shan costumes.
In late July we had an excellent team come from Elphia's church in Singapore. They spent time with both the children and youth and even organized a mini one day camp in Mae Sai.



They also organized an Special English Program at Nam Jam school. It is evident that the kids in that school are really making progress in their English studies. The regular Thai teaching staff make our teams welcome and everyone benefits.

Then came August and our first Mother's Day celebration in the new meeting hall at the Shan Family Center.

Advance to Victory!

Who's calling? Must be Paa Chalor calling for a meeting for the staff
Happy shot

Dancing hairy legs!

Nom accepted Christ during the camp! Praise the Lord. Pray that this young life will continue to grow strong and steady in Christ.

Catch the falling ball!

Whose toilet broke down? Why so many fingers on the pipe?

Doing the Gorilla Dance! Who's the Gorilla-est???

Playing Human Bowling Pins. But where's the ball?

Thank God for youth camp this year. Instead of having a speaker for the whole camp, we invited different speakers to come and share about how through knowing God and believing in Him, they had advanced into Victory. A new gift of life after old "self" death! Made only possible by Christ.

Prayer for the coming Youth Camp

Most schools in Thailand are now having their end of year school holidays. We will once again make use of the holiday break to run a Shan Youth camp. We will be holding the Youth Camp at Bethel Bible Seminary on the 26th March to 29th March. It is a 4 days 3 nights stay in camp. The camp theme is "Advance in Victory".

Yohan and Angie will be coming from Chiangmai to help out in the camp. We will be having 5 Singaporeans over to facilitate the camp with us. We are still recruiting 4 camp facilitators to lead the 4 colour teams. We are praying for about 60~80 campers to join us in this camp.

Please continue to remember us in prayers.

• Pray that God will prepare and pave the ways for the youths to come to the camp.
• Pray that God will prepare the hearts of the Shan youths who are coming that they will be open to the Word and Teaching of our Lord and that they will experience God and be touched by Him.
• Pray for the Unity of the Spirit of the committee team and camp facilitators.
• Pray for a servanthood heart for the staff and camp committee. That we will be a good testimony of Christ and that we will build lasting relationships with the campers.
• Pray for the presence of the Lord to be with us.

Thank you for your faithful prayers and support for us in Maesai.

May God Bless you and your family.

Christmas in Maesai

The Christmas Team
Guests listened intently at the sermon.

The youths helping to give away Christmas gifts for the adults.

Christmas Skit by SL kids

NJ kids dancing away

SL kids dancing away

Our guests on Christmas Sunday Service. Most of them are the kids we ministering to in SL and NJ.

YiXin sharing her Testimony in Thai!

Playing the game "Roll double". When u roll double, u have to put on the shirt, jeans and christmas hat and eat a chocolate before the next person rolls a double. Lots of fun!

Gifts exchange!

Singapore team putting up a skit on "Umbrella and Rainy Day" There's only one way to use an umbrella. One Way to our Father in Heaven.

The NamJam Village Girls dancing to "Mot Tang Chi Wit"

Angels for Christmas!
The Singapore Team put up a skit on the Shepherds and Wise Men.

"My Top is going to come off if u guys keep tugging it so hard!"

Playing the colours game. When the game IC called out a colour, u got to point to something of that colour.

The girls tiedup their hair, put on a little make-up and wore their best clothes for the Christmas dance.

Guess what's the colour being called out now???

Grp pix with Teachers, kids and us at the Nursery.

At the nursery playing games and doing Art and Craft to share the Christmas joy with 83 Shans and Akhas kids aged between 3~6 years old.

November Updates...

We have a new pavilion "Salaa" at the Shan Family Development Centre.














It's quite a spacious area with 2 toilets at the back.

The youths came over last Saturday afternoon and we had a fun time painting the new Salaa.

Here's the end results of 4 hours of painting.



We did a quite a decent job yeah!










We will probably have our Christmas programme this year in this new pavilion. Stay tune for more Christmas programmes updates... will try to post soon.

You can pray for us.

• On the 15th December, we will have a Christmas programme incollabration with FLC school, Chiangrai to run a Christmas programme in Nam Cham School.


• On the 18th December morning, we are going to a nursery in Nam Jam to bring Christmas joy to 83 kids. They never have a Christmas programme before. 80% of the kids are Shans and the remaining Akhas.
• On the 18th December in the evening, we will have a Christmas party for the Youths at Baan Catherine's.


• On the 19th December in the morning, we will have Christmas celebration for the Kids at Suan Luang Village.


• On the 20th December in the morning, we are inviting parents to church. We will be having Christmas Service and performance by the kids, youths and Singapore Mission Team at the Shan Church.

Keep the ministry in prayers. We are inviting the parents to the Shan Church Christmas Service.

Here's some pictures of the kids practising their Christmas dances.
Enjoy!

True Friend

The Theme for our 2009 Children's Camp was True Friend.
We had the usual crowd plus some new folks.
Kids totaled about 120 and helpers numbered 30 more.














Johan was a great MC until his voice gave out o nthe 3rd morning. His one request for next year is that we get a new amplifier.

















Chalor gave Johan 5 good reasons why he should agree with her ideas.














The 3 not so little pigs were well fed by Moses, the prodigal son.












Seven gray hairs were needed for the scavenger hunt. There was only one donor for all four teams.














Noah seems to have made a new friend. The children and youth got on really well with each other. Almost all the team counselors were Shan youth who grew up in the program themselves.















Our new property had ample room for sports and games.














B-boy performances have become a standard feature in the camps.




















The girls had a beauty pageant competition. But beauty alone could not guarantee victory.



















The question they had to answer was, "How do you choose a good friend?"



















Arts and crafts provided by Mrs. Saipin Ng were very popular.

















Good bye for now.