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)