Phil in Thailand 2006

Back in New Zealand

2007-01-17T16:07:00.000+13:00

Well I'm back in NZ now. I'm very glad it's summer cuz even now it doesn't feel quite as warm as it should be! Very good to be greeted by Gareth and Carissa at the airport, even though I had to wear balloon animals in front of everyone at the airport as part of my welcome home!

Gareth, me, and Carissa at the Wellington Airport. (that balloon hat thing is another couple feet high)

In the car on the way home. Gareth thought it would be nice to greet me with some of my favourite things: a soccer ball, soldier, and a random jandal. (thats my hat extending to the front of the photo)

I definitely miss Thailand and I'm gonna have to stop comparing everything to Thailand sooner or later or people will just get annoyed! It's good to be back though and I'm crashing in my old flat which is fun. There are 8 of us living here right now, and a big thanks to Gareth for giving me his bed and sleeping outside on the hammock, or climbing up the chimney to sleep in the roof! And thanks to Gareth for a yummy welcome home brownie thing.

I'm definitely glad I went to Thailand, and if anyone is considering student work, I highly recommend this mission trip, as an excellent example of how it is done in a different context. Even if you're not considering going overseas yourself, it will give you new understanding on gospel centered, word based student ministry.

Phitsanulok II

2007-01-15T04:17:00.000+13:00

this is us hanging out at 10pm on a sunday night on campus. amazing to see so many other students doing likewise. i really loved seeing the social nature of thai people (although some say it doesnt always help their studies!)

this is a big statue of King Naresuan, who the university is named after.

Some people worshipping the statue of King Naresuan, and making merit.

dutch blitz (or technically, 'pennsylvania german blitz') is bit of a hit in thailand. id have to say though, the nakhon sawan guys are better than phitsanulok.... now im in trouble.

bob is a law student about a month out from his last law exams ever (hopefully) and hopes to be a TCS intern next year. he slept over with me at the youth house and took me to the train station, staying with me till 10:20 even though he had a class at 9. thanks bob!

breakfast, thai style while waiting for the train. mmmmm.

Phitsanulok

2007-01-14T19:38:00.000+13:00

this is pare and me catching the bus to phitsanulok, after missing the train. sorry pare! i was sure bangkok was the other way. arrgghh.

this is bob and me at the phitsanulok youth house. johnny and ann maclean have been setting up youth houses at various uni's which are right next to campus and students can come and hang out after class and where they also meet for bible studies and english class.

this is us hanging out at the youth house after a CU meeting. i just visited for the sunday night to attend the CU meeting and catch up a bit.

after the CU meeting i got the royal tour of Naresuan university. about 10000 students live on campus and it is pretty big. these are cool solar powered buses that just pick up and drop off students around campus for free. they were still running at 10 at night!

this is us hanging out on campus for a bit. big place!

Playing in Thailand

2007-01-13T21:44:00.000+13:00

i went to visit the curtis' who live about an hour from here. awesome to catch up with them. this is dave, ghet, bonus and me playing risk.
awesome to see nate and dave curtis again, although wished i couldve seen ben (the middle brother) as well who was my age and went from 1st grade through to 12th grade with me.
we (hannah, phil, caroline, nate) went to ayuttaya for the day which was lots of fun. it cost 50 cents for the hour train ride. awesome! (nate is my cousin who came out for another mission trip so we took him around for a bit of a tour)
in ayuttaya we rented bikes and cruised around lots of old ruins. a really awesome day. bikes are so rad! this is me trying to bunnyhop. but to everyone else, the background is probably more interesting.
nate and i had great fun taking some crazy pics and hopefully not being to disrespectful to the general public. boys and bikes, its a dangerous combination. it was pretty hot though. next time i will definitely take some boardies and go for a swim.

these are some cool stoner japanese chicks i just had to get a photo with!

while at home dad got me to cut down some trees. always fun to be up a tree with a nice big knife. especially in thailand where safety gear is an almost compulsory omission. i can see the value of motorbike helmets though. travelling 80km without one sure does sting your eyes a little!

Some trip pics

2007-01-13T21:20:00.000+13:00

they have a really good system where people who are late to meetings/forget their namebadges are punished for their misdeeds and here i am being very much punished.

here i am embarassing myself for general entertainment.

mmmmmm, sticky rice. me being attacked by pare, as chude, shue, and james look on.

full credit to alice for taking a nice photo of our humble camp site.

NZ so needs this. a korean bbq where you sit around a small fire and kinda fry your meat and boil your vegies. extra yummy and a great way to spend our day off.

The Final Word

2006-12-27T04:11:00.000+13:00

Hello Everyone,

Well, all the team have dispersed to Africa, Malaysia, England, and humble ol New Zealand, so I guess it's time for me to write my final letter to all you guys. The trip has been a really excellent one, and if anyone is considering student ministry, especially in an asian context, I highly recommend joining next year. It has been such a privilege to work with Johnny and Ann, who have so much wisdom and experience under their belts. It was also great to go with a team where everyone contributed 100% (we pretty much all got sick somewhere along the line) and had real positive attitudes the whole time.

So far, my conclusions from the trip?

Do I love the Thai people and see their need for the gospel? Definitely.
Is this love I feel unique to them? Don't know really.
Do I have unique skills for the Thai context? I think I could survive, which is actually quite a good start. Music and drama and high energy seem like pretty important assets over here, but I might scrape through with some sports skills.
If I had complete freedom, would I come back to Thailand as soon as possible? I think so.
Am I excited about what God is doing here? Yes.

Being the type of person I am, I would love to know now what I will be doing in 5-10 years so I can start preparing now, but I guess some patience won't kill me! In the short term, I would definitely like to support Central Thai ministry while I'm in NZ, so pray that I can meet some like minded people in the Naki who can pray with me for the work here.

This is the last email I will send out to everyone. Thanks so much for all the support you guys have given me. Hopefully in heaven I will be able to find out the effects of your guys prayers! It's been such an encouragement and I really thank God for the family He has given me in this world.

I have finally posted a couple pics on the blogsite for this trip, and hopefully will continue to post some stuff on there, regarding my life in Thailand.

Anyway, thank you all for your support and encouragement.

Soli Deo gloria,

Philip McIvor

Finally! Some pics.

2006-12-27T03:52:00.000+13:00

this is my good mate Ball, who I met on the 3rd last day of our trip. he was a really friendly guy and invited me along to play football, and also over for dinner a couple times at his classmates house.

this is us on our day off, visiting a crocodile farm. we all got to hold a little baby crocodile as well which was cool.

we also went on a mini boat trip on our day off to see a swamp. lots of birds which was cool and this is our 'excited to see more birds' faces.

this is me at camp with som, ice, and nanzy, showing off our craft/holding random objects for additional photographic effect. they are high school girls from nakhon sawan. we are all at camp.

we did a haka at the camp, which everyone really loved. by the time we left, some of the girls were able to do the whole thing, in maori! which is pretty impressive.

me, posing for more photos. very exciting.

Thailand 3

2006-12-15T22:43:00.000+13:00

Hi everyone,

Thanks heaps for praying! James and I went to play basketball on Wednesday night and 8 guys followed us back to the youth house to hear a short gospel message and join in an evening of games,which was really encouraging. It is really amazing to get guys coming along, as Johnny and Anne (missionaries working here) say that it is predominantly girls who come along.

Tonight we are going to be showing the movie Superman Returns and pick up on the theme of the world needing a saviour. Tomorrow night, the local church is putting on an evangelistic Christmas party for the church youth, so pray that they will have the courage to invite their friends.

It seems like time has gone by so fast, as we are due to finish next Friday!!! Our final big event will be a Christmas party on Thursday night, so I would really appreciate your prayers for that. It's also frustrating for me, as I feel like I am just starting to get a bit of a feel for this place and my Thai is almost becoming functional now! I can definitely see the need for Christ in this place, but whether God will use me directly or not, in the future is pretty unclear to me at this stage.

Thank you so much to everyone who replied. Great to hear from you, and thanks so much for praying for God's work over here.

Love Phil

Thailand 2

2006-12-13T04:26:00.000+13:00

Hi guys,

Well I'm enjoying my trip a lot so far. We just got back from a camp yesterday (Monday), which was a great opportunity to get to know the students better, and a really exciting time to be part of them hearing the gospel. Out of the 25 students that came from the town I'm in, only 5 of them were Christians, which is really exciting. Pray that the students will respond to the challenge they have heard, and will see that Christianity is a complete change of lifestyle!

The camp was also quite an encouragement for me in getting some free time just to chat with the students and become a friend. It was also quite cool to see Hank, WinDee and Yuan come along who I've become good friends with. Please continue to pray that I will be able to have some meaningful conversations with them. There was a chinese Bible study at camp and a lot of questions were being asked which is cool. Eating rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner was an experience, along with all the guys sharing the same room, sleeping on just a plastic mat and a blanket (especially when some of the guys insisted on watching soccer until the wee hours of the morning, on the TV in the corner), but I was happy at how comfortable I found it all.
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Some prayer points I would really appreciate your prayer in are:

1. Continue to pray that I would be able to have significant conversations with the students here.

2. Pray that I would be able to meet some new students to invite along to the youth house here (where most of the outreach is done), especially as I go to play basketball.

3. Pray for all the students who heard the gospel at camp, that God's Spirit will convict their hearts and they will respond to this conviction.
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Anyway, feel free to let me know you are getting my emails and still care! Always nice to hear from home.

Love Phil

Thailand 1

2006-12-08T14:18:00.000+13:00

Hello Everyone,

Well, I have been in Thailand 5 days now, and it has been pretty full on. Had a good break in Australia first. Bit dramatic, but a really good rest with my family.

We arrived on Monday at 4am, waited till 5 for rooms to be sorted out, and started the day at about 10. We are working with Jonny and Anne McClean, who are working with students here in Nakhon Sawan, Thailand. They have had over 15 teams out before so it is great to be working with people who know exactly how to use us! So far we have been involved in handing out information fliers and tracts on campus, helping out with English and Bible lessons. We have met quite a few Chinese students so far, so on Wednesday night, we had a trilingual Bible study, in Thai, English and Chinese! But amazing to see several students who have never even seen a Bible before, start to learn who Jesus is!

A highlight has been meeting three chinese guys called Hank, WinDee, and Yuan, who have been really friendly, and came to the Bible study and have said they will come to the Christmas camp we are running this weekend. I am hopefully playing basketball with some of them in 45 minutes, and pray that I will be able to meet some of their friends and invite them to the camp as well.

Johnny and Anne are expecting about 75 Thai students at the Christmas camp this weekend. It is really inspiring, in a country where Thai Christians can be persecuted for not being Buddhist, Christian students are only allowed to come along to the camp if they bring a non-Christian along with them! Pray for this camp, which runs from Friday to Monday.

I am still getting used to the heat (much hotter than I remember!), and the dress requirements of an English teacher. On our second day here, we were dragged along to buy a proper pair of dress shoes, dress pants, and a haircut!! It's the first time I've paid for a hair cut in over 7 years!

I am definitely enjoying my time here. I didn't expect it to be this busy. But time is short and as we have been reminded, we are definitely not here to be tourists! It is a really great window into what student ministry looks like in Thailand. A lot more work than I imagined, but inspiring to.

In our team times, we have also been going through the book of Philippians which is incredible. It is great to see Pauls heart for the gospel, and it is a constant reminder to me that my joy should be in what Christ has done on the cross, and my goal should be to preach that good news as much as possible!
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I would really appreciate your prayers for:

1. That we would be able to have meaningful conversations with students despite language barriers.

2. That my relationship with Hank, WinDee and Yuan, would enable them to hear and be challenged by the gospel.

3. That our team would remain focused, despite busyness, on God's love for the Thai people, and on His glory.

4. That I would see if I have unique skills for the Thai mission field.
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Thanks so much for all your prayers and support.

Love Phil

ps. to get a more comprehensive overview of what we are doing each day, visit our team sight at www.GoCU06.blogspot.com

Wellington Retreat

2006-11-03T16:00:00.000+13:00

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

Wellington Retreat Pics

2006-11-02T20:42:00.000+13:00

Here are some photos of our recent retreat that we had in Wellington.
Thanks to Esther for sending them through.

This is us gathered around the table about to eat our yummy home made pizzas. Man we ate well this weekend. Looks like James is gonna take good care of us!!

Jonny studies law, so apart from getting us out of bed to drive into town to put up poster for his fundraising gig, he goes to be late and wakes up early so he can study, which probably explains the daytime sleeping (or attempts anyway).

as you can tell it wasn't that intense of a weekend cuz i still had time to pose for some lovely propaganda. i hope my mother sees this!!

this is our group, from left to right: Dave, James, Me, Jonny, then Alice, Carissa, and Esther.

James is the TSCF staff worker, Dave, Jonny and Esther are from Wellington, Carissa is from Palmy (the great Palmy that is), and Alice is from Christchurch.

very cool group.

Letter 1

2006-10-25T08:54:00.000+13:00

Hi Guys,

As my friends and family, I'd like to let you know that I am going on a short term mission trip to Thailand this summer from November 27th till December 23rd. I will be going with a TSCF/OMF team and we will be working with one of our sister student groups in Thailand TCS, helping them get established and bringing together the other Christians on campus.

At this stage in my life, I really have a heart for student ministry, and also for God's work overseas, especially Asia. As I'll be working for the next 3 years, I see this as a really valuable time to combine these two passions and to start seriously looking at what life might hold for me after I fulfill my contract.

I will be travelling with a team of 5 other students and one TSCF staffworker (James Allaway), and look forward to a retreat with them in Wellington on Oct 27-29.

It would be so encouraging to me if you guys were keen to support me while I'm on this trip. It will be a new culture for most of our team and a pretty intense month of ministry. There are three things that you could do which would be really encouraging.
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Reply to this email and tell me you would like to receive more emails, updating you on our progress in Thailand.
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Pray for us, especially for:
1. Our retreat together next weekend that we will grow together for the sake of advancing the gospel. (Philippians 1:27-28)
2. God would prepare the hearts of the people we meet in Thailand that they will respond to the gospel. (2 Thessalonians 3:1)
3. That we would gain an understanding of the culture that we are going into, in order that we may share the gospel effectively. (Acts 17:22-32)
4. That God would give me a greater understanding of the truth that his gospel is for all mankind, and that I would see the opportunities to take part in this work.

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Support me financially: As I will also be visiting my parents in Thailand, I don't think it's right to ask for money for my plane tickets there and back, but I would really appreciate it if you would like to partner with me financially in the ministry side. The cost of training/accomodation/outreach/shots will roughly be $1000, so that is my 'fundraising' target. My plan is to have 50 people, each contributing $20 each (but i think my church is keen to support me a bit more than $20 so will probably need a bit less than 50 people), so if you are able to contribue $20, that would be really appreciated. You can pay online at:

P B McIvor
National Bank
06 0529 0683200 18

or even better, pay directly and come and chat to me, and ask me more questions about the trip. I'm always happy to talk about God and Thailand!!! :)
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Sorry that this post has been so long!

In conclusion, reply to this email now saying that you would like to receive further updates about my trip to Thailand. If you don't reply to this email, you won't get anymore emails about my trip.

God bless,

Philip McIvor

What I Believe

2006-10-22T22:13:00.000+13:00

I think it is important what people believe, especially if we are going to support them in 'ministry.' So, a little bit, here is what i believe. Mostly it is just the TSCF doctrinal statement. I'm really hoping that during this mission trip I will be able to develop more of a statement of belief for 'global mission,' so pray that God makes his word clear to me. Thanks.

# There is one God, who is three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is the Creator and Sustainer of all things.
# God in revealing himself inspired the Holy Scriptures so that they are entirely trustworthy and have supreme authority in matters of doctrine, faith and conduct.
# We all were made for fellowship with God, but disobeyed him. So we all have become sinners, guilty in God's sight, under his wrath, and alienated from him.
# Jesus Christ, God's own son, became truly human. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
# Jesus Christ took on himself the sin of the world when he died on the cross as our representative and substitute. God thereby showed his love for us and provided the only way for us to be forgiven and reconciled to Him.
# Jesus of Nazareth was raised by God from the dead.
# The Holy Spirit brings us to trust Christ and repent of our sins, lives in us, and develops our new life in Christ in the fellowship of the Church.
# Jesus Christ, the living Lord, will return in person as Judge and King.

This is pretty dry stuff, but I'm not really enthusiastic enough to make it more personal just yet. I guess it comes from the underlying assumption that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and that it offers us a source of absolute truth.

I was at a mini missions conference last week and it really boiled my blood when one of the missionaries up front quoted "preach Christ at all times, and if necessary, use words." Hopefully i'll come up with an intelligent response to that soon. I'm really keen to get my mits on John Piper's "Let the Nations be Glad." To have read that is one of my goals on this mission trip. Anyway, i'm really selling myself short by kicking this blog off with such a long, boring, unthought out post but oh well. that's the beauty of blogs. noone reads them.

Post 1

2006-10-04T07:23:00.000+13:00

thanks everyone for actually taking the time to look at this post. i hope it reminds you to pray for our team as we head over to thailand. hopefully i will be onto it and post photos here and also all those regularly updated prayer letters i will be sending out.....or history will repeat itself, and i will get lazy less than halfway through the trip and give up completely (see last summers blog).