Hello from Thailand!! The past month and a half has been filled with great hosts, lots of food, a whole lotta harvesting and a great deal of growth! We are living in a little town called Selaphume with our hosts, “Mom” and “Dad,” the pastors of a church in a leper colony.
One of my favorite parts of our ministry here is that I get to be part of a church community again!! I didn’t realize how special it is to have a community of believers to worship with every Sunday. Many of the church members live in the leper colony and we have the chance to spend time with them each Sunday.
At the beginning of November, we helped our hosts harvest their rice fields. It was exhausting work but Mom let us nap after lunch each day! It was eye opening to watch how much time and strength goes into harvesting rice, and it made each of us more grateful for our meals each day!
Once we finished the rice harvest, we started on the cassavas (a type of potato)!! The fields we harvested are owned by people in the leper colony, but because of their disease, they aren’t able to harvest their fields themselves.
We also had the opportunity to teach an English camp at a public school a few hours away! I’m not sure if they walked away knowing any more English, but they sure had fun! One the second day we played volleyball and soccer with the kids – it was so fun to run around with them!!
This past week, we have been preparing for and celebrating Christmas with our host family! We went caroling on Saturday night and invited over two hundred people from the leper colony to come and celebrate with us the next day! On Sunday night, we sang “Feliz Navidad,” performed a traditional thai dance, passed out gifts to Compassion International students, and ate a lot of food! It was so fun to be a part of new traditions and experience Christmas in a different culture.
Merry Christmas from Thailand!!
Love,
Skylar
