Nahong!

Hello all,

We are now safely in Nahong. I've been thinking of a way to describe our trip up to the village but I haven't found a way without profanity so I'll just say "It was scary". We got a truck (praise God) but that is just what it is.. a truck. Usually we get a song taw which is a truck with a cab on the back with bench seats in the truck bed. This is just a normal truck so 3 of us had to sit on our luggage in the back of the truck all the way up the mountain. So that was fun.

But we got here safely. We're actually staying a mile outside the village in an amazing river side home with no chickens and a western toilet. It's pretty crazy!! It has been really good so far to see how much the people missed us and desire for us to be in the village. Tomorrow night we're going to be having a little party at one of the teachers houses after going to a wedding. So tomorrow is going to be a CRAZY day!

Thanks for all of your prayers. Please continue to pray that our ministry opens up and we are able to really move in the village this year! Personally please continue to pray for my back. I'm really trying to not let it get me down. If God is trying to teach me something through it I'm willing to learn. It's just a great discomfort and I don't like to move or sit. I'm pretty much comfortable when I lay down. But I know that it will get better soon. If not here then when I get back. It's a very strange problem and I can't find the source.

I love you guys and I'm really missing you!

God bless

~Lucas

Chiang Mai!

Hey ya'll! Well we made it to the wonderful Chiang Mai! Words can't tell you how happy I am today. Not only am I in my favorite city seeing some amazing people today, but God has blessed me mightily since I arrived here in Thailand.

Last night we took an 11 hour night bus from Bangkok all the way to Chiang Mai. There is something you need to know about the night bus before you get all excited about "having a new experience". First of all the food they try to give you periodically is scary to say the least! (bring your own snacks). Secondly, the goal is to magically not have to go to the bathroom for 11 hours. And last but not least, they call it an "air conditioned bus" which normally on a 90+ degree day would excite ones heart but this feeling however fades away in about 20 minutes.. I know that Minnesota is cold and I am use to that, but when your dressed for 90 degree weather and you were just sweating.. it's not nice to spend 11 hours sitting in a place that is colder then most ice storms in Minnesota. Your sweat freezes, you have to pee.. oh and it's a bus for 11 hours.

But praise God all went smoothly! One of the mighty blessings occurred over the trip. If you've heard me talk about Thailand you know that I'm passionate about the food and also I like it spicy! So much so that I cannot resist even when I know I probably should. The last meal before I got on the bus was INCREDIBLE! But I knew eating it would put my entire digestive system ( and my entire life) in a state of emergency. Luckily somehow I was able to flee the impending doom and make it to Chiang Mai without incident. I have recently found out that I am fine and very happy with.... the function of..er that thing.

Our team will be here until Thursday afternoon and then to Nahong! I'm sooo happy to be seeing friends from last year here in Chiang Mai and going to some of my favorite places. Talk to you guys soon!

~Lucas

Romans 8

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time, are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." This coming from Paul, a man persecuted all his life. He had such an understanding of the gift of God and that everything that matters is the eternal, not the now. Amen!

We've Arrived!

Well, I am sitting in a small room on an ancient computer at Ywam Bangkok!

Thank you all so much for your prayers. I have no words to say how I feel right now. It's really crazy to be back here experiencing the sounds and smells of Thailand again. Our travel could not have gone better! We flew from MSP - Tokyo and from there to Bangkok. Both flights went smooth, security was a breeze and nothing bad happened to our luggage!

I just praise God and give Him the glory for amazing travel!

Today is our day off and then we have orientation tomorrow afternoon. On Monday night/freaking early Tuesday morning, we'll be taking the overnight bus 11 hrs to Chiang Mai! I'll let you know more once we arrive there safely.

Highlight of the first afternoon in Thailand? Praising God with worship music and Bible study AND Spiced down Pad Thai!!! I'm loving it!

God bless

Lucas

Leaving on Friday!

Hello everyone! I hope that you all had a great Christmas season and that your new years is also awesome!

Our team will be flying out on Friday the 31st. P

lease pray that our travel goes smoothly and everything goes according to plan. Thank you all so much for your prayer and financial support. God has truly blessed me beyond what I deserve with all of you.

I will be updating you guys as much as possible while in Thailand (once a week "ish").

I wanted to leave you with a list of prayer needs for the village of Nahong. Thanks again for your prayers! I love you guys.

PRAYER NEEDS FOR NAHONG

*Relationships with the people would be built easily and soon!

*The adults would be soft to the Gospel and our team

*We would be able to communicate the Gospel in a clear and relevant way.

*Our team would be bold in friendships and sharing the Gospel.

*The chains of Buddhism would be broken in Nahong.

Join in prayer for key relationship that we have already built

*Sap & family - she read the entire New Testament in one night. Pray the Gospel penetrates her heart.

*Lamud - Lamud became a Christian last year praise God!! Pray that her and her friends continue to study the bible and seek God.

*Pii Li, she has been our cook and has good friendship with our team, Pray for her salvation

*Bahtim - He is a teacher and has built relationship with our team. He is seeking truth, pray that he finds it in Christ!

*Nit and Sa - Pray for their salvation. I lived with them last year and they are great people and would be great leaders for a church in Nahong.

Pray for our English teaching

*Our team would teach English effectively and efficiently

*We would fully rely on God for wisdom and strength

*For opportunities to share the Gospel in the school

*That Thai children would receive English well

These are some prayer needs right now. I will update you on more needs once I get there in person.

Please keep Cheyenne and I in your prayers. We have a ton of responsibility and we know that we will not rest in the next two months. Also in Thailand our relationship dynamic will change a lot because of the culture and that can be a real challenge under the emotional hardship of the outreach.

Love you guys and God bless your new year!

~ Lucas

Thailand English Update

Hello all,

Today I found out that I will be teaching the 4th grade English class in Nahong Thailand. This year we have been blessed with new course curriculum that will make lesson planning easier. But if you remember last year, yes I

am still the same person. I need a lot of help from God to be able to effectively plan out a lesson to teach non-English speaking students, our wonderful language. The main focus of doing this is obviously to spread the gospel. But a lot of that rests on how we teach. For the students it's that I teach in the right way and love on them in the right way while also teaching at a high level. It's very important to be a good teacher that isn't just getting by in the teaching aspect and doing really good at loving students. The main way that we are able to get through to teachers in the village is their respect for our teaching ability! So just please be in prayer for that.

Again, we will be leaving on New Years eve. It's fast in coming. First we fly MSP to Seattle to Tokyo then to Bangkok. Once we land in Bangkok we are there for 2 days before taking an 11hour night bus to Chaing Mai and then from there 3 hours by truck to Nahong.

Should be a party!!

I love you guys. Thanks so much for being a part of what we're doing in Thailand. Please join with our team in Prayer for the travel, English teaching and spreading of the gospel.

If you would like to come and join the team for a day of prayer on December 4th (Saturday) we are having a prayer summit for Nahong and northern Thailand here at the YWAM Northwoods campus. It's from 10am-3pm and

a light lunch will be provided.

God bless,

Lucas

Woot Woot!

Hello all friends and family

Well, it is that time again. I will be leaving at the end of December through end of February, to go back to the mission field in Thailand. Last year during my Discipleship Training School, we went to Nahong Thailand. A small village in the Northern part of Thailand. Our main ministry is teaching English in the public schools.

After my DTS outreach my heart ached for the people of Thailand and of Nahong. They are an amazing people and culture that sadly lives with no hope. They believe in Buddhism. If you are Thai that means you are Buddhist. They believe in reincarnation and there is a great deal of idolatry. The people of low class (small village people) live with no hope. There are whole families all the way back to great grandparents still living in the same small house in the village. Their hope is that they will live a good enough life to be reincarnated in a better city in Thailand. That is as far as their vision goes. These are amazing people that our friends and I desire so much to see them come to Christ. That they can have the joy and hope and love that I have come to find in Jesus Christ.

Our Mission: To plant a culturally relevant Thai church in Nahong that worships Jesus Christ.

We will be teaching K-6^th grade in the schools. It also gives us great involvement with the teachers and village leaders in Nahong that we have built a friendship with. Last year they even offered to build us a house if we would stay long term. We are hoping that someone will be able to move there in the next few years.

We also do after school ministry with the kids and teach them stories from the Bible and really love on them. This year we are hoping to have some kind of music/performance ministry as well. I am trying to see what that would look like and get things set up. Please be praying for myself and our team as we go.

Me personally: Well starting in August I came on staff here at YWAM NorthWoods and I am staffing the discipleship training school.

I have loved it so far and God is doing so much in the lives of the students. I do many things around here with the school. I am in charge of the guys dorms and also lead the classroom. Making sure the classes run smoothly and that the students are growing and benefiting from the classes. I do a lot of 'one on one' counseling with some of the guy students. I am also the worship and arts director. Once a week I help lead a weekly bible study in which we study the Bible together using what I learned in the School of Biblical Foundations. I coordinate the worship for the study as well.

Shortly after coming on staff here a church in the area asked me to fill in on a Sunday for their morning worship. The following week they hired me as their worship and arts director for their contemporary service on Sunday mornings.

Working for Youth With A Mission carries no salary/income. Which means I am “self employed” and run on outside supporters to continue the ministry here. While at the same time being under the covering of Youth With A Mission's name and on a 2 year contract with them. So, it is living by faith everyday and gets difficult but love my work-there is nothing I would rather do. I want to see the Awesome name of Christ be spread throughout the world and even in our community.

Please keep me in your prayers as I prepare for the task ahead

If you feel you could support me financially or could like to be on my prayer support team, let me know!

We will be flying out- 5 staff and 5 students- on Dec 31^st and returning the last weekend in February.

My e-mail is: lukieneraasen@yahoo.com or check out my blog @ lifethroughhisscars.blogspot.com

My # here at Campus is: 715-353-2280

Feel free to contact me on Facebook as well.

Thank you all and God bless!

Lucas

Thailand Outreach Time

Hello all,
Most of you know that I will be traveling to Thailand once again this winter. I am going back to the village of Na Hong with hopes of planting a church in the village. Our main ministry will be teaching English in the public school.
A couple things:
First I am extremely excited. I love the people of Na Hong and of Thailand so this is my heart. For me it is not a vacation in any sense of the word. My heart aches to see these amazing people come to Christ.
So please keep our team in your prayers

For me personally this is going to be a ton of work. Setting up and coordinating things that'll happen around the world is a chore.
Please keep me in your prayers.

Also, please pray about my finances. We just found out that we will need to order our plane tickets this Tuesday. The flights have gone up at least $400 from last year and we'll need to fly into Bangkok rather then Chaing Mai. What that means is after 30 hrs of flight travel we are going to take an 11hr double decker night bus to Chaing Mai.

So I am faced with the requirement of getting $1600 by Tuesday. Please pray about supporting me financially if able. I have never particularly enjoyed asking others for help because I've always been a hard worker that supplies for myself but times have changed and I must rely on God to provide. Every little bit helps. Really every small bit helps me out. I value you and praise God for your prayers and support.

This is going to be an adventure that's for sure, but one that God has called me to and I anticipate Him doing great things in Thailand.

Please pray for our students as well. Many of them need passports and finances in record time. Their names are: Michael Knight, Sarah Egge, Dorothy Taylor, Kelsy Hultberg and Josiah Merrill.

One of the main purposes of this letter is to ask you if you would like to receive email updates from our Thailand team while on outreach. If so please give me your email so I can create an email list for outreach updates. Thank you so much for your prayers and support. God bless you and your families
Lucas