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To: Don Woodard Sent: Mon, December 17, 2007 Subject: Ouellette Family Update (c/w photos) |
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December in Phuket.....what the Ouellettes are up to:
Christmas Outreach
Tomorrow (Tuesday, December 18) our family will be driving up the coast to a small town called Ban Nam Khem. Not sure if you remember it, but it was one of the hardest hit places in Thailand by the Tsunami of December 2004. We will be helping out some long-term missionaries and some local believers in their Christmas outreach. We look forward to singing and sharing the Christmas story and playing games with the children of the neighbourhoods we visit.
On Wednesday, our team-mates (the Klassens) and our kids' homeschool teachers (the Johnstons) will be traveling to the same place and joining an outreach to another neighborhood in the same town.
Next Wednesday (December 26th), the Griffioen's (and possibly some others on our team) will be traveling to Koh Khaw Khao island to deliver gift baskets and to encourage & strengthen the people they have been building relationships with over the past number of years since the tsunami. There will also be a number of tsunami memorials happening on this day in a number of places nearby.
Other Happenings
- Our family has been going to a local church here called "Prah-nee- wait". (The House of the Lord.) Christmas is an exciting time for believers in Thailand. Very few Thais outside of the church celebrate Christmas, but they are curious about Christmas and how it is celebrated in the West. Our church is excited to go Christmas carolling and proclaim the true meaning of Christmas to the people of Phuket. We have been helping some of the church members to learn some English Christmas carols (and they have been teaching us some Thai ones!) We look forward to going carolling with our church and sharing the Christmas story with many people in our city over the next 2 weeks.
- Luke had the privilege of giving a Thai Bible to a 13 year old boy that we met last week. We met him in a local park selling fruit, and when we told him that we came to Thailand to teach people about Jesus, he quickly asked, "Where will you be teaching?" When we met up with him again the very next night, (unplanned, but clearly not by accident) we shared a gospel tract with him and arranged to meet him again the next day to give him a Bible. We invited him to a youth group at one of the local churches. What fun to see Luke share in the work God has called us to here in Phuket! We believe that we will cross paths with this boy (Nate) more in the future.
- We hope to share some of our Christmas baking with some families in our neighborhood and look forward to opportunities to share why we are so excited to celebrate Christmas.
- Greg and Becky will both have completed our first language checks by the end of this week. (Our first ones since arriving in Phuket!) Now that we feel more settled as a family, we hope to keep moving forward with our language studies.
We appreciate you all,
Greg & Becky
Caleb, Emma, Luke & Silas
PO Box 342 Phuket, 83000, Thailand
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Map of Ban Nam Khem |
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this is the place where we gather to worship with 50 - 80 Thai believers each week! |
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team worship time in the park (with Nate.) |
