This last month in Thailand was basically a sampling of every kind
of ministry you could possibly do on the WR. So in order to avoid
writing a ridiculous amount, I’ll let pictures do the talking.
Our beautiful contacts:
Mohn– she runs a small business under a ministry called Step Ahead
that hires women from impoverished areas to make really, really nice
leather purses that get shipped all around the world. At first we
thought we were going to be helping them with this, but turns out
they’re ridiculously good at their jobs so they didn’t need our help at
all 🙂 Instead, we got to teach a couple of english classes for them!
Pui– love this woman. She and her family kind of adopted us as
their own– she organized most of the ministry we did, and let us take
naps on her floor in our downtime.
Gorgeous Jiap! She came down from Bangkok to be our translator, and
we fell in love with her. On the nights we went down to do bar
ministry, she was UNREAL. Love just poured out of her, and she had this
incredible ability to just put them at ease almost instantly. She spent
Christmas with us, and when we were in Bangkok she took us out to
karaoke 🙂 Oh, and she’s amazing to watch in traditional Thai dancing.
This is Keith, Pui’s husband. He’s from Bermuda, and he’s hilarious.
He’ll talk your ear off, and it was so fun to be around he and Pui
because they just laugh at each other and have so much fun. He worked
so hard to make us feel at home– for Christmas he made us a HUGE
American Christmas dinner! When I took my first bite of turkey, gravy,
mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce all on one fork, I
teared up. Kind of ridiculous. It tasted like home!
One of the precious ladies who worked at Step Ahead!
One thing we did a lot of this month: skits.
…
Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a big fan of skits. BUT in the
end, it wasn’t all that bad. Since it was the Christmas season, it was
a great time for outreach, because most people don’t know the true
reasons behind Christmas. For them, it’s all about Santa Claus and
presents and decorations. So we had a lot of “Christmas Crusades,”
basically huge Christmas parties where we shared the true meaning of
Christmas. It was a really, really great outreach. I think we went to
about 10 Christmas parties, and performed skits at most of them. They
were really fun! And Thai people looooove gifts, so there was a raffle
at every party– in one of them I won a carved wooden flute!
Some of the ladies at Step Ahead performed traditional Thai dancing
at the Christmas parties, which I love– it’s all about their hands.
One day we drove about 4 hours north to do a couple of Christmas
parties. For the first one, we roll up to a school where SEVERAL
HUNDRED high school students are waiting for us to perform… slightly
daunting.
This school ended up being SO fun. They had a band up after us, and all the kids (and a few of our girls 🙂 went nuts.
This picture is in no way remarkable, but it’s the only one I have
from a truly remarkable night. We went to a Christmas party set up out
in a field, with a big stage and lights and sound system. But before we
even started, it began to rain, slowly raining harder and harder. But
right when people started thinking about leaving, we remembered Buddy
the Elf.. “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for
all to hear!”. Instead of the whole thing being called off, we started
singing random Christmas carols as we huddled under trees and tarps,
and soon it was a party in the rain! After we sang and got everyone in
the Christmas spirit, one of our girls got up and shared a testimony,
and more than 20 people came forward to accept Christ that night in the
pouring rain. It was such an amazing night!
This might sound strange, but one of our favorite “ministries” last
month involved all the stray dogs. Pattaya is filled with homeless
dogs, and it was kind of heartbreaking to have to pass them every day.
So Andrea had the idea to buy a bunch of treats, which she kept in her
purse and we passed out to any stray dogs that we passed. As ridiculous
as it sounds, it just kind of blessed us to see these dogs perk up and
actually wag their tails when they realized they were getting treats.
It was just fun for us 🙂
One of my favorite ministries this month: slum ministry. We got to
work with a woman named Lee Anne, who spent every night in one of 5
slums in the area, doing basically VBS with these kids every week. She
goes to the same 5 slums, so once a week these kids all gather and wait
for her to come love on them a little bit. She does some basic hygiene
with them (cutting their nails and toenails and cleaning any cuts or
scrapes they might have) then songs, a Bible story and games, a craft,
and ends the night with a good meal for all of them. 5 nights a week,
every week. Since it was Christmas, she also gave out donated gifts to
all the kids, and it was such a blessing to us to see these kids light
up under all this attention and love.
During our first couple of days in Thailand, the first order of
business for us was to learn some carols in Thai–we learned “Joy to
the World” and “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” as well as a few Thai
Christmas carols! I think we sang each of these songs at least 100
times throughout our time there. At every Christmas party, at several
churches, and even when we weren’t in ministry, those songs were always
stuck in our heads. At any given time, at least one of us was humming
“Kho hi me kwamsuk wan Christmas…” and the rest of us couldn’t help
but join in.
Our last night working with Lee Anne, we got to go Christmas
carolling in the slums! We just walked around with a guitar, stopping
to sing for all the houses and families we came across. The longer we
walked, the more kids joined us, until it was practically a Christmas
parade!
At the end of our time in Pattaya, this was our resume of ministries:
-skits
-“special songs”– (Christmas carols in Thai)
-slum ministry
-Christmas outreach parties
-bar ministry
-pray with the kids at a couple orphanages
-pray with the residents at Agape House for people living with AIDS
-street dog ministry 🙂
-preaching at churches
-carolling
-English classes
Like I said, we had a heavy sampling last month! But it was great to
get to experience so much and meet so many incredible people. We fell
in love with the people in Thailand, and I think most of us would love
the opportunity to go back some day!
