Posts tagged: Drew & Eunhae
This is part two of a three part update. If you haven’t read part one and two, you can scroll down and see it below.
Now that it’s almost August I think it’s about time to finish updating you all on January - June!
Medialight 3 was a very different school, as well as a very successful school. We had a total of 16 students from 10 different nations. We could go on and on about the stories of change in these students lives. We saw many students rise up to be the leaders God made them to be. It’s amazing to see someone realize their potential and become confident in who they are in Christ! Some of our students come from backgrounds of being extremely persicuted for their faith and having their lives in danger just for following Jesus. When a student like that comes to Thailand and all of the sudden has complete freedom to worship without fear of being killed, it’s a beautiful thing. We really thank God for our location in Northern Thailand. Here it’s possible for people to come from surrounding nations and have freedom to worship openly together.
At our school we not only teach leadership and missions, but we also teach how to use various media skills in missions. Our class this year ranged from people with quite a bit of media experience, and others with none at all. It is a challenge to teach very technical stuff to people who have no experience with computers and cameras. But it’s a challenge that we love! By three weeks into the school the students were already producing impressive videos. By the end of the school they had learned to program a radio station, create a business plan, make short videos for the web, market their videos, and so much more.
We feel so blessed to be a part of this ministry and to be a part of what God is doing in Asia. Thank you all for allowing us to be here!
We will leave you with two short documentaries that some of our students made. This project was after only 5 weeks of school.
Akha and Technology from MediaLight on Vimeo.
A Documentary on Akha Pride from MediaLight on Vimeo.
This is part two of a three part update. If you haven’t read part one, you can scroll down and see it below.
When Eunhae got back from Korea it was a few weeks into the school and the students had been learning a lot. Every morning we start with worship and then go right into classes about Christianity and the teachings of Jesus. After that is leadership teaching. The last half of the day is learning media skills such as video production. After Eunhae was feeling well enough I would go in to school in the morning and come back home at lunch time to pick her up and she would sit in with the students the rest of the day. She was excited to finally get to be with the students!
Almost half way through the school we have a day where we spend all day fasting and praying. Eunhae really wanted to come early on that day because she really wanted to spend the day praying with the students. Everything was going great until Eunhae suddenly started losing large amounts of blood from her surgery wound. It was a scary thing to see how much blood she was losing and not knowing exactly how much blood a person can loose and still be ok. Praise God the hospital is literally across the street from the school. We rushed her to the ER and found out that because of an infection, the wound had swelled and the stitches popped a blood vessel. They said she needed to have emergency surgery. Praise God it was fasting day and she didn’t eat so she was able to go right into surgery. Before we knew it, about 30 minutes after it all began, she was in surgery. Praise God the correct Dr. was in at that time when she usually leaves earlier in the day.
(The hospital here in Chiang Rai)
Less than an hour and the Dr. came out and said the surgery went well. We checked in to a hospital room and were talking about how crazy all of this was. All of the sudden eunhae started getting faint and her heart rate went crazy high and her blood pressure went very low. She kept passing out and the nurses kept waking her up. She had lost way too much blood so she had to be moved to the ICU to have blood transfusions. We found out that if she would have stayed at home that morning and I had to drive home to get her and bring her to the hospital, she probably would have not made it to the hospital in time because of how much blood she was loosing.
(The outside of the ICU)
In the ICU they quickly squeezed 2 bags of blood into her and that was definitely the most painful part of the whole day. Shortly after midnight she was a lot more stable and her blood pressure was getting up to better levels. The next morning they moved her back into the normal hospital room.
(The View from Our Room)
We spent two more nights in the hospital and were free to go home after that! Thank you all for your prayers for Eunhae! SHe is doing so good now and the Dr. said that she has completely healed now! Praise God!
(we took this photo as we finally walked out of the hospital)
It’s been many months since our last update and there is definitely reasons for that. In the next three updates we will try to briefly explain the crazy adventure God has brought us on these past months.
Our third Medialight school has just ended. We had our most diverse group yet with students from ten different nations. The school was an amazing success and we want to say first that it wouldn’t have hapened without your support allowing us to be here. Thank you all so much for that!
Before we talk about the school and the amazing things God did in our students lives, we need to talk about what happened before the school and the amazing things God did in our lives. In preperation for the school we were very excited for our students to arrive and for the school to begin. We had to make a quick trip to The States for Visa purposes and we were able to see some of you while we were there. On the way back to Thailand we stopped in Korea to see friends and family there. While in Korea, Eunhae decided to visit a Dr. to check her overall health and also to see if her body is healthy for having babies. Everything seemed ok but they ran some extra tests and they said they would let us know how everything turns out.
The next week we were in Thailand at a staff retreat in the mountains making the final preparations for the Medialight school. While we were there Eunhae heard back from her Dr. and they told us she had early stages of cancer in her womb. Praise God we went for a random checkup and found it way earlier than most people do.
A few days later the students arrived. We had some hard decisions to make. We were so excited for the school and we had just met all the students, and at the same time Eunhae’s dr. suggest she fly back to Korea as soon as possible for surgery. We eventually came to the hard decision that Eunhae would fly back to Korea to get surgery and I (Drew) would stay with the school and fulfill my teaching responsibilities. It was a hard decision but we knew it was right.
The next week Eunhae was back in Korea and had a quick successfull Surgery and after a couple weeks of healing the Dr. reported that all the cancer was removed and she is cancer free. Praise God!
A short time later Eunhae returned to Thailand to continue healing.
In the next update we will talk about the first half of the school, as well as our experiences with emergencies and the hospital in Chiang Rai. Stay tuned! 
Medialight 3.0 with the exception of Eunhae because she was in Korea :(
Medialight 3.0 with Eunhae after she returned! :) [We are sitting in the mouth of a huge cave near Chiang Rai]
Happy New Year!
We are excited to continue on in ministry in Thailand another year. This first year has been a lot of settling in, learning language, and also traveling to other near by countries to do ministry. This coming year we are excited for two, ten week training schools and a number of one and two week training camps. From our training camps in 2011 we saw students from Thailand develop their skills in Photography while being exposed to the gospel message for the first time. We also saw believers in Burma, and the Philippines learn how to reach their nations with the gospel. It’s been rewarding being a part of this and we’re excited to pick it up a notch for much more training this next year.
Over the past year we have been building relationships with a nearby Akha Hill tribe. This year we are hoping to be able to raise funds to transport the kids to school because they tend to drop out because of the long walk to and from school. Stay tuned to this blog or our email updates for future information on how you can impact these kids lives.
Another project we will be working on between schools this year is a series of around 20 internet videos aimed at the general Buddhist population in Southeast Asia who know nothing about Jesus and His gospel. Many people here don’t even have the slightest idea of what Christianity is, so we aim to present the gospel to them in their language, simply, using themes that they will understand. We are very excited about this project and we will continue to update this blog about it throughout the year.
We want to thank you all for standing by us this past year. Many of you have given your precious time and hard earned money to support what we do and we are very grateful. We want to promise you that we will continue work our hardest this next year in reaching Asia for Christ.
Merry Christmas everyone!
We have had a wonderful year serving in Thailand and we could not have done it without all of your support and prayers. Thank you so much! This December we are reminded of the reason we are here in Thailand. Jesus was born to die so that we can live.
Share the good news with someone who doesn’t know!
Posted by: Eunhae
We just finished running a week long Thai language photography camp that we call “Engage Camp”. The first engage camp was a summer camp for Christians. Last year our engage camp taught media skills to young Thai Christian leaders. This year was our first camp to have students who are non-believers. We had a total of 18 students. Our youngest student was 14 years old and our oldest student was 47 years old. Even with the big age gap, and Christians, and non-Christians (more than half were non-believers) we all became very close and had a great week.
Most of the students were non-believers and very strong Buddhist. Our oldest student, Arthit, has Buddhist tattoos and even wears a Buddhist idol necklace. We didn’t really know how these extremely Buddhist students would receive our message and worship time. We told the students they were not required to come early to worship but that we would love for them to join us if they were able to make it. The first day Arthit seemed very confused during worship. I’m assuming that it was his first time seeing Christian worship in his life. The second day he and his daughter (who was also in the camp) showed up again for worship. We were a little surprised. Arthit was paying very close attention to the lyrics on the TV screen with a curious look on his face. The third day, they showed up again, and Arthit started to clap along with the song. After that, he was at every sing worship time for the rest of the school. By the end of the week he was even singing along. The last day one of our staff members, Ryan, shared the gospel message to the students. This was the first time many of them had heard of the good news of Jesus. Ryan read from the bible and explained that we were created by God, and also what Jesus had done for us. After Ryan shared, I decided to tell the students my reason for living in Thailand. (My heart was beating so fast.)
“Does anybody want to know more stories from this book? Does it sound strange to you? Or wrong to you? Or make you curious? If you want to know more and you want to read this book for yourself, I would love to buy it for you as a gift. Feel free to ask me. This is the reason I am here living in Thailand. What I believe, the story in this book, it’s too good to hold only to myself in Korea. It changed my life and I want to share this good news with all of you!”
Right after the class, Arthit came to me and our Thai staff member/translator Joy. He said, “I want to know about this book more. Can I have one?” That day I gave him a Thai Bible and a book called “From Buddha to Jesus”. When I gave it to him, he pointed to the sky and asked me to pray for him and his family. It was one of the most touching moments of my time here in Thailand.
The next day one more student named Yot asked for a Bible.
God is so faithful in this ministry. This is the reason why our MediaLight team is here. God loves Thailand so much and so do we.
Please pray for Arthit and Yot and the rest of the students who heard the gospel this week.
Arthit
Yot
This is a photo of two former MediaLight students producing some of the only Christian media in their entire nation.
Pray for Nomi and Nini as they reach their home nation of Burma.
*P.S. Nomi (left) is the wife of pastor Robin and just gave birth to their first child!
Posted by: Drew
I’m not even sure exactly how long we have been away. We came home to Chiang Rai this week and are finally getting settled back in. Luckily we didn’t come home to too many bugs in our house! (I think the lizards we came home to helped with that)
Drew & Eunhae in Korea
Now I will attempt to summarize as quickly as possible where we went and what we did while we were away.
The two main reasons we went on this trip were to do fundraising, (We don’t get paid for what we do. We raise all of our money from people who believe in what we are doing!) and also to sort our some green card stuff for Eunhae. And “green card stuff” is as specific as I will get because it’s all too confusing! (But for those of you who were praying about that, I think it is sorted out so praise God for that!)
We were able to visit many friends, family, and churches and speak about what it is we do in Thailand. Thank you all for visting us, taking us in, driving us around, and listening to what we had to say! We are so blessed by you all!
Drew & Eunhae in Chicago
Our trip went something like this:
Chiang Rai > Bangkok > Seoul > Chicago > Michigan > Ohio > Michigan > Chicago > Atlanta > Los Angeles >(Eunahe back to Michigan for “green card stuff”. Then back to L.A.) > Seoul > (All around Korea) > Bangkok > …and then we came back home!
Bangkok on our way back home.
That there is the tallest building in Korea… for now.
We have a lot of work to do in the coming months including running two training schools. One Thai language school in October, and one school in the Philippines in November! We will update you on all that as it happens!
Drew & Eunhae are such a happy couple.
Thank you all for your patience as we left this blog un-updated for a few months! Now that we are back please check back so you can stay updated on what we are doing and what you can be praying for!
Drew & Eunhae
He have had a great time in Korea visiting friends and family and raising funds to stay in Thailand! Tomorrow we leave bright and early for The United States! We are excited to see the friends and family we have there as well as share with many more people about what God is doing in Southeast Asia! We hope to see you soon! Please continue to pray for our fundraising and travels!
Drew & Eunhae
I just realized I ended every sentence in this post with an exclamation point…!
Last night (like every night) the sunset was beautiful so we finally decided that we needed to take some video to show you all where we live. We weren’t planning on doing much with it besides showing people but when we were finished we decided to edit it into a short video with music! We hope you like it!
Drew & Eunhae
