On The Twelfth Week Of DTS. . .

So, here we are about to begin the last week of the Lecture phase of our DTS. This past week we had a speaker describing to us what it means to minister cross-culturally. It seems like there was barely any room left in any of our brains, but we squeezed in what information we could.
This past Thursday morning at all-base intercession time our group was leading. We split up the seven spheres of influence amongst us(education, arts and media, government, family life, etc) and found prayer points for Thailand and Myanmar. During prayer time one person prayed that we (the team) would be heard and remembered for the message that we bring, not because we are white people. That is my prayer, too. I wonder how many white people have entered Thailand with a message other than the gospel and have left a lasting impression on the Thai people. Especially in the area of the sex-trade, which was brought to Thailand during the vietnam war, mainly by american soldiers. There are a lot of forces that we as Believers are going to have to work against in order to be effective on this trip. One challenge (and I won't give weight to it because I wouldn't know what to weigh it) is how to pull out aspects of Thai culture that are already in-line with Jesus' teachings. We can't simply sit back and say,"They're buddhists, so that's incredibly difficult to deal with." One of our speakers compared Mennonites with buddhists and muslims, because Mennonites understand what it is like to live out your faith in your everyday life. How our faith is not just expressed on a Sunday, but an integral part of how we live our lives everyday. This is what he said, "In my travels I have found that of the Christian denomination, Mennonites have an easier time adapting and relating to people of other religions, such as buddhists or muslims, and are able to see how their religion is woven throughout their entire life. I see that very much in the Mennonite denomination; that living out of their faith everyday, not just once a week and on holidays." So, in that way we can understand how buddhists are affected by their beliefs in a daily way. Please pray that God will give our team insights and initiative to seize opportunities for sharing Jesus' love and life as they are shown to us.
Okay, another question that some of you might have is,"What other country may Carson possibly be visiting?" Well, after our Outreach, we as a family will go to Beijing for a little while. Once there, I, Carson, would like to take an exploratory trip to Perm, Russia. There is a YWAM base there that is in need of staff to help operate their King's Kids ministry, which is a ministry that is growing rapidly and they are looking to expand their locations in the city. Also, the city of Perm, Russia has hundereds of thousands of orphans and Kathy and I would like to get involved in orphan ministry somehow and this particular YWAM base has a huge orphan ministry focus. I've called the base through Skype twice and they are hoping I can make it there from China. The only question is how to get the entry visa. From what we understand I can get a tourist visa from the Russian embassy in Beijing once we get there. That is another prayer request that we have: that receiving a tourist visa will be easy.
If any of you have tried to call us for the past two weeks, then you know our cell phone has been turned off and we now make all of our calls through Skype. So, if we call you and a number doesn't show up on your caller ID, it might be us. We will always get your emails. We check email regularly everyday and hopefully will continue to while in Thailand and China.
Well, hopefully we will update this again before we leave for Thailand. If not, then we'll do it once we get there. Thank you for logging on and praying for us. God bless you all.

Carson, Kathy, Dakota