Welcome to PlaaPlaaPlaa!

So you may be wondering why PlaaPlaaPlaa? What are those strange fish symbols above? What is ปลา and what does it mean? In short, this is a blog site, so surely there's going to be plenty of rambling. Unfortunately BlahBlahBlah was already taken, so I had to settle for the 'Plaa'. But there's actually more to it then just ramblings. The first fish symbol is actually a Christian symbol meaning ICTHUS - a greek acronymn which means "Jesus Christ is God's Son, the Saviour". The other strange letters you see in the last fish is actually the thai word for fish which funnily enough is pronounced "Plaa". So when you put it all together, this site is going to be my ramblings in telling people about how Jesus Christ is God's Son, the Saviour in Thailand (with plenty of good stories about food in between). Happy reading.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Joshua Cell Groups lives on

Thanks for all those who prayed for the cell group i go to. It's been an interesting past couple of months and last weeks prediction that there would be no more cell group was thankfully a wrong presumption. However, having said that, there are some MAJOR changes that have happened and a really exciting future i feel for the group. After months (literally) of meetings and 'discussions' over what the group should be like and essentially whether or not we should study the bible, those who were in favour of having a 'fun relaxing' group have all decided to leave the group. As i try to understand where they were coming from, i do think i have a bit of an understanding as to why they might have been pushing for a group like that, but at the same time, it didn't help those in the group to be growing in their knowledge and understanding of God and helping them grow as christians.

So, there were a few old faces that returned to the group last week when they realised it could possibly be the last week and we'd have to make decisions about the future. Despite the 'advisor' for the group pushing for us to shut down after he himself announced he would be stepping down as advisor and also taking a break from the group, the entire group voted to keep on going. As soon as the decision was made, there was an restrained excitement by that were left in the group, that we could finally be able to do what we wanted to do - study the bible, as well as have fun. it's not that the two things have to be mutually exclusive! All the decisions about where we would meet, what we will study, who will lead the group, what will we do in our time together (all the things we'd been 'meeting' about over the past 2 1/2 months), we agreed on within a total of about 2 mins!

So as of tomorrow, i will start taking the group through a 6 week series in the book of Philippians. :) I'm really excited about the fact that we are going to start to study the bible seriously - the first time in almost 3 months, and everyone is really pumped about it. Please pray for me, especially with language, that i'll be able to help the group grow in their understanding of Philippians and especially of God, but please pray especially for the group, that they'll (for the first time for some) really start reading the Bible and letting the Bible speak for itself. Pray that they'll learn great truths about God and that as they are challenged by those things, their lives will be changed as a result too. So exciting times ahead for Joshua. it's like we've made it through the kiln and have come out the other side more refined :)