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Apologies for not updating more and sooner! I am currently back at YWAM Lakeside Montana and it is mighty COLD!! It hasn’t been snowing that much actually, but it’s still cold XD Or maybe I’ve still got my Thai skin on…

Anyway, I just finished my School of Worship outreach up in Chiang Rai, which is in Northern Thailand. It was a wonderful amazing and difficult two months - God really challenged me a lot and I feel like I’ve learned a lot and have moved past some barriers. Holy Spirit totally showed up in Chiang Rai! So exciting. I feel like God has given me so much more hope and visions and dreams for my country, as well as a new love that only comes from Him. It’s a pretty cool feeling =D

So, what have I been up to since then?

I started Mission Building here at the YWAM Base last week. What that means is that, I work voluntarily and live here on the base. I’m doing this for a month here (I’ve got 3 more weeks) and I’m working at the theatre (also known as The Yak). I spend most of my time cleaning, organising and cataloguing things. What happened was that a while ago, the theatre was a very active place, but the guys who were running had to up and leave, and so it was left in a mess - stuff everywhere… We currently don’t have a record of what’s in there at all and so when Carolynne got here, she was kinda left to pick up the place by herself… so I’m just here helping her right now! We’re trying to get it back in shape so that we know what all is in there, and so that Carolynne can start doing plays and dramas again.

What’s next?

Well, I’m going home to Bangkok early March (I’m just here in Montana to wrap some things up, spend some time with old friends, and to rest and hang out with God before moving into my next season) and I will hopefully be plugging back into my church as well as YWAM Thailand. My heart is to really bring a new sense of urgency for worship and missions to the people around me and to be a motivator and enabler. My dream is to see more people being sent out from all around me - both internationals, youths and locals.

A snapshot of what that looks like is, that I want to keep travelling up to Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai and go and worship and empower others to worship in their heart language. There are many missionaries up north who don’t have opportunities to worship in English, because they have poured their lives into worship with the local people. I want for them to be able to have a safe place to worship and be refreshed in their own language (English). I also want to travel to places and provinces that have never heard the gospel and bring more awareness to these places. There’s a DTS team that will be going to Eastern Thailand soon after I arrive home, and I’m hoping to travel with them to these places.

How can you be praying?

For health!! I have been sick for the past… around 3 weeks with a cold and a cough that just does not want to go away… Please pray for healing and also for rest. I’ve also been feeling quite emotionally tired from all the goodbyes and just this time of processing the past year I have been in YWAM.

Also, please pray for more direction from God for this next season. I firmly believe that God is doing some things in my life that I have never experienced, never thought of, never dreamed of! And although all that is exciting, it’s also a little bit scary… =)

And lastly, please pray for provision! God has been so good to provide the exact amount of what I need in the moment that I need it, and I am so thankful to all of you guys who have supported me throughout this past year. I don’t quite know what this year is going to look like yet… but I know that God is always faithful to provide whatever needs there are!

Thank you for staying updated! I will try my best to send out a proper update soon =)

Love and blessings!
Dawn.

I am BACK in MONTANA!! The Land of mountains, snow and cold. and it’s so good to be back!! =D

We got in yesterday at approximately 3pm, in Lakeside after flying for… I don’t know, the past day? From Bangkok, to Tokyo, to Seattle, and finally to Montana. So good to be back home… although home really isn’t home anymore, in the same way that Bangkok is home and not at the same time XD Life of a missionary much!

Anyway, I will be updating properly later, with pictures and all sorts of fun stuff! But for now, I just wanted to say hi and tell you guys that I’m still alive and well!

God bless!
Love, Dawn. 

Time has flown by SOOO FAST!!! Crazy… God is good!

Year of the dragon! Yay =D That’s my year~ Gong hei fat choi to all who understand that language! Praying that God pours out even more of His blessings, love and grace on all of us! =D

Anyway! Things that we have been doing over the past week and some!

• Lead worship at least once a day over the past 7 days in multiple locations such as schools, churches, for meetings, and also in our own worship/prayer room. Sometimes, we have worship sessions twice a day o_O

• Went to Eden House today and sang songs and prayed with the staff there. Please join us in lifting them up in prayer! Eden House is dedicated to helping young girls, mostly hilltribe, from extreme “at risk” situations. You can check out more info on the YWAM Thailand Eden House page.

• We ran a second follow up workshop at the Thai Christian school, where we caught up with some of the old students, and also taught some new students music/instruments. I ran the Piano workshop again with 6 young girls.

• Went to Ging Gaan, a University student ministry that runs a bakery/smoothie shop. We did some worship there, and one of us shared a message about being a Lamb of God, hearing His voice, and spoke on God’s faithfulness and Love. We learned later that night, that one of the students gave his life to Christ that night =) It was a very very exciting moment =D

And those are some of the things we’ve done! Not to mention, some of the best Thai foods ever, Chicken Roti, Homemade American breakfast on our day off, and hanging out with local international Christian teens! Love it ^^

Blessings! Dawn. 

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Love you guys ^^

I apologize for not updating much on what we’ve been doing. See, God has been doing a ton of stuff in my heart and it’s been amazing! Yet hard… but so so very amazing. He’s been revealing some of His heart to me, sharing some of His passion and vision for this country. WAHHH I’m so excited and I have been so very encouraged by our Mighty Counselor. How could I have ever doubted Him? Silly little me.

Anyway, what have we been up to lately?

After having the opportunity go visit Mae Sai and worship and pray there for Brandon and Aum’s new ministry (that aims to help Burmese refugees), we’ve had more opportunities to worship and pray with many other people, including at the YWAM Base here in Chiang Rai! Over the past two weeks, we’ve led worship at a few different churches and locations. We’ve hung out with students at Thai schools, and we also ran a worship seminar and workshop. We do worship/bible study at Nok’s Coffee Shop weekly with a group of young Thai girls who are Christians (they all work at the coffee shop) and also work with the worship team at the International Christian School twice a week.

Outside of official ministry time, we hang out around Ban Du (the area in which we’re living) and meet and talk to people about Jesus. There’s one lady in particular who owns a small restaurant where we often eat. Her name is P’Ta, and we’ve been building a friendship with her, and sharing Jesus with her. Her restaurant is not far from a church and there have been other customers that have also been sharing God with her! And so we firmly believe that God is really really pursuing her right now which is very exciting =D God is moving! We’ve met University students around here, although very few of them are Christians. We’ve also been able to give some Thai tracks out for people to read as most of us don’t know enough Thai to really share the complete gospel message with the locals. Just now, we gave some tracks to a man named P’Gai (Chicken) who owns a noodle shop that we often eat at. We also talked to a lady down the road who set up a sugar toast and smoothie shop - today was her first day! Her name is P’Si, and her son (who I’m guessing is 5) is named ‘Ten’. We gave her a track and Kaylyn was able to tell her that she felt like God asked us to come back to talk to her and give her this track, and that we hoped she would read it (I translated). I think P’Si was glad to have someone to talk to, and her little boy actually went to a Christmas program in their neighborhood that belongs to a Korean Pastor. I don’t know whether she’s a Christian or not, but I’m glad we got to talk to her and sort of welcome her to this area.

So yes! God has been moving, and it really has been so exciting to be His hands and feet here, and to see His love being spread and shared =)

Thank you so much for all your prayers! Please please please continue to pray for me and the team, and also for all the people that we’re talking to, ministering to, and just seeing on a daily basis. Hopefully I’ll bring my camera out some time and get some pictures so that I can put a face to some of the names that I just talked about =)

God bless!
Dawn. 

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I can’t believe it’s Christmas of 2011 already!! Super exciting time of the year, especially since we’re on outreach… because it doesn’t matter where we are or what we’re doing, we get to tell everyone about the greatest gift of all - Jesus!!

The past couple days have been quite fun. We’ve been singing a LOT of christmas songs, so our throats are a little tired… and we’re getting Christmas songs stuck in our heads all the time… oh well… we met up with a team from Mozambique! They work with Iris ministries and Heidi Baker - that’s pretty sweet =D Did some caroling with them.

We’ve also been hanging out at the International Christian School - hung out with their worship team, did a few teachings, participated in their Christmas festivities at school. It was fun! A couple days ago, we went to a Thai school - it was almost an hour away by car… and we joined in with their Christmas Program as well. It’s a local school so they’re mostly buddhist, but the kids did the nativity play, and sang carols with us. They also had some of us judge a singing competition (it was quite an interesting one…) and yeah! We got to tell them that “Santa Claus is not real” and that “Jesus is real!”, and we also got to share a little about how we sing Christmas songs to honor Jesus, because God sent Him to us as a gift, and that he came to save us, and so we love Him and follow Him!

Hmmm… another thing we’ve been pioneering, is a worship/intercessory prayer room. We’ve spent a few hours over a couple days just pouring prayer and worship into that room. I know it’s been really resting for me, to just be able to go there and sing… or sometime just sit and listen to God speak and pour out His spirit over me and over us, into that space =)

Anyway, we had today off, and we’ve got tomorrow off as well! For Christmas Eve and Day =) Lovely! We did a bit of shopping and saw a movie today at the mall. Also ran into some of the FDTS Northern Thailand outreach team at the Night Market! Yeah!! =D It was so good to see them =)

I’ve queued up some pictures, and I’m off to bed now!

Merry Christmas!

Love,
Dawn. 

Super cool things have already happened! But I shall commence in chronological order:

We flew into Bangkok at 11pm on Wednesday Dec 14th, loaded our bags and ourselves into the back of one ‘songthaew’, and drove to the NRTC YWAM office in Bangkok. By the time we reached the NRTC, it was close to 1am I believe? We found and collapsed into bed… Next morning, breakfast! Orientation with Chris Lenty (which provided very very very entertaining… Chris, you are a great man.) and did a little scavenger thing and yeah! T’was fun. THAI FOOD!! Was so good =D Random random random! There was another DTS hanging around from the Herrnhut base, located in Germany, so we met a few of them and chatted with them. Sleeps. Friday! We went to my house for a Christmas Lunch Party, that also turned into a belated birthday, as well as an early birthday, and early anniversary party. It’s always fun to celebrate many things all at once I suppose. My team got to meet my family and mom’s friends, and they all got to meet my new YWAM family! I love it when 2 worlds meet =) It’s amazing =D Anyway, that afternoon, we got back to the NRTC, packed our bags, and went off to the bus station to board a 12-13 hour over night bus ride up north…

And I am now, currently in Chiang Rai!

So now I can tell you a cool story - we were walking back from dinner, and a lady who’s got a stall on the side of the road, selling coffee, stops us and starts to ask us where we’re from, etc. I told her that we were a group of students from churches in the states, and that we just got here this morning. She was quite excited about that, and shared that she was a new christian, and was still searching, had tried out a couple churches and was surprised that different churches were… well, different. Super sweet! We went on our way, knowing that God was definitely going to be helping us build a relationship with her =)

Anyway, I am exhausted from all the traveling we’ve been doing! So goodnight, fellow readers =)

God bless.
Dawn.