September 24, 2008

Dear Friends,

Here are highlights from monthly prayer notes I’ve sent to our prayer partners (people with whom we’ve committed to pray for one another at least once a month). We started in May, and it’s wonderful to share our needs and enjoy God’s answers. If you’d like to become a prayer partner, email us.

A Thai dream come true: Brian and Sugar of the CCI Team playing in snow!

May -   Our CCI Tour (Christian Communications Institute) was full of new and renewed friendships, safety, and health. Twenty-six performances in about 30 days still left time for sightseeing and our favorite shopping—thrift shops and dollar stores. The Thai Consul General in Los Angeles fed us a feast of delicious Thai food and thanked us for helping him do his job of sharing the beauty of Thai culture in the Midwest

My mom and dad returned to Ohio safely, having blessed us with their presence for five months. I discovered my dad’s first occupational aspiration was to be a banana seller, like the Italian man who drove a wagon full of bananas around his neighborhood when he was a boy. What better job than one with bananas available for feasting at will. We hope they can come again next winter.

June - CCI’s retreat was amazing—all about “Listening Prayer”—and drawing close to the Father in our relationship. Everyone is hungry for God. One leader realized she had a half hour every morning after her family are off to school and work in which she can be still and listen for God’s voice in her own prayer “closet."

The CCI team feted Rob as outgoing director and welcomed me as incoming interim director in a wonderful worship service and luncheon. They debuted a new play about a teacher of the rowdiest class who used encouragement and affirmation to turn her students into successes. Rob has been that teacher for them—he is an incorrigible encourager. He will be sorely missed, but still very much helping me in the background, I’m sure.

July - Payap’s total enrollment for this year is up for the first time in seven years. Hallelujah! We had the great problem of having to scramble to find English teachers to fill all the classes for our first-year students because we had several hundred more students than we’d planned on.

During the CCI's dance tour of the United Statates, several young friends learned how to put on long Thai dance fingernails.

The student union, headed this year by a beautiful Christian young woman, Nuch, who loves Jesus and loves sharing his love, arranged a new activity for frosh called “Meet Love Day.” They mixed the students up across majors and had a day full of activities to get to know each other and start college with a foundation of fun. We all ended up in front of the chapel for words of blessing from the president, a prayer of blessing, and singing one of our Payap songs. They still didn’t want to go home and hung around doing a Thai thing called a “boom” which is basically being in a big circle and screaming some cheers and then just screaming! It is crazy, but they love it. May these students truly meet love himself—the Lord Jesus—while they are at Payap.

August - Thanks for praying for CCI. Hundreds of students at each of the schools they’ve performed at have responded to the invitation to pursue more of God’s love. Last week two teachers at a school here in Chiang Mai also responded. One has been at the school for ten years and been loved and prayed for and finally decided to take the step of discipleship. The other has had bad allergies and been healed through prayer. The team has been taking turns leading evening devotions, and everyone senses a deeper level of commitment and hunger for God. They are working together well, sharing the load and rejoicing in the fruit.

September - Praise God I’m not feeling so oppressed as I have in the past few months. I’ve re-found my passion for what I’m doing. Significant challenges remain, and I’m still a bit of a bumbler, so I need daily discernment as to my responsibility, and the gumption to carry it out. Pray magazine inspired me again to really listen to Jesus. Last night while enjoying a lovely Thai massage, I was complaining to the Him about a staffer I find to be a pain in the bum, and Jesus responded gently that I can be quite a pain in the bum sometimes too. I could only smile and be grateful for his patience.

The Freshy Quest Camp for international students was rain-free (hallelujah) and great fun. I praise God for our teachers who planned and put on the event. Pray blessings on Ken (who teaches computers), Jacob (English), and Ohm (Business). These men love our students and put great energy and creativity into activities that build community. This month they also created the “Amazing Race” for new students. They had teams racing all over Chiang Mai collecting interviews, trash, pictures, orchids, sticky rice in bamboo—you get the idea. The judging wrap-up session was raucous and funny and gave me the opportunity to talk about the “Five Love Languages,” too. I’d wondered how on earth we would include international students in our Spiritual Renewal Week, and God provided this event to gather the students so I could share God’s love through the “Love Languages.” I marvel at God’s orchestrations.

I hope that a few of you may want to hear more regularly about our joys and needs and tell us yours, so we can pray together and watch God do wonderful things in through and among us all. Send me an email, and you’ll be put on our list.

Blessings,

Esther

P.S. We hope to do another CCI tour in October 2009. If your church is interested, let us know. We hope to be part of Mission Challenge 2009.

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 92