Day 6 - Saying Goodbye

What a day! It was so wonderful to spend one last day with the kids, but so very hard for all of us to say goodbye. We had an extra-long, extra-fun opening ceremony today with lots of dancing and singing.


Our crafts today were kites for the two younger groups, and Thai flags made of beads on safety pins for the older. You should have seen the running about trying to get those flags to fly!! Several kids traded their flag pins, and some were given to our new ladies men, Josiah, John, and Coleman (who, coincidentally, also got several flowers, kisses, and bracelets from the young ladies).

English class today covered food, and all I can say about that is my group of all ladies was excellent at naming the desserts. :-) Yum! Today in games it was Fitness Friday! Push ups, aerobics, races - you name it!! It was great seeing the kids race each other to do the fastest set of push ups and jumping jacks. In character development, the leaders shared the gospel. I don't have an exact number, but I'm certain the Lord moved on many hearts. At least one child told Matthew today he'd accepted Christ. That made it all so worth it!

Our day ended in our closing ceremony. We all sang and danced together one last time. The kids circled around the leaders and sang for us, then we leaders circled around the kids and sang/prayed for them. We hugged a lot, and many signed each others' t-shirts and books. Gosh, it was so hard to leave those kids! We can only hope we made a difference for each of them.




Tonight we had our celebratory cookout on the beach!! After being dropped off, we had a five minute walk down the beach to be greeted by a cute banner and an AMAZING spread of kabobs, salad, fruit - you name it! While the line to grill our own kabobs was quite long and the grill crowded, it was so worth it! But the highlights of the cookout were not the food. Rather, we baptized three of our brothers in Christ right there in the sea - first John Walton, then Josiah Wong, and finally Coleman Quinley! These three buddies were so brave in stepping up and realizing this is what the Lord wanted them to do - publicly profess their faith in Christ. After Matthew and their parents talked with them at length, each was baptized in turn, raised to the sound of cheers and choruses of "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus" sung by the youth. What an amazing memory for them!


Right before the rains came a pouring down at the end of the cookout, each team released a lantern in prayer for the children we ministered to this week. It at first seemed it would be too windy with the storm blowing in, but just about every group managed to say a prayer for each child by name and get the lantern released. Just as the last one went up, the downpour started. The Lord held it off just long enough for us!

So, for our final camp post, please be in prayer first of all for those traveling today and tomorrow. Most will go by bus tomorrow, but a few will fly tonight and tomorrow as well. Also, please pray specifically for all those children that accepted Christ, that they will grow in their faith and find a church to belong to (and that their faith will prayerfully spread to their families as well!).

Thank you all so much for the love and support given us this week. We're so looking forward to being home and seeing everyone soon!

Love from Phangnga!