Wellington Retreat

Hey guys,

First of all, thanks so much for all of your support. It has been so encouraging to see people get behind our team to Thailand. I've been really blessed and am looking forward to the trip more than ever! Also, thanks for the financial support. I'm pretty much at full support now (as long as I get around to collecting it!), which is awesome, but there are other team members who are still looking for financial support so would be cool if you could support them as well.
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Wellington Retreat

Last weekend, our team met for the first time together in Wellington, to meet each other and get a good idea of what we are doing.

It was really cool to meet the team. There are 7 of us all together. James, our leader, is a TSCF staffworker, and the rest of us are students. It was really good to meet the guys and really encouraging to see everyones excitement and committment to sharing the gospel in Thailand. There are pictures of the team on my blog for this trip at www.thaiphil.blogspot.com.

On the Friday night, when we arrived, we each shared our testimony, so it was cool to hear where everyone was coming from. Then the bulk of Saturday was a crash course on Thai culture and language. I've never had 'Thai' culture explicitly explained to me, and it was quite interesting how much of it I would also consider my culture as well. It's kinda cool to understand myself a bit better in that way. Also a bit wierd to be trying to explain Thai to other people. I sure hope my terrible pronounciation doesn't hinder the teams learning!!

On Sunday we learnt a bit on how the gospel relates to Thai culture, especially Buddhism. It's something I would like to explore more. We were inspired by how Paul was able to use local knowledge to preach the gospel in Acts 17:16-32. It definitely makes me want to understand Thai people in order to be able to effectively share the gospel with them. I was also able to give a small presentation on what the gospel is which was fun. It was from the 2 Ways to Live framework, which has trendy little pictures, so if all else fails, we can try and draw the gospel!! :)
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Plans for Thailand so far

So far, it looks like the heart of our activities will be:
1. Teaching English
2. Running a Cafe in the evening to meet students
3. Helping out with handing out tracts and some open air preaching
4. Travelling to some of the other student cities to encourage the Christiand students there.
5. Hopefully attend a Christian students camp and hang out there.
6. Organize a Christmas party and present the Christmas message
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Anyway, I just realised how long this email is! argghhh, something to work on i guess. Anyway, to see some pictures and stuff, visit my blogsite at

www.thaiphil.blogspot.com

and if you do, leave a comment to help make me feel cool!

God bless,

Phil