I have had several people ask me how I feel about our next President.  My first reaction to having Barack Obama as America’s 44th President is fear and desperation.  But then, I have to ask myself “Am I placing my dependence on a man or on my Great God?” Isaiah 31:1 says “Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD!”  I have become complacent over the last several years, depending on the fact that we had a Christian President.  I took too much for granted and was not trusting in the Lord as I should have been.

If I truly believe that God is sovereign and is in control of everything, then I have to believe that He has allowed Obama to win the election and to become my next President.  God allowed me to be born as an American and even though I did not vote for Obama, he is now my President.  Unless I were to change my citizenship to another country, which I have absolutely no plans to do, I now have a responsibility to President-elect Obama. I Timothy 2:1-3 says “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;  For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.  For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;”  I am ashamed to say that I did not pray as much for President Bush as I should have.  I will now strive to pray for our next President as the Lord commands.

It has been a comfort to me to be reminded that “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.” (Prov. 21:1)  No king (or President) can make any decision that the Lord does not allow.  We may not always understand why the Lord allows certain decisions to be made, but the Lord allows them for some reason.  He works all things together for good.  Each individual thing is not good, but in the long scheme of things, they are worked together to become good.

I am praying that during this time of “change” in our country that Christians will be reminded of Who our true Commander-in-Chief is and that He is in complete control.  I am also praying that we will be made aware of our individual sins and the sins of our country and that the Lord will bring revival to our nation and around the world.  In I Thess. 5:18, God commands us “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”  Even in the midst of seemingly bad things, we are reminded to give thanks to God.  I am thankful that God has been merciful to us and that He has reminded me that He is in complete control.  If this election brings Christians to their knees and revival to our nation, it will have all been for good.

If you would like to listen to my commissioning service, you can download the MP3 file at http://hbcm.org/wordpress/archives/349.

The next few weeks are going to be very busy here in the Surin.  The 4th & 5th of October, Surin Baptist Church will be celebrating its 26th anniversary.  We will be having a special dinner on Saturday evening as well as a Thai pastor from another province.  He will also be preaching on Sunday the 5th for both services.

October is also a school break.  Because of this several of the churches around Thailand, have a week of teen camp.  Our young people will be attending this week again this year from October 13-17.  The following week, the 20-22, we will be having a college & career getaway.  I am looking forward to these different activities.

We are also in the process of selling our current church property and purchasing another building.  We are praying that we will have a buyer by the end of this month so that we can move in October.  We have found a building that would be ideal and has a lot of potential.  Jim & Kathi will be going back to the States the end of October for about 7 months, so if we don’t have a buyer by the end of this month, we will take the building off the market until next summer when they return to Surin.  Please pray for wisdom as we go through this process.

Once we get through October, I am praying about starting a ministry with the young ladies in the church.  I am considering having them come over to my house once a week for fellowship and a discipleship lesson.  There are 8 or 9 college & career age ladies in the church and I am looking forward to building my friendships with each of them.  Two of them, Top and Foam, are unsaved and we are excited to see them continuing to come to church and other activities.  Please pray for the salvation of these two college girls as well as the spiritual growth of the other ladies.

Language school has been going well.  I completed my first book last week and started in on the second book.  I have also officially started Thai Kindergarten!  This last week I started learning some of the Thai letters - I now have had 7 of the 44 consonants and 8 of the 32 vowels.  I will also learn 4 tone marks and various other symbols for punctuation, numbers, etc.  Please pray for me as I continue learning this tonal language.  Yesterday in class, I was struggling with the differences in the words for horse, dog and doctor.  If you want to say horse, you use the word maa (with a high tone and say the a as in father).  If you want to say dog, you use maa (the a sounds like “a” in father and you use the rising tone).  However if you want to say doctor, you use m⊃⊃ (the backwards “c” sounds like ough as in ought or fought and you use a rising tone).  I’m afraid at some point I will call a doctor a dog!

Last month I had the opportunity to go to Bangkok.  While there, we went to a crocodile farm.  They have many other animals in a zoo setting and give the opportunity to have pictures taken with some of the animals.  I was able to sit by this huge tiger for a minute while they took my picture! 

Dear friends,

Here are some pictures of my house and car here in Surin. You can call me on the same number I had in Colorado (through Vonage). The number is 303-507-3784 and it will either be a local call for you (if you live in the Denver area) or the cost of a long distance call within the States. I have unlimited minutes, so I would love to here from people back home. I also love to receive mail - the mailing address is:

PO Box 7

Amper Muang

Surin 32000 THAILAND

So, there I was this morning, soundly sleeping in my bed and minding my own business. All of a sudden, I felt something tickling my arm. I pried my eyes open, expecting it to be just a hair tickling my arm. But, NO!!! With a little shriek I jumped out of bed. A roach skittered across my bed and disappeared under the sheets. I yanked back the sheets with a cry of disgust and sent him flying across the room. I no longer know where the roach is, but I know that he is not in my bed. I don’t think I have ever gone from sound sleep to being wide awake in such an abrupt manner (as those of you who know me well will testify)! I have now sprayed Raid (my new friend!) around all the walls in my room and am sitting in the living room waiting for the stink to go away. What a rude awakening! I don’t think I’m in Colorado any more, Toto!

Dear praying friends,

Today was my first Sunday in Surin. It was exciting to finally be here and to be able to get involved in the ministries - I played the piano for the morning service. The church gave me a warm welcome and a floral wreath. It was a blessing to be able to worship with the members of Surin Baptist Church even though I did not understand the majority of what was said! For the Sunday School opening several people accompanied the singing on the local instruments.

Yesterday, we finished our first language book - it was a book of phonetics to help familiarize us with the sounds of the letters and the tones. Tomorrow we will be starting the first official book. Please continue to pray as I study and try to learn this difficult language.

There is no “v” sound in the Thai language, my name is very difficult for the Thai people to pronounce. Because of this, I am now known by the Thai people as Wanda with the inflection on the last part.

This afternoon, Kathi, Ya, Orawan, Nong and I went the market. I almost missed seeing the cat, but there he was - sound asleep!

I’ve had a busy last couple of days and patchy email access, hence the silence from this end. On Monday, Kathy took her son, Joe (who is here to go to university in Chiang Mai starting next week) and me out in the morning to get proof of residency and drivers licenses. We had to go to the American Embassy in Bangkok first and spend about an hour to get proof of residency. Then we took a taxi and train clear across town to the Dept. of something or other (a.k.a. Driver’s License bureau) to get the drivers licenses. First we had to take a scary motorbike ride over to the clinic to make sure we were healthy. They basically looked at our passports and said we were fine and signed a paper. Then we had to take the same motorbikes back over to the driver’s license building, where we had to go in a be asked some questions about address, phone #, etc. Then we were sent upstairs for a test. I had to go in by myself which was interesting since I speak no Thai and they speak no English. The first test was a color blindness test - identifying red, green and yellow dots on a chart. The next test was harder because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I finally figured out that she wanted me to press my foot down on an board with 2 foot pedals. She wanted me to hold down on the “accelerator” until a light in front of me turned from green to red and then step on the “brake” pedal. I was then sent to another room for a 3rd test, but she didn’t make me do anything - something with reading signs or something!

We got back to the guest house about 11:30 Monday morning and headed for Surin. We made it to Surin about 5:30 on Monday night and then Matt & Courtney (and family), Drew & Leah, Orawan, Ya (my Thai tutor), Joe, Nate (the intern), several other girls from the church and I went out for Thai barbecue. That was a lot of fun.

Yesterday, a couple of girls from the states came through and spent the day with Matt & Courtney and I. Matt took me to get my PO Box and then we were able to get my cell phone set up. Last night Matt & Courtney had a bunch of us over for dinner.

My address is now:
Vonda Jones
PO Box 7
Amper Muang
Surin 32000
THAILAND

My cell phone # is 66-872519757. You can call me on that number and I won’t be charged anything. If you can find a cheap international calling card, it won’t be too much for you either. You can try www.callingcard.com - it looks like they have some inexpensive options. Just remember the time difference! I won’t have my Vonage phone until I get into my house (hopefully in a couple of weeks).

Matt & Courtney took Joy, Karen (the girls visiting from America), Joe and me to the elephant village today. The elephants did a little show including playing soccer, basketball, and painting. That was pretty funny. Then we got to feed them bananas.

This afternoon I had my first Thai lesson with Kathi and Ya. Please pray for me as I attempt to learn this language.

It sounds like a house will be available by next Tuesday for me to move into. Please pray that all the details will work out for me to be able to move in there.

We were hoping that I would be able to buy a small car instead of a motorcycle. However, the price of even used cars is about $8,000 and I only have about $2,300 to spend, so it looks like I will have to get the motorcycle.

Love,

Vonda

Well, I finally arrived in Bangkok on Friday, May 30 - only about 19 hours later than expected! My plane leaving Denver was delayed about 2 1/2 hours, which meant that I missed the flight from San Francisco - Singapore. United put me up in a hotel on Tuesday night (or should I say Wednesday morning - I checked into the hotel about 2:30 Wednesday morning). I was able to get the next flight to Singapore which left on Wednesday afternoon. The rest of the flight was really good - although very long! I arrived in Bangkok about 10:00 on Friday morning. I made it through immigration without any problem, but when I got to the luggage carousel, only my suitcase that I had checked in San Francisco had made it. My other 2 suitcases were nowhere to be found. After talking with the luggage counter, they gave me a phone number and tracking number to call later.

Jim, Kathi, Matt, Courtney and their children were all waiting for me. It was wonderful to see them all again.

Jim & Kathi took me to the Bangkok Christian Guest House where we stayed for three nights before driving to Surin on Monday afternoon. We went to church in Bangkok on Sunday morning where Jim preached.

My baggage was finally located and was delivered to the guest house on Saturday evening.  When I opened the suitcases, I found a cup of Thai noodles had been stashed in one suitcase, and had broken open somewhere en route!  What a mess.  I was thankful that it was in the suitcase that did not have as many clothes - fewer things to wash!