Family Ministries School & Foundations for Family Seminars YWAM Khon Kaen Thailand

Mel here with our Philippines staff family the Banganan's at Bangkok airport!

Yes we made it to Thailand and began staff training and setting up of the school almost immediately after our arrival. The pressure was on as after one week we needed to go down to Bangkok where we attended the Indo-China Philippines Regional Leaders meeting. There we met with about 12 leaders from the Philippines, Myanmar,Vietnam,Thailand and Cambodia. It was a good time to connect and network with others working in the region and we have already seen fruit from these times together!

A highlight of our time was having dinner at Steve & Marie Goode's (YWAM's International Director for Mercy Ministries) home in Bangkok

Then it was back on the bus again for another 6 hours trip to Khon Kaen where Mel was to officiate a wedding after a couple of days.....here he is walking down the isle with another Pastor who shared the message.....

Marriage Ceremony of a Filipino Couple working in Thailand

The wedding was held at a beautiful resort here in Khon Kaen!

The following day we needed to climb back in that bus again for another 6 hours to Bangkok and catch our flight to the Philippines. Thankfully we were able to get back to Baguio as all the roads had now opened. We then spent the next 8 days packing up our house to make it ready for our neighbours to move in and also catching up with friends and co-workers.

Then it was back to Manila another 6 hours in the bus and then a flight to Bangkok and another 6 hour bus trip up to Khon Kaen!

Elephant or the bus????

Hey the buses here are great with full recliner massaging chairs with lunch and snacks included plus two drivers a hostess and a toilet as well! Infact the bus is more comfortable that our
no- frills no- food flight!
( Oh and lots of Thai movies and comedy shows along the way!)

The FMS & FFL students had already arrived by the time we returned to Khon Kaen. Here are some pics of the school.

Man & Yung Thawiphak (Thai School Leaders) with Matthew and Amos

Mel & I

FMS Staff & Students

....same- same but sdifferent!

FMS Children with their teacher....

FMS & FFL Classroom...

Here are some pics of our neighbourhood etc......

A nice park that it ten minutes walk from our house.

The highway in front of the neighborhood we are staying in..its very quiet in our little street..truly

YWAM Khon Kaen Centre..and our classroom.

Our street with Mel standing outside the little house that we share with the Banganan Family complete with air-conditioned bedrooms and wi-fi! Thankyou Lord...it is very warm here! 36.C and the food is very spicy about 50.C!!!

Here is our FMS & FFL news.......

We have just completed the first week of the very first Family Ministries School (FMS) and Foundations for Family Life Seminars (FFL) here in Thailand. We thank God for bringing about this miracle and for providing the leaders, staff, students, speakers and venue for this school.

We praise God that our text book "Family Life as God Intended" by Donald Kirkby is now translated into Thai and the students have begun using it for their weekly assignments. Many of the students are from Buddhist homes and some are the first Christians in their families and therefore have not seen or had much understanding of the Christian family.

Man & Yung Thawiphak (Thai couple)) are leading the school and Oom Seesaeng (Thai single) is on staff and is our interpreter. We also have Arthur & Eva Banganan along with their two girls from the Philippines staffing and Mel & I are here supporting the running of the school for the whole of the lecture phase which ends Feb 5. 2010.

Within the student body we have 12 students.and three children. The students consist of four young Thai couples coming from the North, South, East and Western parts of Thailand. We also have a family from Vietnam. who took their CDTS in the Philippines last year. Lastly we have two singles in the school, a Filipina (YWAM Philippine's Staff). and one young man who is Thai.
We also have a few couples sitting in during the parenting and marriage weeks.

Please continue to pray for this school as it progresses.

Please pray especially for the school leaders as they have young children and also for our interpreter.Our Thai students speak very little English and some none at all.

Please pray for the students as they are so open and hungry to learn. Pray they will be healed and to be able to minister to others in the future and to take this ministry throughout their land and beyond.

As always please pray for a financial release. Many of the students are lacking their fees even though we are only charging a minimal fee of 20,000 Baht.

We feel as this school is situated in the heart of Asia it is very significant and we see it as only a small beginning of something much greater that God will do here in this region.

Thank you for praying!

Blessings to each one of you as you serve Him in your place of ministry.

Mel & Brenda Hilario

Family Ministries Staff

Taiwan FMS and our adventure getting there

Last September 26 we hopped into a taxi to go to Manila International Airport to catch our flight to Taiwan. We were to teach in the 3rd Family Ministries School held in Dan Shui Taiwan.

Well our supposedly 30 minute trip turned into a 6 hour ordeal! Due to Typhoon Ondoy we became stranded in our taxi in sudden flooding and stand still traffic. Needless to say we missed our flight to Taiwan and then due to the severe flooding (waist deep) half a kilometre from the airport we had to turn around and go back. By this time water had entered our taxi. However we couldn't get back to our guest house so we looked for alternative accommodation but none was to be found. Finally we ended up sleeping on the couch of a guest house lobby with two drunken Englishmen who were also stranded due to the flood. After 24 hours once the floods had subsided we went back to the airport and caught our flight to Taiwan.

Phew! This was the longest flight we have ever had!
Here is Mel stretching out at Terminal 3 in Manila.

FMS 2009 Dan Shui Taiwan

Once we arrived in Taiwan it was all worth the effort as we had a great bunch of students (27) and nearly all of them were YWAM Staff and Taiwanese apart from two American husbands!

Mel teaching with the Taiwanese Interpreter Darla

We had a lot of fun too!
Here we coaxed the leaders into doing a skit with us on family in missions!
We were the parents and they were our children!

Teamwork is a part of Family in Missions..not just the Mother or the Father but the children too!

Here are some of the students doing a skit...this is one way they put the teaching into art form!

Here we are receiving affirmation after the two weeks of teaching..this is a YWAM custom.

One day it stopped raining..
(we were getting rain at the same time that the Philippines was being drenched.)
....so we took a walk a few minutes from the FMS classroom..so nice to get out and look around!

On the weekend we went back to 'school leaders Debbie & Len Fischer's home and went out for a special meal in Taipei City

That Sunday we travelled a couple of hours to their son's international church where Mel preached to mostly Filipino overseas contract workers.

So after this great time of ministry we caught our flight back to the Philippines
However when we arrived back we heard through the news report that all roads going into Baguio City were cut off due to landslides. See the two pictures below.



The report said that it could be up to 10 days until the roads would be cleared. As we were going to Thailand in eight days to help set up the first Family Ministries School there we decided to change our flight and go to Thailand a week early and return to the Philippines once the roads opened. So that's what we did!

Thank you for all of you who prayed for us and for the Philippines throughout this very difficult time. While we were away the YWAM Baguio Centre became a relief goods centre and the staff and students there have been very occupied with ministry to the Typhoon Victims.