From Beijing, China, we flew into Bangkok, Thailand, where we were briefed for a day before we began gender-based ministry this month. THe colloquial name for this month is “Manistry” for the men, and the girls have their own names for their month. Personally, I’ve been looking forward to this month for the whole race. In fact, before I found the World Race I was actually looking for a men’s mission trip similar to this month’s experience.
Anyways, all the men packed into a bus and 6 hours later we arrive in some village near Burma called Kanchanaburi, working with a contact named Arun, whose wife is Peng. They moved here 8 years ago to spread the gospel to this community and work to establish a missionary base to feed missionaries into Burma. When they arrived however, the locals thought that they were drug dealers because they had an income (in the form of missionary support) yet they didn’t work as the locals did. So to ease the conscience of the locals they decided to farm cassava (from which tapioca is derived) and goats. Therefore, in the past two weeks I’ve become a Thai farmer!
We usually work for about 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours after lunch, or until we finish whatever the job of the day was. Sometimes it’s planting cuttings of cassava, sometimes harvesting, sometimes fertilizing the field with goat poo. But we have to get the goat poo from somewhere! So we go to the goat farm and shovel it off the ground into plastic convas bags. (The goats stay in an elevated room with a slatted bamboo floor through which the goat poo falls. Then we go into the lower room and collect the poo!) Sometimes we herd goats, too. This has by far been the dirtiest month with the hardest physical work, but it’s been good.
I’ve really enjoyed being with just the guys this month. There is almost always some deep conversation going on somewhere. There are numerous bibles studies at random times and just all around getting junk done. We are all getting to know other guys that we haven’t had the privilege of knowing until now and coming to understand each other more and unify more. It’s great. I don’t know if it’s cause we’re all guys and there we all communicate similarly or what, but there doesn’t seem to be any barriers between people or within groups or anything. I’m so glad to have this time to spend with these men of God everywhere around me and take part first hand in what a community of God-fearing men looks like, which is something I haven’t really experienced at this level yet. As the month goes on I”m looking forward to how much more we will all sharpen each other and mature in Christ.
This month also marks what I think is the Thai New Year, characterized by a nation-wide water fight! So today, the first day of the five-day long celebration, we were slammed by bucket-loads of water as we cruised down the road in the back of a truck, and later on we loaded up a 50 gallon drum with water and drove down the road returning the favor. What a blast!
Please pray for me as I’ve developed a pain in my right shoulder that just won’t quit at night (but during the day it’s ok). I think it’s a pinched nerve somewhere. Also pray about support as I’m still $4,077 behind being fully funded; support has come to a stand-still. Finally, thank you for keeping up with these blogs, it means much more than you know! God bless!
