Guest bloggers Sue and Steve

Well We have just had Sue and Steve come to visit us in sunny and ridiculously hot Phayao!!

From start to finish the two weeks were brilliant and great company.

For a change I thought I would get our visitors to write a blog about their time here, so ladies and gentlemen please relax and enjoy the blog from Sue and Steve ...

Me and Steve all set and ready to go on our Thailand experience :) Steve said  'i hope it's hot, could do with losing some weight' !  

After 17 hrs of travelling we got to our hotel in Chiang Mai. This is the view from our balcony where we crashed out for three days!

Close to our hotel was a venue that did entertainment and food, known locally as a Khontoke. Basically sit on some cushions and watch a show whilst having a meal.

The bowl in the middle was raw meat.... mmmmm yummy.... it  looked like slimy worms. Yuk! An authentic Northern Thailand dish...

In Phayao now... And enjoying the ministry. The Thai people are very hospitable and more often than not have a refreshing cold drink of water to give us....

An informal ministry day out to the mountain tribal people.. What a view!

A group of women and children sitting in their meeting place that overlooks the view above... Beautiful... we all descended on them. This was the first practice of my Thai presentation in front of the 'experts'...  So nervous.  The Thai women were very kind and accommodating......thankfully.

Here they are looking and listening to one of the DVD's  'Why Study the Bible' that can be viewed on the  jw.org website.

One the young brothers from Phayoa congregation is called Picchakorn (20 years old).

Steve was very impressed with his compassion towards this elderly man.  Such a lovely quality in our young men.

I met this lovely lady, who struggled out of her hammock (had a bandaged leg) to join her family, Sister Boo and myself on the wooden meeting deck. She wanted to hear what we were talking about.  She was very animated about the message we were bringing.  She made my day!

As we were leaving, I turned back for one last look............ and quickly captured this shot :)

This is some Army men who were laying a new entrance into this property. Steve was working with Brother Chom.

Another picture of the Thai meeting places. They are dotted around all over the villages through Phayao. They just gather here for their little chats of the day. I have taken several pictures of the different designs I've seen over the two week visit.... This is just one of them..... I just think its a lovely idea..

Almondsbury congregation generously bought a pile of shirts and ministry bags for certain ones in Phayao congregation who have minimal income.  Many buy their shirts secondhand, even then they often have old stains on them or are frayed at the seams.  This is a picture of  a single mothers son... Yen.  She has 3 other young children and is studying the bible.... As you can see from the picture Yen  LOVES his shirt!!!

Simon has now accepted Steve as a friend cos he likes Lionel Richie music!!!

(sorry, Steve wanted to add this)

 Lovely Mel n Simon.. They introduced us to their life in Northern Thailand and to listen to them speaking thai with the locals was a delight..... they are making such an impact on the locals but most importantly within Phayoa congregation!!  Its been a real treat to see the progress they have made here, though they admit it has had its challenges.  The Thai language is extremely challenging with next to no English spoken here!

 Its so very obvious to see how fond the congregation are of Simon & Mel as they have taken the young ones under their wings and arrange events so the young and older ones associate together outside of meetings. It  is difficult for the association due to vast distances some have to travel  to get to meetings. They now enjoy picnics by the lake, football sessions on Monday evenings & swimming

............ All this in only 4 months... Jehovah is certainly blessing their efforts.

Sue and Steve

It has been a good two weeks and was so amazing to see how much Sue and Steve loved it here.  A real boost for me and Mel.

As we said they could have treated themselves and gone anywhere for a relaxing break but they decided to come to Phayao and help for two weeks.

The Brothers in Sisters in the hall are enjoying meeting everyone and get a real boost from it and, as you can probably tell, so do the visitors.

We and Mel have now done our second visa extension and have a border crossing next month.  The guy behind the desk is quite scary but now we speak a bit of Thai he was ALOT nicer and even tried to crack a few jokes.

There are a few more things we did, including visiting a beautiful national park (pictures are below)

The CO's gone and Songkran has started

Well today Songkran (the traditional new year) has started in Thailand.  Being a new year celebration were not celebrating it HOWEVER that does not mean were not going to get drenched in the next few days of the celebration.  Pick up trucks drive round with barrels of water to throw, they set up pipes with jets all along the lake to soak the cars and people line the streets to throw water at drivers and scooters, and kids the last week have been buying water guns none stop!

Today we saw two girls fall off their scooter as a bucket of water hit them .... luckily everyone was OK but I think the scooter had a big scratch!

The week before last we had the CO and his wife visit are hall.  It was very encouraging because when he gave the talks he also gave us the outline in English so we actually understood something!!! WOOHOO!!

The CO is from Thailand and speaks really good English (they have to learn as the MTS school is in Australia).  He is 36 and has been on the circuit for 9 years!!!  He was telling us about all the different congregations he visits including one which is on the border of Myamar (Burma).  It is in a refugee camp that holds 50000 people from Myanmar and they cannot leave it to come into Thailand or back into Myanmar.  They have no running water and rely on a river for there water.  He showed us pictures of his visit on his phone and the hall was packed with people stood around the sides and on the stairs ... you can tell he was encouraged.

During the visit we were invited on so many meals at peoples home or in restaurants, once again people were very generous!  One couple are in their 80's and cooked and bought in lunch for about 15 of us.

We also now get the Almondsbury meeting sent to us!!!  This has been a massive boost and it is so nice to understand a whole meeting.  We also enjoyed hearing everyone's voice from back home ... right now I'm listening to last weeks watchtower .... lovely reading Mark!

We also had a text from a couple (Ian and Grace Rotherham) who are serving in Bangkok, that our friends know, and they asked if they could come and stay for a few nights to see what the north of Thailand is like.  They have a blog to which is www.iangracethailand.wordpress.com.

They arrived Monday and stayed till Thursday.  They were great company and it was so nice to speak to people that are in Thailand for the first time and have similar experiences.

Back home they are in the only Thai group in England which is in Manchester.  Their Thai was very good.

We all wanted to do lots of ministry while we could all support each other.  The first few months you cannot do as much ministry as you want, because your reliant on other people to assist with the language.

Anyway now I have personal territory so we did a lot of that and went out with the group a few times.

We all plucked up the courage to walk into a Wat (temple) and talk to some monks and give them truth tracts and memorial invitations (pics below).  We were pretty nervous and we thought it was only a group of 5 or six ..... however there were monks everywhere but they were friendly and took the leaflets, even posed for a photo.

Melissa and Grace went to talk to a different group of monks but followed the rules in place and did not hand the literature directly to the monks but placed it on the floor for them to pick up (a lady is not allowed to directly pass something or touch a monk).

We also worked a morning market and gave all the vendors invitations to which the majority said yes.  It quite loud so not always easy but people are interested in what a couple of "FARANGS" are doing talking to everyone.

They also have some amazing examples in there hall of people who were once before ladyboys and spiritualists but now pioneers and elders ... great example.

I have just been given my second bible reading and Mel has her first talk BUT its when my parents are here so that will be nice for them .... I think!

Me and Melissa are so excited that so many people back home are changing things to do more in the truth and even some planning on coming to Thailand!!  It was because of our friends back home being so enthusiastic about their trips that made us start asking questions and making plans.  Jehovah is noticeably speeding up the work and it seems everyone is doing as much as they can ... very exciting.  There are ups and down to being away from home and its not at all like being on a constant holiday, however it is amazing ....... if we can do it anyone can!!!

I have quite a few pictures to post as that is what people are mostly interested in.

 Lunch time during the CO visit.

 Working local territory and the start of the steps to the Wat.

 Invitations in the market.

 Ian checking out the local property for when they move to Phayao next year ... to be continued.

 Memorial campaign in the market.

 This is a house! 

Ministry in the Wat.   

 Mel did ministry while I bought pork scratchings from the householder

 Me and Mel out on our own, but rewarded with a good call who speaks English as his first language.

 Picnic at the lake.

 These are spirit houses.  The Thai people believe that when they build a house they upset the spirits that live on that ground so every house has one of these houses.  They place food, drink and incense there every morning to keep the spirits happy.

 Another lunch time stop ... the CO is in the middle.

 This is next to wear the monks live (we also spoke to the older monks there).  Once the tree is wrapped and blessed by a monk it cannot be cut down or you will be cursed.  You see this is many places.  They also wrap the same type of tree that Buddha sat under to find enlightenment as its sacred to them.

 Congragation picnic ... we played football afterwards ... turns out the girls in the hall are good at it, they came in full Barcelona and Man United kits.

 Yet another puppy but one of the friendliest.