Once we arrived in Thailand we began to search and ask people we knew if they had some mutual connections in Bangkok that may need the assistance of our team for some time in the month. We reached out first to our main leader Megan, who though was in the states, has many relationships to Kingdom movements all over the globe. She immediately referred us to a man who had previously done the World Race and then dedicated his life to the people of Thailand by planting here. His name: Jared Yoder! So, with great anticipation and excitement we reached out to him only to find out that he really had no spot for us for the month. He kindly gave us the name of a new guy in town named Keith and said he would be worth reaching out to as he could use some help but gave us no info into what that “help” might look like. We contacted Keith with haste but the communication was slow. He was out of town with his family in the Middle East. He replied to our interest and said he would be back in town towards the end of the month which only overlapped with our availability by about a week but we were excited to go and serve. We met with him on Friday still unsure of what we would be doing. His last name was Nieginfind as well so honestly we were not sure what he would even look like. We arrived at his place of ministry called Alliance University Center mid morning to be greeted. Guess who showed up? A tall surfer dude in his early 30’s from California. Not expected. Good thing we don’t serve a God who fits in the box of our expectations. He briefly walked us around his place and told us what he does. He had just moved into Bangkok with his wife and two children from the northern more rural region of Thailand where they had been for 5 years. While he was church planter there he began to see a trend among the people of Thailand who are less than 1% Christian. The trend of people who are being radically changed by Jesus are those who are pouring into the big cities and from all over the surrounding countries to attend university. So God placed on his heart to join this movement. Just 2 months prior to our arrival, he opened the Alliance University Center Located on the Main Street of a very prestigious Graduate School called Assumption University. The Center is a place where they offer English assistance, activities, and games as well as being a place of worship on Sunday mornings in which Keith leads. Assumption University is unique in that all of the courses are taught and administered in English so there is such a great need for English assistance. People from all over the world come to this University. As he is explaining this, we are getting so excited to hear about how we can help be a part of this, but he stops for a moment and says, “So how did you even hear about this?” Our leader and teammate Josiah and responds with the story of how we went through our leader to get connections and then saying the we “heard about him through Jared Yoder.” A kind of awkward pause occurred and Keith responded, “WHO IS JARED YODER?”
I am so thankful that God makes our connections. So often we think we are in control but it is so beautiful, those moments in life when you realize that God did it and not us. We were connected to this ministry through a person that neither party had ever even met or heard of before a few weeks prior. God is a great connector. He makes all ends meet. What if we actually believed that we were a piece that God wanted to use to grow Kingdom? What if we lived like God has an amazing plan and we have a part in it? God will use us and connect us to his movements only if were are willing and available to be used. Let’s be that everyday!
So, in the wake of this news that we somehow arrived here without any mutual connections other than God, he began to explain to us what we would do. He really just needed people to love people. For their events during the week as many as 15-20 people would show up but there is only one of him. He needed people to present and love the people there. He also needed a level of the building painted and set up with bunk beds so that in the future he could host people. We spent the next day painting and during our breaks going over to the campus to engage and invite people to the Easter service which was the following day. The next day was Easter and we were able to attend the service and man was it cool!! There was maybe 25 people but 10 different nations represented. This was the first time for almost all of these people to ever hear the Easter story. A young man from China gave his life Jesus that morning and when we saw him the next day he told us he had a new name. He had wanted to be called Luke now because that was where the Easter message was preached from. GOD GIVES NEW NAMES!! We stayed for the next full week (before leaving for Malaysia) and were able to meet with so many of these people and show them the amazing love of Christ. We even got to lead worship the next Sunday morning! The day after we had left we received a text that said one of the friends we got to invest in had accepted Christ! God is so good!
I (Kalyn) was very excited about this ministry because I was able work with college students! Another thing we really enjoyed was being able to spend time with Keith and his beautiful family. He, his wife and children made us feel so at home. They invited us into their home for a meal and we even babysat their kids, so they could have a date night. They made us feel at home with them and feeling “at home” can sometimes be a rare thing on the race. Being the recipient of their hospitality reminded us how we want to be very intentional with this when we get back to America as well as wherever we are. Inviting someone over for a home cooked meal can work wonders for the soul. We challenge you to ask God who he wants you to have over for dinner sometime soon. Maybe a co-worker or someone in your church you would like to get to know better. Food does amazing things 🙂
The Alliance University Center is such an amazing Kingdom movement and we are so grateful that we were connected to it through the Spirit of God! We are asking that you will please join us in prayer for this ministry as we have seen first hand how God is pleased in and using it for His glory!
If you are wondering logistically what things were like this month, MOM, here you go…
Thailand was all squad month so that means we had all 37 of us together staying in a hostel. We had two large rooms on two levels with single beds. It was really fun to be with the whole squad and get to know other people on our squad better, but it also made communication with our team a lot harder as we were separated on different levels. Thailand was definitely harder on our marriage because we were always surrounded by people and didn’t have any privacy. This was the first month that we took a marriage retreat and it worked out well being over my birthday. Essentially, we knew coming on the race there would be months that we wouldn’t get any privacy, so we saved up money to be able to leave the group to have time to ourselves and invest in our marriage. So we took a 4 hour train to a town called Hua Hin and got a hotel close to the beach for 3 nights. This time was really treasured because we were able to really focus on each other and the Lord and what He has for us in our marriage. This month we were given our food money which was $5.50 per day and we ate street food. THE STREET FOOD IN THAILAND IS SO GOOD!!! We were able to eat 3 meals for $5.50 a day! Isn’t that crazy?? Welcome to Southeast Asia! I miss my morning Thai iced coffee that only cost about 65 cents.I haven’t been able to find that in Malaysia yet. Pray that God shows me the spot!
Thank you again for your constant prayers!
Here are some pictures and descriptions from our time here:
This is Keith, his wife Sarah, son Lauren, Dan daughter Margret with our team after our final Sunday with them and Alliance University Center.
Potluck meal after the Easter Service! Authentic food from literally 5 or more countries!
We prepped the walls for the painting and wallpaper we would do and these are the flyers we passed out on campus during breaks!!
For our married retreat we got to go visit and elephant sanctuary (rehab facility for abused or mistreated elephants as well as go to the very beautiful beach.
Nothing is better than Pad Thai from the street food stalls right outside your door!
