I apologize that I have not written a blog in a while. And it’s long overdue, so I apologize. This post for Thailand may be more factual on what happened versus more insightful, but I hope the pictures help paint a better picture than I can describe. (You should be my Facebook friend so you can see more pictures.)
In Thailand, my team and I worked along the YWAM team in the city of Ratchaburi. Ratchaburi has a suburban feel since many people prefer the hour long commute to Bangkok compared to the busyness of the major city.
A bit more background: Bangkok is as city as one can get. Massive malls, sky trains, bus routes that is difficult to understand. Since there have been a lot of political unrest, we stayed away from the riots that were happening. (International news have been hitting harder to home for me.)
I find that Thailand to be a very polite culture that like many Asian cultures value “saving face.” We tried to be culturally sensitive by not touching people’s heads, not pointing our feet at anyone, women cannot touch or give monks anything, etc. The country also has a very beloved king. In addition, 95% of the population are Buddhist.
With that, my team had a variety of jobs during our time in Thailand. To sum it up, we taught English, did prison ministry, and lots of Christmas parties.
Teaching English
Thailand is pushing for students to be more versed in English particularly because they are a part of ASEAN and it is important for the southeast Asian countries to have a common language. We held multiple English camps at different schools, including one where we were the first foreigners to arrive there. (The teachers were telling us that the students had more confidence and enjoyed learning English more after we taught them.). We tried to make learning English as fun as possible so we had activities while teaching conversing in English for directions, body parts, shopping, etc.
Prison Ministry
This was one of the most touching experiences I have encountered so far. First off, when we entered into the prison it was not what we had expected. We usually get our image of dingy prisons from media like “Prison Break” or “Brokedown Palace.” Instead, it was quite beautiful and exotic looking (well, at least this one that we went to).
Christmas parties
Since Thailand is a predominately Buddhist country, not many people know what Christmas is all about. The malls and shopping are all decorated with Christmas stuff, but there is no correlation to Jesus and His birth. So, this time of the year is a good opportunity to share about Jesus and what He has done for us. This includes doing Christmas parties and it was also an opportunity for Christian churches to join together and celebrate.
