Surprise! Things don’t always go like we think they’re going to…and as a team we’re learning to be okay with that. After an overnight 6 1/2 hour bus ride to Buriram, we were greated by our host Roger at 4 am and told we would be leaving for our day’s ministry at 7am. Most of us slept a little bit on the bus, but were definitely not thinking that our ministry would start quite that soon. Flexibility is key here!!
So we woke up early, ate breakfast (it was wonderful – cereal, yogurt, toast, tea…yumm!), and got in a van to drive 2 1/2 hours to an “English Camp” hosted by three schools. I wasn’t looking forward to it – partly because I was so tired, and partly because teaching isn’t one of my strong points. On the way we prayed for supernatural strength to make it through the day (a couple of my teammates had also prayed for God to multiply their few short hours of sleep to feel like a full night).
We arrived at the school site and were greeted by a swarm of kids ranging from age 12-15 years old (I think there were just under 200 kids there). They were split into five groups and we were responsible to do an activity (in English, of course, since it was English camp!) for about 15 miutes with groups of about 40 at a time. Initially we thought there were 6 groups, and I freaked out a little bit because I didn’t know if I could handle that many kids myself, but there were only five, so Kari and I worked together – we ended up playing hangman with them, using words like “school, Thailand, body, yellow, seven, dog, hands,” all to get them to understand a bit of English.
After a really yummy and very satisfying lunch (provided by the school – they love to spoil us!) we were informed there would be a closing program for the camp and that we were invited to take part in it. Heather and Caitlin both led the songs they had taught in smaller groups, and the kids really enjoyed the motions and trying to sing the English words. Jenn got up to speak, thanked them for letting us come and be a part of “English Camp 2007” and then she talked about the Bibles that we had to give to them. (Our contact, Roger, has a whole room full of Gideon Bibles to pass out…and they’re in Thai, so that’s an amazingly helpful thing!) The kids treated us like celebrities and wanted us to sign their new Bibles, so we wrote that God loved them and that they were special to Him, and planted some seeds for future missionaries to help water and harvest.
Even though it was a pretty long day and we were tired and we weren’t sure about the kind of ministry, God had plans to bring His children closer to Him. We learned that nothing is impossible with Him.
