TUESDAY: One day at a time...

Have some catching up to do... this was Tuesdays "day"... I am getting a bit of down time these next few days and week prior to a worship team of 20 from Convergence Church coming next week for a full week of outreach. I am super excited to meet many of them, as they are Jess' close friends and worshippers she trained with this past fall for a few months while she was in Texas. It's going to be fun worshipping with them in the streets/bars and partnering with them my last week here.

So continuing the day (Tuesday)…around noon we hopped on her bike (which I am enjoying seeing the city so much from the back of a bike and enjoying the breeze in this heat!) and headed to Thai lessons for 2 hours. I know NO Thai! Immediately they set me up with one of the teachers who is just a few years older than me and we sat down at a table and got rolling. Learned the 5 tones, some numbers, common phrases, and a few words, but after 2 hours my brain was a bit slow and trying to remember everything, have to keep practicing. We had another session today, which I was feeling SOOO much more alive because I knew now 5 more words!! hahah...but enjoyed making conversations with what I did know.

After lessons we went back to her place for a couple hours to wind down and then headed over to her close Thai friends Lek and Bay and there three beautiful children, including 2 week new born baby! They are truly amazing people. Bay was adding a wall to their new apartment where the dining room used to be opened into the living room, but turned it into a worship/music room for training. He is such an anointed worship leader, and have had the privileged a few times to worship with him. He is a very unique Thai, with an incredible voice that is hard to come by, especially in this culture. He was one of the first guys Jess began working with once he came to the Lord and had a heart for worship. In many of her pics you will see him with his wild (now cut) long curls, for every worship conference, beach worship outreach, bar outreach, Pattaya Praise and service they have done. He has been so faithful in over the years of her raising him up he now is starting a youth ministry in raising up youth worship teams/bands and leaders, and just watching his passion even in creating a place out of his home to play and meet.

They ordered some meats/veggies and we had a delicious,what they call Thai BBQ, out on their patio. It was amazing. You basically get a bunch of variety of raw meats and veggies like cabbage and greens, and put it on a metal soup pot looking cooker with some broth over some coals in a bucket and you cook it yourself. Here are some pics of us cooking. If I had one of these I would do it every night!

It was enjoyable just hanging with them, even though they speak very little English, and spoke in Thai the whole time, I was able to just listen and experience just normal life with them. Their two boys Bak, 6 and Bam, 4, were at Hand to Hand and came home around 7:30 ish. Jess and I went up and pestered them after dinner and brought my camera to take some pics and share their silliness. They had us in stitches laughing so hard as they rough housed with each other and made the silliest noises. Bak really wanted to take pics so some of these are his priceless works. One day I believe he will become an amazing photographer.

After a few hours of eating, chatting, laughing and roughing it, we left to head back to Jess place to wind down and sleep.