16 Aug Conference, Mother’s Day & Hospitals

Wow, the last ten days have been a bit full/crazy…

Last weekend, we had the Northern Regional YWAM Conference (held every other year).  This year it was held here in Mae Sai, so we stayed from Thursday night until Sunday morning about fifteen minutes from our house!  For both of us, this was our first YWAM conference experience and it was great!  “Intimacy unto Fruitfulness” was the theme and our speaker was Dan Baumann, a YWAMer who was imprisoned in Iran for nine weeks and has written a few books since then.  Every session was pretty much a story-telling time and it was absolutely inspiring and challenging.  It felt like for three days we were listening to one of those autobiographies of an inspiring missionary on an audio book.  Amidst the crazy stories of adventure, danger, hilarious moments and seemingly impossible circumstances, God was and is always in the middle of every story!  Every story seemed to have a similar theme (although the stories were all vastly different): hearing the Holy Spirit on a regular basis through having an intimate relationship with Him, then taking a risk by stepping out on faith in what He is speaking to you.  How else do you live a full, adventurous life with Jesus?  Whether it is in Thailand, Tennessee, wherever, life is meant to be adventurous because Jesus calls us to step outside our comfort zones (whatever they look like) for His glory.

It was an amazing conference and we both went away so refreshed and with more perspective on the vastness of God’s love for His children and how much He just wants to spend time with us.  It’s crazy. God’s love is just crazy.

Northern Regional Conference

At the beginning of this month, Stephen and I found out the dance students were to dance in the (Thai) Mother’s Day service at the Bible College… less than two weeks away.  So that service was this past Tuesday, and with a lot of prayer, a really focused class, a lot of prayer, an extra practice the Monday before, and a lot of prayer, they did an amazing job!  Stephen and I loved the whole service. Most of the dance students are in other choruses, bands and drama teams, so it was really great to see them doing other things they love as well.  My heart felt so full and proud watching them.  After it was over, we went over and hugged them and they asked what we thought of the dance, and asked to get pictures with us – one girl even had Stephen and me form a heart over her with our arms while she made a small heart with her hands – I couldn’t stop laughing!  We love these students so much!

Team news: Nirut is enjoying his visit in the States, but we miss him and are ready for him to be home – only two more weeks!  Tom is also traveling this week – he went to his home village on Monday to spend Mother’s Day with his family and he’ll be back this Monday. Bruno is recovering from surgery with physical therapy. He and May pushed back their flight while they try to get a game plan for returning to Thailand. Please be praying for them as they are trying to hear from the Lord about what to do next.

For those of you who haven’t heard, Brandon and Aum are pregnant with baby #2!!  On Wednesday of this week, Aum started having intense pain to where she couldn’t even move.  Brandon drove her down to the hospital in Chiang Rai (about an hour drive from Mae Sai).  An ultra sound showed that the abnormally large fluid sac (They already knew this was there – maybe amniotic fluid?) had wrapped itself around the baby (not good for baby or momma).  Within thirty minutes of arriving, Aum was on an operating table heading into emergency surgery.  The surgery went well and Aum and baby are OK.  Aum is still in some pain from the surgery and the next two weeks will be very critical for baby.  Please be praying for baby and Aum for recovery and a great rest of the pregnancy as God develops baby!