Dear friends in Australia and Singapore and whatever other country this gets to,
The last month has been a difficult one but also one in which we have seen God’s promises come true. For the most part of this month I (James) have been suffering quite extreme fatigue. This means that I sleep for ten hours or more every night and still wake up feeling weary. This bout of fatigue has been worse than any that I have had in the past so I am asking everyone to redouble their efforts in praying for me. It has been a bit better in the past week because I have been able to rest and also because I know that many people were praying for me. Next week I will start work at Rajamonkon (like TAFE) teaching English and at Khon Kaen University teaching Music, so I really need to find relief from this tiredness.
Speaking of work, we feel incredibly blessed by God because He has given us exactly the right jobs for us even when it looked like they were not going to be there. I had thought that the University job had fallen through but now I am going to be paid the same for doing part time work as I thought I would be for full time work. Both jobs will not be too strenuous for me. Air has work with Kevin the AOG missionary in Khon Kaen and she will begin teaching English to a group of Year 12 students next week. This will be a fantastic opportunity for evangelism because the group will include girls from the Church and their school friends who are not yet Christians. As you know we were working at Ban Phai (about 40 minutes away from Khon Kaen) teaching English. This was proving to be exhausting for me so we decided to tell the boss that we could no longer do it. Amazingly when we told him he said that he also no longer wanted to do it. God took care of us in not breaking a relationship. From next month I will earn about 30000 baat (AUD 1100) and Air will earn about 10000 baat (AUD370) compared to a total this month of about 9000 baat (AUD330). So you can see how God has blessed us.
The summer holiday season in Thailand is now ending. Several new cell groups have begun at Church. Please pray that these groups will flourish and that people returning from holidays will come back to Church and will join in with these groups. As you know (I hope), Air has been put in charge of coordinating all the Youth and Children’s work at Church. She is planning to begin Children’s groups known as Missionette and Dolphin Clubs in various villages soon. (‘Village’ may mean a suburb in Khon Kaen or it may mean ‘village’ like we know it.) These children’s groups will use women from the Church as leaders and programs written/translated by Chris Hosack an American missionary living in Bangkok, so it should not mean an increased workload for Air. At the beginning of this month there was a very successful Children’s Camp held at the Church. Eighteen children between seven and twelve years of age attended and about half of them were not Christians. The kids at Church have been on fire for God ever since.
Please pray for the money that we are owed because we have still not had it returned. This has caused us a fair amount of stress but it has also forced us to trust God.
We are about to move house to live with Air’s uncle and aunt. They are not Christians yet but they are very open and they have already seen God work in our lives and their lives.
Thankyou again for your support, James and Air