Merry Christmas everyone!!! Here in Thailand it is 13 hours ahead of home for me, and this will be a holiday I will surely not forget! Today we men were reunited with our L-Squad women in Bangkok for a few days of rest and relaxation, and of course to celebrate the birth of Jesus!
Our time up in northern Thailand was pretty incredible! Our ministry contact is an american man named Ray who is doing some amazing ministry work with the people of the hill tribe villages in northern Thailand. He has a beautiful wife and seven year-old daughter, and is one of the coolest guys you could ever meet. He and his pastor contact here in Thailand recently purchased some land to use as a children’s center for orphans and refugee kids in northern Thailand, and they have an amazing vision for that ministry, including making it fully self-sustainable. However, the land had fallen into neglect, so it was our job to clean it and clear it! Basically, that means we cut down big old dead trees, cleared any and all fallen palm tree fronds and coconuts, as well as fallen banana trees…and BURNED IT ALL!!!
On the property is also an old pond that had been drained and lost all its water over time, and in place of the water came weeds and other vegetation covering the whole ground. It was our job to pull up as much of that stuff as possible. Ray is going to buy or rent a water pump so he can fill the pond up again, and in time add about 3,000 fish to fill it. He also plans to use it as a swimming hole for the kids who will living there. (oh and guess what we did with all the stuff we pulled up…burned it all!)
Our third big job was building a bathroom on the property. We had to dig the holes, lay the foundation, and, well…pretty much build a bathroom from scratch. Luckily, we had help from some men from a local church, so we weren’t completely lost and fumbling around trying to figure out how to do a bathroom.
One of the coolest nights was when we went to a nearby village for a Christmas party! The entire village is Christian, which is pretty close to miraculous in Thailand, but the coolest thing was that most people still retained their traditional dress, style, and ways of life. It was a beautiful thing to see, for sure. We had a good dinner, sang a few songs, hung out, and they had an auction to make money for the church, selling clothes, food, and baskets! We had a grand night!
When we weren’t working hard we made sure we were playing hard! We played football in the river, hiked down a river through a cave, rafted another river, played soccer against some local kids, and just had a dang good ol’ time! Also, several mornings we had a worship time right after we woke up. Ray has created a little traveling drum kit consisting of a high hat, snare (played with a kick pedal), a djembe, and a tambourine, and we also had a couple of guitars and my harmonica. We would play some worship songs and then just play music; it was a lot of fun, and an incredible time worshipping with brothers!
Now we are back in Bangkok, and we leave on the night of the 26th to go back up north. We will again be working with Ray, doing a sports ministry and some other things in the local villages. Continue to pray for our girls, as the work they are doing is difficult but sooo good!!
