Last day at Power Church

Yes, there was no blogging yesterday. I was too busy preparing my sermon for today i'm afraid.

So, today was our last day at Power Church and i was about to make my 'preaching via a translator' debut. In some ways its been quite a sad day, because there will be some people that we probably won't see again for a very long time. Our time with everyone at Power Church has been an amazing one. I think about all the westerners who travel through Thailand every year. I imagine that their experience of Thailand is very much as a spectator. i don't think that any amount of money could have bought the experience that we have just had. Being able to live with a Thai family and be part of their lives for the last week has been so much fun.

Anyway, back to today. Sunday's are always an earlier start with breakfast freshly prepared by the assistant at Seven Eleven. We then had an hour of games and songs with the children before joining the adults for the main church service. Today was the Thai Queen's birthday, which means that it is mothers day here. To celebrate this the church had a special service for all the mothers. It was really nice to see the church honouring all of the mothers and encouraging their children to thank them for everything that they'd done. Next up was me. I was a bit worried whilst preparing my sermon. I didn't want to say anything too complicated as i didn't want it to get lost in translation, but i also wanted to bring something fresh and new. I think it went alright, although you're never quite sure what the translator is saying. He may have been telling the congregation to get their rocks ready for a good old fashioned stoning!!

After lunch was more games. Tim and i had the older youth building towers out of newspaper, whilst the girls got the younger kids to make a mess. I think that their was a purpose but no one can really remember.

Our hosts have literally paid for everything for us all week, and have run around after us like the best parents you could ever ask for. So tonight was our turn to go some way to repaying their kindness. We took them to this amazing restaurant. The whole table was litterally covered in dishes - most of them fresh out the sea that day! So dinner for 12 people, of the freshest seafood possible, all for £35!!!

Tomorrow's our holiday. We thought that today was going to be the day that we would have to say goodbye to everyone, but instead Ajaan bu and Pi Kung are come on holiday with us too. Pastor Bu has offered to be our driver and Kung has offered to be our chef. Seriously, these people never stop giving!!! We're off to Koh Chang to see the elephants, which Kate is quite excited about. I think we're all really looking forward to a few day RnR after a very busy week.

Martin