Drew in Missions

Howdy everybody! Today’s post is going to be a very important one, at least for me.

As you know, I’m going to be in Thailand from January until May. I realized last night that up until now, I’ve never been outside of Texas for more than two weeks at a time before. That means that almost all my family, friends, and my support system will will on the other side of the planet from me.

If you’re taking the time to read my blog, I’m going to guess you care enough about me to miss me during my five months away. But as different as it may be for y’all to not have me around, it will be all kinds of weird for me to be away from everyone back here. That’s why keeping in contact with y’all is going to be a huge key for me.

You see, all the previous interns have told me that even though in your head you know people back home remember you, your heart forgets sometimes when you go for a long time without hearing from anyone. I’ll be able to fight those kind of feelings in a couple of ways, some of which y’all can help with.

First off, I’ll be downloading a computer program called SKYPE. It’s basically like using the computer as a video phone. I know my parents are getting it, so I’ll be able to talk to them and see them if I can get around the twelve hour time differential.

I’ll also have a team of seven friends who will each have one day a week to email me. Hopefully they’ll each be from different groups of my friends, so I can get updates on lots of different parts of the life I’ve left behind.

But I’m also hoping that from time to time, random people will email me out of the blue. I know it’d help me get through some of the lonelier times if I heard from friends and family from back here. I should be doing a decent job of keeping y’all up to date via this blog, but emailing me questions or even posting them here would be very cool.

Or perhaps you could send me a letter. I know of one person who has already agreed to send me letters periodically, and I love receiving mail. (Then again, who doesn’t like getting a letter from a friend?) If you’d like to send me a letter, then you can mail it to the address below.

Payap Christian Zone Church Of Christ
113/1 M 1 Payap road
T. Nongpakrang A. Muang Chiangmai 50000

But all this isn’t nearly as important as prayers. I’m not sure how many people will read this Blog, but if you would each remember to send up a quick prayer whenever you think of me, it would be much appreciated. Maybe you’ll hear something about Camp of the Hills, or see a kid from HYPE, and remember working with me. Maybe you’ll see something about Thailand on the news or eat some spicy Asian food. Whatever brings your mind to me, I hope that you’ll take a moment to lift up my friends and myself in prayer. I have a feeling that we’ll need it.

After a semester of hard work, I’m happy to have finally completed another year of school. My last Final exam was turned in yesterday morning, which means that there is nothing between Thailand and me except a little more work at Mattress SleepCenter and hanging out with friends and family. I’m quite excited. 

As promised, I’ve found the link to Julie’s website, and as predicted, she’s already got a plethora of photos posted. You can view her site at the following address, and as soon as I figure out how to keep that link on the side of my blog, I’ll do that, too.

http://web.mac.com/julieklippel/Site/Welcome.html

In other news, last night my roomie Ross cooked my favorite Thai dish, and it sent me back to 2002 when I ate sticky rice with fresh fruit sweetened with coconut milk every day. I look forward to scarfing many pounds of it over the coming months.

Right now I’m looking forward to speaking to my home Church, Central Church of Christ in Bryan, about my work in Thailand. Hopefully that will help me fill in what’s left in my fundraising.

There are a lot of things that I’m not sure about for this next semester, but I’ve been given a little of an idea of what I’ll be doing in general. I figure I’ll make some guesses here about what’s going to go down on the opposite side of the planet, then we can compare how this stacks up with later posts of the real thing.

First off I’ve been told that my two main missions will to act as a magnet and a bridge. I’ll be a magnet by going out into our mission field, mainly Payap University, and being a fun, cool guy. I’m going to need to be social, inviting people to hang out, be that eating lunch together, hanging out back at the Christian Zone (which is at the Church), or playing some sports. As a bridge, I’ll be making sure that when I hang out with new people, I invite some of the Thai Christians. This way the new people who are interested in the Church will have a chance to make a connection with the established Thai Christians already in the Church. We don’t want them to only connect with the ministry interns, because once we leave, they would lose their connection to the Church. As a bridge, hopefully I can help new people find a new family and new friends within the Church.

In addition to that, I’ll be working on Bible studies with anyone who wants to learn, teaching free English lessons at the Christians Zone, and pretty much whatever else the missionaries need from me.

Now don’t get alarmed, but I’m guessing that I’ll have at least two or three fairly serious allergic reactions to food there. I’m allergic to quite a bit, most notably Thai staples like eggs (used in fried rice) and peanuts (used for cooking oils and sprinkled on just about everything). On the plus side, I’ll be downing the freshest mangos and pineapples, munching on sticky rice, and eating authentic Thai cuisine every day. Well worth the risks, in my opinion.

How does one start a new blog? How am I supposed to begin on what will be a window into the brand new world I’m flying to on the 7th of January? What do I type for my friends, family, supporters, and random interested people?

The truth is that I am full of questions. I’m not sure what it will be like to be living on the other side of the planet. I’m not sure how I’ll respond to working with college students on a daily basis. I don’t know how I’ll deal with being away from my entire family, almost all of my friends, and everything I know well.

I guess I should tell you what I do know. I know that God wants me to be in Thailand. Those close to me know that I wouldn’t miss out on recruiting for Camp of the Hills unless I was absolutely sure that Thailand was where I’m supposed to be. I know that I’ll be leaning heavily on the established missionaries in Chiang Mai, my fellow interns and great friends John Kaczmarek (Who will hereafter be referred to as “Kaz”) and Julie Klippel, and on the prayers of those back here in the states. Finally, I know that after this experience I will never be the same.

I will be updating this blog quite a bit, I hope. I imagine Julie will be filling her blog with lots of pictures of our work, so I’ll link to hers as soon as I get her address, and Kaz will more than likely have tons of deep thoughts, so I’ll link to him as well. I’m thinking as the guy who enjoy writing the most, and the one who has a blogging history, I’ll do my best to put cool stories of what’s going down on this site, as well as some videos and other media, and lots of updates on our day-to-day activities.

I hope that you, whoever you happen to be, will remember me in your prayers as I go through several months of good times and trials, of joy and sadness, of Spiritual mountain tops and nights filled with doubts. Pray that I am open to being used as a tool by God, for wisdom in working with people from a completely different culture, and that I can make it through these five months without family, friends, or Camp of the Hills. God bless y’all.