A Wonderful Thai Camp

This entry is the continuation of my previous blog on "The Ten Good Men". After having some fun in Bangkok we travelled overnight in a five star bus to Khon Khean for the Thai Camp Celebration.

I was back for the camp after 7 years. It was good to be back. They used the same convention hall being the largest one in Northern Part of Thailand, I heard. This year they were running the camp three times to contain all the people. The camp I attended had 6500 delegates. Two thousands volunteers were needed to run the camp. Wow, that's around 2/3 of Hope Singapore.

In this camp, I was really ministered by the worship sessions. Their worship team was incredible. It was so good to find out that they now displayed the English lyrics on the slides. Some songs were even sung in English. The international delegates were seated on the second floor of the auditorium. As I looked down to the first floor where my Thai brothers and sisters were, it was so gratifying to see every single hand raised to God. I couldn't find a hand that wasn't raised. This was really a display of a united and responsive worship. In one of the worship sessions I cried. It had been some time since I cried during a worship session. God was touching my heart and I was so blessed by it.

The churches in Thailand are continuing to grow steadily. We now have over 3000 churches all over Thailand. The Gospel is slowly but surely saturating the nation. The vision for Thailand is now to build a local church in every single village in the nation, 80,000 of them. I really want to thank God for the great example that the Thai churches have set for the rest of us to follow.

The Missions Night was fantastic. The entire Thailand is gearing up for Africa. The video presentation was very moving. Ps PN's message was great. This Missions Night gave me greater excitement and urgency as some of us are also championing Missions for Africa (Eastern and Southern parts of Africa). I really believe that we will see a lot more churches planted in Africa in the next few years. This is really exciting!

It was also great to be able to catch up with some brothers and sisters from Hope Manila in Thailand after getting to know them quite well through the Manila Easter Camp. It was good to be able to connect some of the ten good men to them as well. Since we are part of a global family it is always good to connect ourselves to others in other Hope Churches around the world.

We developed friendship with some Thai sisters as well. They were our buses' leaders while we were there. There were so hospitable. They took care of us really well and went beyond their call of duty to bless us. Two sisters that we got to know better were Ning (her photo is below) and Toto. Ning is a church staff with Hope Bangkok while Toto is with the International Fellowship of Hope Bangkok.

It was a wonderful Thai Camp. I wish that more of us from the district and AWAM could be there. I look foward to having many more of us being blessed out of our socks in Thai Camp 2008. Till then may this picture below act as an appetizer to the potential candidates of the "ninety nine good men". This was the best coconut drink I have ever tasted in my whole life thus far.

By the way, I calculated. If we start saving $1 to $1.5 everyday, going to Thai Camp is indeed within everyone's means.

Any additional takers?