This month, I lived and worked at Fangchanu School in Fang, Thailand!
I worked as an English teacher at Fangchanu school, a large, government run high school serving over 1,500 students. I was paired with the grade M5 teacher, Pom Mie. I spent time teaching from curriculum on “advertisements” like job postings, application requirements, and types of jobs, and held discussions on life (our favorite foods, colors, hobbies, and sports) with the basic level English speakers.
One of the highlights of this month has been getting to know so many students. Everyday, we had the opportunity to eat lunch with them in the school cafeteria. These girls quickly became my friends! They taught me some Thai words, I taught them English slang, and they also taught me how to write my family’s names in Thai!
Our ministry this month was highly relational, as ministry always is. The majority of the relationship building took place outside of class time hours. We ate lunch with the students, played volleyball together, hung out in the courtyard, and enjoyed ice cream! This time spent together opened up the opportunity for many important conversations. We shared our lives with each other, about our families, our fears, and what we love to spend time doing.
During the last week of our time at the school, we threw an appreciation party for all of the teachers. We’ve hosted parties at our accommodation multiple times throughout our race, and every party that we’ve hosted has taken place in an accommodation that the ministry host owns. We’ve found these times to be a very unifying between the hosting organization and our team. And thanks to Genna (our officially unofficial party planner), we were able to host a party at our house here! At each party we (sadly) hear the same things:
“We’ve never been invited to an event in our racer’s home before. We are so happy to share this time with you.”
We decided to make our party “thankfulness” themed, as many of my teammates read the book “One Thousand Gifts” this month. This book is all about thankfulness despite pain, heartbreak, triumph, and happiness. Always give thanks to our Father, because He has us where we are for a reason. God gives humans free will, including the choice to trust in His divine reasoning. Understanding and happiness isn’t trust, and we have the opportunity to be thankful for everything.
Trust, thankfulness, and fighting understanding have been prominent themes for my teammates and I this month, so we decided to tell our colleagues from the school about it at our thankfulness party.
This party was filled with the Holy Spirit. Genna talked about what we (humans) are thankful for, and who we are thankful to, and spoke about what Christians believe about thankfulness and why. Following her talk, we went around the room and said what we were thankful for at Fangchanu school. We said things like being thankful for: our relationships with the teachers, that students love to learn, that everyone is so friendly, the food is good, and there is plenty of space to play sports together. The teachers shared that they’re thankful for their colleagues, the student’s willingness to learn and welcome foreigners, and for the help from world race teams that come here. But then, my teacher Patty shared what she was thankful for.
Patty, the teacher that I’m paired with, is super sweet. I asked her earlier in the month if there was any opportunity to host a Bible study with the students. She shared with me that the school was considered to be Buddhism, since it is a government run school, but that many of the students were Christian and attended church services outside of school grounds. We didn’t touch the topic of religion or faith past that – we were too busy getting to know each other and teaching all about advertisements and job applications J
Patty shared during the party that when she first heard that world race teams would begin coming to the school, she wasn’t excited. She knew that we were Christians, and she thought we would do nothing but tell her about our faith, the Bible, and shove religion down their throats. Thankfully, that’s exactly what teams don’t do. She said she was thankful for our help and investment in their school. Their school is located very far away from any large city centers, eliminating the possibility of their students having access to a native English speaker. She said she thanks God for sending us, because we are her friend, we spent time getting to know her and her colleagues, and we don’t promote only our agenda. We come to the school to help them teach English, and get to know the students.
This is what evangelism is. Living our life, coming alongside others, being kind, and promoting equity for all. Evangelism is not entering into a new place, declaring what we know is best, and maintaining the opinion that another place should change. That’s a white savior complex. Evangelism and the gospel is an investment. An investment into the people, of your time and energy. Get to know people. Ask them how they are and care about what they say. Pray with them. This is what Jesus would do.
