We're re-locating!

Well, blospot, it's been great, and thanks for hosting us all these years. However, we're re-locating! Yay! It's finally time for our own domain name which gives us more space to have a proper blog, advertise our music and books, and who knows what else the future will bring! Please check out our new site here at www.piawongs.com.

Also, we're very excited to announce that Noom's first book, Because You Chose Me, will soon be available! You can click here to go straight to the page about this book. There is also a Because You Chose Me Facebook page that we invite you to "like".

See you at our new site!

What are we up to?

At the moment, the student centre we've been staying and working in doesn't have any children as they are all on school holidays and back with their families in villages with higher elevation. So what have we been up to, and how do we plan to spend these couple of months?

Our days are flexible depending on whether the leaders of the student centre have specific work they need help with. Also, Noom had surgery 5 days ago to remove screws from his shoulder (the screws were inserted after a sporting accident 6 years ago). However, apart from this and when there is no work, the average day since the school holidays began a couple of weeks ago have looked like this:

Mornings:
Noom studies for his university exam which will be in Bangkok in late May. This is a course he started before he became a Christian and he stopped studying in the last few years. However, he has felt led to finish what he started and since this is the last year before his student membership expires (and there is only one exam left to go before he can receive a degree!) he is determined to get this done.
Karis homeschools Eliyah from around 9am to midday.

Afternoons:
While Eliyah and Solomon have their quiet time and nap, Karis has been working on a book that God has led her to write, sharing her experiences in moving to Thailand and adapting to Thai culture. She is also working on translating a biography that Noom has written about his life and how God redeemed him from his past. Keep posted if you would like to read any of these in the future! We aim to have at least one of them available in the Kindle store by the end of the year. For the first time in a long time, both of us have time to spend on songs, books and other creative things that we can use to support ourselves in the future.

April and May:
In early April, we'll be driving to Ubon to spend time with Karis' parents and renew passports, and then to the village to spend time with Noom's mother and move banana trees. In late April we'll be travelling to Bangkok for Noom to attend some lectures at the university before his final exam at the end of May. Then we'll be driving back North to the student centre, and by then the kids will be back at the centre and the school term will be well underway.

For those of our friends in Ubon and Bangkok, we hope to catch up with you!!

Thank you all for your involvement in our life and work here in Thailand.
Blessings,
Noom and Karis

How you can pray for us...

Lately I’ve been finding that with many prayers I pray, the Father directs me straight to the prayer that Jesus taught us in Matthew 6. Praying has never been my strong point, and I’ve always struggled with the fact that when I start to pray things like “God, please provide...”, “Please lead the way”, “Please give us *insert need*”, “Please work in *name*’s life”, “Please stop the *insert struggle/pain*” and etc etc, I struggle with thinking “Wait, what if it’s not best for me to have this *need*?”, “What if it’s not best for us to go to *insert place*”, and “How can I pray for ourselves or this person/people without knowing if what I’m praying for is best for them?”. God has opened my eyes to Matthew 6:9-13 before, but I feel like He is doing it more and more.

I realise more and more that I desire for our children to say “Daddy, Mummy – whatever you do today, I want to go with you. I trust that you will do what is best for me. I will eat what you give me because I know that you care for my health. I will do the things you ask me to do because I know that you desire to see me blessed through doing those things.” Oh, if only our kids would say this daily! We desire for our kids to trust us. We desire for them to trust that we will bless them and give them good things. We desire for them to trust that it’s not in their best interest to eat ice cream instead of a healthy meal, but that there will be times for treats because we desire to bless them. This is only a bit of what our Heavenly Father desires for us! 

“Father, Daddy God…Wherever you are going, I want to go with you. I just want your will to come in my life, in my family and in this place and work. Protect it from all evil, strongholds, and don’t let any distractions come in the way of me doing your will. Because I know that your will is the best for my life.” Ok, so that doesn’t sound exactly like the Lord’s Prayer, BUT it takes little parts of it and relates it to our lives. I don’t think God desires for us to say in a loud and most holy voice: “Oh, Heavenly Father – Hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…(etc)” He desires for us to use the Lord’s Prayer as a model of how to pray, and to relate it to our lives and what we are praying for. He desires for us to have a deep and intimate relationship with Him, to sit on His lap and just chat with Him, NOT be concerned about reciting every single word exactly how Jesus said.

So how can we chat with Him and pray for certain things if we don’t even know if those things are His will for us? That’s why I feel like the Lord’s Prayer is so great. We are under no pressure to figure out what is best for us and others and then make sure we pray for those things. We can give our heavy burdens to Him and take on His burden which is light – and the same as Jesus’ burden: to spend time with our Father, to do our Father’s work, and to allow our Father and the Holy Spirit to work through us. We aren’t required to change people’s hearts, but just to reflect the love of the Father to them and allow the Holy Spirit to work in them. 

But our prayers DO have power. Because when we pray that Father’s Kingdom will come and His will be done (I’ll just focus on the first part of Lord’s prayer for now) we are praying that nothing will come in the way of His will – because all too often, we unconsciously allow things to happen that aren’t in His will and aren’t in ours and others’ best interests. For example, we back out of something because of fear, or we listen to the advice of a well-meaning person whose advice is actually steering us away from the path God wants us to take. Or, we respond with irritation to a family member or friend and through doing so we send them a careless message.

If my oldest son asks me at the beginning of the day: "Mum, please tell me if you see me doing something wrong so I can stop and be safe from the bad consequences of that action" (Similar to us praying to the Father "Let your will be done in my life...keep me from temptation and evil") how much more likely is my son to respond to me when I call out to him. When I call out "Son, please stop doing that! Consider the consequences" he will stop, because he was the one who asked me to remind him. But if he doesn't show that he's willing to change and continues doing what he knows isn't right (or in my plan for him) then I have to let him go and learn by himself. I'd still be there with him, but I'd need to allow him to choose (assuming that what he's doing isn't dangerous to him or someone else's life). However, when we pray the Lord's prayer for our lives and others' lives we are praying against distractions or blockages between us/them and God's will. We are opening our hearts up to His loving discipline, or we're praying for others to open their hearts to His loving discipline. We are trusting that He (not us) knows best and praying that all evil will back off (because let’s face it, this world is full of evil). Our prayers have power, not just in opening up our own hearts to Him, but they have the power to stop evil and distractions/blockages. Once we've accepted what Jesus did on the cross, we can have the same life-changing relationship with the Father that Jesus has with the Father.

So, if you pray for us when you read this or see other updates, please pray the Lord's Prayer over our lives, family, ministry and the area we are living and working in. And don't forget to pray it over your own life too, because you sure are precious to our Heavenly Father!!!!

NEW LIFE!!

It has been a year and a half since we last used our blog and now it's been newly updated - yay! Although our vision is still the same as it has always been (see the different tabs/pages to find out about each vision) all of them are on hold as we seek more training and get back to basics first. 

The last couple of years have been a whirlwind as one month after Solomon was born in early 2015 we moved out of the city we'd been living in since 2009. Many of you know that we moved to Noom's home village and stayed there for almost 2 years. In August 2016 we made the decision to take a "Sabbath" break and shift our focus from ministry to worship and intercession (which has now shifted to "Learning how to walk in Sonship"!). In November 2016 we moved 1000km up North to live and work amongst some wonderful people of the Karen hilltribe. Since moving up North we've learnt so much about community development and have been challenged in many more personal areas regarding our relationship with God. 

In early 2017 we attended a "Fatherheart A School" and God really blew us away as He gave us each a newer, more intimate, and deeper understanding of who He is as our Father. Now, we are simply learning how to live and walk in Sonship. 

Stay tuned as we try and update this blog more regularly with the things that our Father is doing in our lives and His work in the area we are in as we LIVE (in Sonship), LAUGH (enjoy life), LOVE (soak in Father's love) and DREAM (with no limitations).