Thailand / South America Ministry Recap

Logistics

• We departed from Portoviejo, Ecuador on Monday, November 6. 
• After about two days, we arrived by bus back in Quito, Ecuador on Wednesday, November 8 and were ready to take off from Quito by plane. We took off on Nov. 9 from Quito, Ecuador for Houston, Texas. From Houston, Texas, we flew to San Francisco, California where our squad had a 24 hour layover and parents were able to visit as well as the squad was able to visit and tour the city of San Francisco. I was able to get some productive things done as well as meet up with my cousin Nathan and his wife Angela and have a good dinner! The next morning, we flew from San Francisco for Shanghai, China. In Shanghai, China, we would board our fourth and final flight to Phnom Penh which is the capitol of the neighboring country to Thailand, Cambodia. From here, we would take a bus for about 12 hours to the Thailand-Cambodia border where we would cross into what the country names itself as The Kingdom of Thailand. The process of crossing the border took a while (about a couple hours) but once we made it through, we boarded our final transit to Chiang Mai, Thailand where we would spend some time resting from the travel and preparing for our ministry in Thailand learning about the culture and different do’s and do not’s. Thanks to God, we arrived safely Nov. 13 at about 6:45AM local time where-as in my home city it would be 5:45 PM CST. 
• Colombia and Ecuador were two months where our squad planned to stay together. In Colombia, we did ministry as a squad of 39 and in Ecuador we did ministry in our separate teams while the squad stayed together, excluding my team. My team was relocated to Southwestern Coast of Ecuador in the city Portoviejo where we did ministry for the month. This next month in Thailand, we will not be residing again with our entire squad, but with only one squad. Teams will be spread out across Thailand and we will be doing ministry with the team ‘Kingdom Bringers.’ Our squad consists of 39 people, excluding our leaders (43 including), and my team consists of 7. And my team will be doing ministry in Chiang Mai.
• The type of location that Chiang Mai is is a city. Chiang Mai is a popular tourist city populating about 150,000 people.

Ministry

• We will be doing ministry in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Asia
• Our ministry is at a place called Abba House. The Ministry vision is as follows: “Abba House Foundation exists for the express purpose of setting at liberty the pre and post captive sex slave HIV Children of Thailand, by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Love of Jesus for the Glory of God the Father. Providing housing, food, education and training in conversational English and Spiritual devotions.” Our ministry focused audience this next couple months will be those recovering from sex-trafficking (ages 7-22) and helping build them relationally and educationally into a place where they can go into the world caring for themselves by teaching them how to operate for themselves as well as sharing with them the love and person of Jesus.
• A Summary of what our ministry will look like includes the opportunities that follow. Most of the people in this recovery program can not read or write so we will be able to help teach them how to do this. The local ministry teaches life skills such as construction, woodwork, jewelry crafts and so we will be taking part in helping with this for half of the ‘school’ days. The other half of the school-day we will help by taking part in their Bible School education, Music, and English. We will come prepared to perform pantomine drama skits, special team songs, and games. We have also been asked to be ready to share a Bible verse, including life application. Us guys (6 of us) will have the opportunity to have bible studies, worship, and teaching English with the boys. A big part of our ministry is the culture and witnessing to the culture. Thailand is a nation predominately buddhist with statistics showing that 93% of the population practices Buddhism. We will able to evangelize in the local park where we can share the gospel with both locals and tourists in addition to handing out pamphlets that have the gospel on them to a nation where seldom people have heard the name Jesus. In addition to this, we will have one scheduled out reach day such as this a week at a local prison, childrens’ detention center, or drug rehab. We will go to the local village to teach English. Additional opportunities we can have are as follows: teaching English at Mae Jo Primary School some mornings. Playing soccer with the boys on Sunday evenings. Help with chores around the campus.

Community/Culture/About the Location

• Thailand is a completely different culture from anything I am used to. To name all the differences in culture would be giving you a 5 page essay to read. 
• The local and current dominant religion of Thailand is Buddhism. Statistics show that 93% of the country is Buddhist.
• Our place of stay will be about 20 minutes so for every day of ministry, our transport to the ministry in the city will be by public transportation (most likely whats locally known as a taxi-bus [a Song Taow, google it!!].) 
• We will be staying with our ministry host in a dormitory. This dormitory provides beds for each member of our teams, hot water showers (praise the Lord), fans (it’s extremely extremely hot her, especially at night), a kitchen, and a dining room to hang out in. We will have A.C. but can only use it at night due to expenses.
• Food will be prepared by our teams at the location we are staying at. There are several Thai restaurants within walking distance with meals as cheap as 30 baht (the local currently which is equivalent of 33 baht=1 USD.) We will need to make breakfast ourselves though so we will visit a local grocery store to get ingredients and materials needed for this.
• The location we are staying in is safe. It appears that we will have many opportunities to street evangelize as well as visit many of the street shops. The location, even though very safe, will be locked at night at the gate in addition to surrounding walls to ensure safety.
• The local language is no longer Spanish. The local language is Thai, and it might be the hardest language to learn I’ve ever come in contact with. They have their own alphabet so…I’ll keep you updated! Pray that I learn this and can communicate with the locals

This is all of our information on the next couple months of ministry and what we have planned and are aware of going into right now. You know just as much as I know now! I would now like to provide a recap and some information on some of the ministry opportunities we had in Colombia and Ecuador.

Colombia (Sep. 12 – Oct. 6)

• Manantiales, Colombia (village ministry)
  • We split our weeks in Colombia into half-weeks that we would rotate between local village and city ministry
  • We were able to help serve meals to the children of the local impoverished village
  • We were able to provide schooling and teaching of English and Jesus to these children as well
  • We were able to do some manual labor by building a roof for a local family from the village
  • We were able to build relationships with the local kids by spending time painting, drawing, organizing activities, and playing sports all with the kids
• Medellin, Colombia (city ministry)
  • We were able to help in the local city ministry’s drug and alcohol rehabilitation program through more behind the scenes work
  • The local ministry that we were partnered with also gives shelter and a place to stay for the homeless at night
  • We were able to assist in church services by serving and taking care of the children during the services
  • We were also able to lead worship at the local church (sometimes in Spanish)
  • A lot of our squad, including myself, were able to share our testimonies with the local church an homeless men
  • The last thing we were able to do was help with daily chores around the local homeless ministry too

Portoviejo, Ecuador (Oct. 12 – Nov. 5)

• Village Ministry
  • We were able to take part in slums ministry. We would go to the outskirts of the city by the local landfill where these families lived that had little to nothing at all. We were able to partner with the local ministry to communicate the message of the gospel and give families that struggle to find their next meal a meal. We were able to teach the children English and build relationships with them as well to which we saw the impact it had
• City Ministry
  • We helped at a local hospital moving storage around and reorganizing files, mostly in recovery from an earthquake of great magnitude that hit this city the past year
  • We took part in college aged small groups and were able to build relationships with them and share our testimonies
  • I was able to sit in one day at the local doctor foundation and shadow the doctor that was from Fairhope, Alabama (how bout that!!) and hear his life story and how he ended up being a medical missionary
  • We were able to do some manual labor for the church that including picking up a rocky path by a street so that now the path is a side walk in addition to painting some for the local churhc

I talk a lot about what we’ve been doing and how we’ve been making an impact but I will never forget the impact that these kids have had on my life. Thank you for this opportunity and making this happen. I could never do anything to deserve this.

Thanks so much for reading. Please continue to pray for me and stay updated on our journey as we go! 

If you have any questions or anything, feel free to contact me

Brenton Bicknell

[email protected]

256-653-9498