I wrote in my last blog a little about how I was staying with Emmi’s dad and stepmom, but I really didn’t tell much about our experience there. So here it is! We spent about 8 days in the Mae Ai village where Emmi’s dad lives and works as a rice famer. Pretty much everyone that lives in the village has some part in rice farming and the rice fields seem endless. My team was spread out into three different homes and they fed us every meal and we got the chance to work with them for at least part of the day.
Our main purpose there was to just go and build relationships and invest in the people. We were the first Word Race team to do the Door 2 Door ministry so I think we were just kind of paving the way. But these people were so awesome! They made us delicious meals (3 FULL courses, all complete with rice :)) and cared for us like their own. They couldn’t speak our language and didn’t know anything about us but totally accepted us.
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lunch in the fields
We were out in the fields every morning at 8 am harvesting rice with them, which is a back-breaking task, let me tell you! We worked with them until lunchtime and then we had to tap out because of the heat and I think my back would’ve snapped in half if I stayed out until 5 like they all do. And these people aren’t spring chickens either! They ranged from like 30 to close to 80. This was not easy work….they were pretty awesome.It was so funny working alongside them. First of all, we were way slower than them (so that was humbling) and they would just talk and talk to us and we of course had no idea what they were saying. So we did a lot of the smile and nod. Two of us cut our fingers and aside from the back problems I’ll probably have in the future, we came away having aa pretty good time.
We got to share little bit about God at the end of our time there, but this is definitely more of a gradual process so hopefully we were able to plant some seeds. It was really cool to hear that more and more villagers told Emmi that they want to house teams like ours after we left. It was a really neat experience…one that someone wouldn’t regularly see on a visit to Thailand. I’ve loved this country and its people and I am so excited for what God is going to do here!
some of our worker friends
beautiful sunset at the Eubanks, in beautiful Thailand 🙂
We are heading to Cambodia in a couple days, and I am excited to see what this country will bring. Updates to come soon!
