A Weekend in the Village

A weekend in the village…it sounds a bit like the intro to a scary movie, doesn’t it?  Well, I assure you that this village wasn’t scary at all.  Except maybe the spiders…yeah, they were definitely scary.

The squad arrived in Thailand with no difficulty on the 4th of April, but we were only able to obtain a 15 day visa.  This means that we’ll be making at least one trip across the border while we are here.  On the 6th, the teams split up for ministry.  As I mentioned in the last blog, this month I am traveling with all the guys for a month of “manistry”.  While we’re still not sure of everything that we’ll be doing, I want to tell you about what we’ve done so far.

Fast forward to Easter weekend.  The Thursday before, we headed to the far north of Thailand past Chiang Mai and up into the mountains.  Once there, we drove far off the beaten path to a very remote village on one of the peaks.  This village is special, though – it’s the only one in the area with a church.  It was an unfinished church when we got there, but we had plans to change that.

We pulled in as the rain started to come down and darkness started to settle in.  We quickly loaded our packs into the place we’d be staying – a small, open house with a detached kitchen.  (Take a look at the picture, I am not sure how else to describe it).  The bathroom/shower was a short distance away, and it was necessary to watch for all kinds of animal droppings along the way.  The view no matter where you looked was spectacular, and I think all of us fell in love with the place right away – and we were only the second group of white people to ever visit there.

The village is inhabited by the Ka//ren (slashes for security) people, a tribe that exist largely along the border.  They have been largely persecuted by the nations around them.  Some of the tribe settled in the mountains while others are located in refugee camps throughout northern Thailand.  The Ka//ren have been much more open to the Gospel than the Thai people, with about 30% of them professing to be Christian.  The others still follow Buddhism and animism.

The house we were staying in belonged to the pastor and his family, who were there to greet us when we arrived.  Pastor Sumeet started building his church over a year and a half ago, but many complications have delayed the project.  He has great plans for the area, though – he wants this village to be a beacon of light for the others in the area, and although the size of the congregation is small now, Sumeet wants to see people coming in from all over every Sunday morning!

Our team spent the next two days putting the finishing touches on the church building.  It was a full two days of painting, sanding, staining, lifting, and moving.  We took breaks for some amazing meals prepared by one of the tribal people.  We also got to take some time just to admire the scenery of the surrounding area.  On Friday night we watched the full moon rise over the mountains as the evening mist filled the valley.  On Saturday, we had a bonfire overlooking the area while we sang worship songs.

We woke up to a beautiful morning on Easter.  After eating pancakes for breakfast (yeah, you heard me!), we prepared for the service.  Tim and Nate C. felt led to speak, and I organized the skits for the day.  We did the Doctor’s Office skit as an ice breaker, and performed the sin chair in the middle of the service.  With the people of the village being such young Christians, they were a bit restless, but I believe people heard what they needed to hear.

Satan was hard at work that same day though – the witch doctors from the surrounding villages came in and had a service of their own on the other side of the village.  The devil was obviously trying to draw people away from our service, and there was some definite spiritual tension in the air.  The Lord protected all of us, though, and we took time to pray for those who were worshipping with the witch doctors.

After lunch, we rounded up the children in the village.  We made them balloon animals and hats and then played games with them.  Although we didn’t have a huge turnout, I think the the kids really had a great time.  I know we did!  We gave the winners bags of sweets for prizes, but every child walked away with quite a bit to snack on!

I admit, when we arrived at the village I was a little skeptical of what we would be able to accomplish in the short time we had there.  I am certain though that the Lord was hard at work with us and in us, and I know that I left there a changed person.  I worry so much about things like food, cleanliness, and other unimportant things when I need to give God my undivided attention – He provides all those things.  With His help, one of these days I will get my priorities straight.