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A Storm Experience on the Rice Field
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Here are some news from the hot Northern Thailand.
Foreigners (from the West) say they have three seasons in Thailand: Hot (much like a good warm Norwegian summer), warmer (rainy season) and very hot (the summer). Now we are in the hottest season where temperature can climb over 40 degrees Celsius. In addition, there has been a dry summer this year with a lot of air pollution, even up to now almost mid-May, which is very unusual.
This newsletter will be about an exiting experience on the rice field, Easter party, a child who got healed, some news from us as a family etc.
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Easter party among the Shan people and a child got healed
Picture: We show parts of the Jesus movie in Shan
Most Shan are Buddhists and have hardly ever heard about Easter, many have not even heard about Jesus. So we had a great opportunity to tell the Good News during Easter.
The Easter party that we had on the 20th of April was in the village we are reaching out to, located south of the city Fang, where we also have rented our land.
We gathered between 50-80 people during this day.
 A family chose to accept Jesus
A very good thing that happened was a woman with a small child who came and told us that her child got healed. We prayed for her baby about two months ago, because the baby had problems with her eyes.
She had come this day to tell that her child was now completely healed, and she had arrived early because she wanted us to pray for her and the child again before other people came. She was afraid we didn't have time to pray for them. This time she only wanted prayer for blessing.
She also told us that she now believed in Jesus, because she had experienced that he was answering prayers.
Mawkkham had a good and long conversation with her, and her sister who had also come.
 In the afternoon, we had games for many excited children, Shan food, candies, desserts, showing a films about the Easter message with explanation, plus testimony and prayer.
It was a long day for us as a team (consist of two families). We started the day around 7am in and we were home around 10pm in the evening.
Much consisted of cooking and driving many people with one car. Plus the program we had in the evening with showing of film, sharing of the Good News etc.
Although it was a long day, it was worth it and we all felt happy with it. Many had been encouraged and also heard the Good News.
I especially remember one new girl we drove home and who had recently arrived in the Fang area, she was shining and waved eager goodbye to us when we left.
She has now also started coming on our weekend school.
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When the Storm Came
 It had not rained in northern Thailand since December, and it started to get very hot, dry and high air pollution due to burning of the forest. Air pollution has been dangerously high this year.
So we had prayed for rain and wind, and this night it came, and a lot of it, especially the wind.
We were invited to a house meeting on the rice field that evening.
I can say this: I do not feel very safe on a rice field in a bamboo house when suddenly a heavy storm comes.
The wind can be strong enough to tear off a roof and destroy a bamboo house, I've seen it before.
When the wind came we were sitting in a bamboo house at this house meeting, and I heard trees and branches breaking around us, and dust and dry leaves swirled several meters outside.
The house waved, I heard some roof plates loosen and the power went out (it didn't come back until 2 hours later)
I was perhaps most afraid of our little daughter if the roof got blown off.
When the wind calmed down a bit, we started with worship and prayer, and I can say that we prayed and sang worships songs a lot louder and more intense than usual.
A pastor from a nearby town was there that night, and he had an encouraging speech to us in the sound of the strong wind and the drumming sounds from the rain on the roof.
The anticipated rain came, and it was a great answer to prayer. We were also grateful that the wind did not destroy anything, except for some broken branches and trees.
The picture is from the house meeting we had with flashlights, and the pastor who is reading from the Bible.
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Blessed 14 Families and 20 Children
Last week we had the opportunity to bless 14 families with blankets, mosquito nets and pillows.
In late March, we also distributed teddy bears to 20 children. The money was donated by a young boy in Norway who wanted to help those who didn't have much.
Those who got this were Shan people in the village we focus on and reaching out to, and most of them were parents of the children who go on our Saturday and Sunday school.
They were very happy, both for the gifts, but also that we prayed with and for them when they got the presents.
 New young family
It has come a new young family from Myanmar (Shan State) to an orange farm close to the village.
The woman is only about 20 years old and has a 3 year old child. In the beginning, her son was quiet and shy, but now he has begun to smile and laugh, and comes to our  Saturday and Sunday school. We were also praying for the family a week ago. They are very open and we will continue to visit them regularly.
You can see the boy in the picture with the teddy bear.
It is soon the rainy season here, and we reach out to around 5-6 families with young children around or under 1 years old, these were some of the people we provided mosquito nets for, and there are a lot of mosquitoes here with diseases (but fortunately not malaria), so mosquito nets are very important.
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Some News From Our Family
 Our charming baby, Elisabeth, grows, and has begun to sit and she becomes more and more curious about things around her, and we are very busy at times.
For a week, Mawkkham had a severe throat inflammation (streptococci probably), with high fever. With two children at home, because it is a school holiday (we had actually planned an trip to a river one day, but had to postpone it for the week after) and a sick wife, so there was a lot of extra work for me. Worked as a nanny, housekeeper, nurse plus I did some ministry related things (what I had time to and what was important), so I have no problem to find out what to do in my free time, its not so much of it.
Mawkkham got well again, after an antibiotic cure, but unfortunately it came back today, and she needs to take a new antibiotic cure.
Remember to pray for her!
There is still summer vacation here, and the school, the first term for our two oldest daughters is starting on May 15th. We were and bought school uniforms yesterday.
About Our Economy
We tried to apply for some economical benefits for our child trough the Norwegian welfare system, but because Mawkkham is not a Norwegian citizen and have not lived in Norway, we were unfortunately denied it.
In our newsletter from March I also mentioned that we have challenges with getting Norwegian citizenship for our daughter Elisabeth, we therefore plan to go to Myanmar to get the paper we need there.
But we have two challenges with this:
One is that we do not know for sure that we can bring Elisabeth back to Thailand again, without a passport.
The other one is economical. We need at least $ 1,000 for this, probably more.
An Explanation
 I often do not want to mention too much about our financial situation, because some can think it is begging (and it is not) but I sometimes I feel it can be important too.
So here's a short version of this (If you would like to know more, send me a message/mail):
I work under Youth With a Mission and it means that we ourselves are responsible for getting the support that we need. So I don't have a fixed salary.
I have been teaching the Bible on the internet (in Norwegian) for nearly 20 years which has helped me a lot over the years, but in the last two or three years this has also gone down a bit (one wrote to me recently and he thought I had disappeared into Myanmar and been quiet after I got married). This is mainly because I don't have time to maintain and update the pages and teachings so much (but I still have a weekly teaching in Norwegian and now also sometimes in English). We also have only one church in Norway that supports us with some money every month (but its not a big amount).
 My wife comes from Myanmar (Burma) and from a rather poor background. We have no support partners through her.
We actually help the family of my wife with some. Especially her mother who is 70 and is a widow.
It is not a big amount, but it helps, and it is also the children who are the pension of the parents in much of Asia, it is part of the culture.
Mawkkham is also a missionary like me, because we are not in our homeland and we do this ministry together (I hardly know how to do it without her). I would also will say she is a local ministry worker because we work among her own people group, the Shan.
All the support we now receive comes only from Norway for our entire family, and we are in great need for more partners that can support us. We also want donations from outside Norway, because the currency goes up and down, and lately the Norwegian currency is weak and the Thai currency is strong, so we loose a lot of income just because of that. It will be more stable if we have more currencies.
We also want to have the opportunity to set aside and save money for our children's future.
If you would like to be a support partner for our family, you are very welcome, please feel free to contact us too, anyway you can use the PayPal link below (and we also have a Thai and a Norwegian bank account.)
If you have other ideas or can help us in one way or another, even in a practical ways, feel free to contact us and you can for sure always pray for us.
You can of course give a one-time donation too! As mentioned, we need 1,000 USD ++ to get passports and Norwegian citizenship for Elisabeth, and we also have some extra expenses this month with the children's schooling.
- You can use this link to PayPal.
- You can also find information on my website.
- If you wish to send money to our Thai Bank account please feel free to contact me.
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Prayer Subjects
- Pray for us as a family, to get papers we need for Elisabeth and financially
- Pray for speedy recovery in a busy time, for my wife's trough infection!
- Pray for our trip to Myanmar (probably in July), and that we get the right papers!
- Pray for all those we reached out to during Easter and that it will bear fruit
- Pray for the Shan families we reach out weekly to understand the gospel
- Pray for the new Shan people that recently have come to Thailand (there are many that have recently come)
- Still: Pray for money for a car we can buy, that we can use in the ministry (Good News for the Shan)
- Pray for more sponsors for the ministry (Good News for the Shan)
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Blessings!
Tore, Mawkkham, Anna, Sarah and Elisabeth
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