This week for ministry we split up into our teams and went to different villages all around Thailand. The village my team went to was called Mae Ai and was about a 4 hour bus ride from Chiang Mai.
For village ministry, we served the families by working with them in their fields. (The other blessing for the families was that we paid them to let us sleep in their homes and feed us. This increased their income for that week as well as some free labor!) Our goal for this week was to serve and love on the villagers and shine God’s grace. We didn’t preach about Jesus or anything like that. We just showed up with Jesus on our skin.
I loved being in the village and enjoyed God’s beautiful creation. Thailand is truly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. There was something nice about being outside of the big city and into God’s beautiful nature. It’s refreshing, relaxing, and God’s glory is everyone.
My team stayed at Mae Lang’s house. She cooked us some of the best Thai food I have ever eaten! Every meal was a feast! We stayed in a small room with a pretty decent size bed that we put three people on. There was mosquito netting around the bed which pretty much took up the whole room. Mae Lang’s house was nice compared to some of the other houses in town. But regardless of it’s fancy features like having tile floors and a fridge my team still had some culture shock of no longer being in an extremely affluent country. Goodbye sit down toilets and hello squatty potties! Goodbye hot showers and hello ice cold bucket showers! If I was ever thankful for crossfit teaching me how to squat it is now! I am proud to say that after a week I have mastered both the squatty potty and cold bucket showers.
(For those who do not know, the squatty potty is a glorified hole in the ground that has a place for your to stand over, squat down, and do your business. There is always a bucket of water and a bowl next to the squatty potty that you must dump into the squatty potty to manually flush down your business. Oh, and BYOT, bring your own toilet paper. Bucket showers… pretty self explanatory. There’s a bucket. Wash yourself. But also try to not get everything else in the bathroom completely soaked. So once again it is best if you squat down next to the bucket to pour the cold water all over you. You get it. Right?)
After arriving to the village on Monday we acquainted ourselves with our host families and played with children who just got out of school. In the city kids are used to seeing tourists but tourists do not come to this part of Thailand very often. We were instantly movie stars. We smiled and said in our broken Thai accent “Sa-Wa-De-Ka” (hello) and “Sa-By-De-My-Ka” (how are you). Huge smiles spread across their faces as they see this mob of foreigners (called faraongs) walking around, trying to speak Thai, and play with little kids.
The next day we worked in the rice patty fields. We dug trenches to drain out the water in the higher level fields into the middle levels, and then into the bottom levels. We used a bamboo stick with a coconut on one end to make little drain tunnels in the dirt to guide the water to the proper drainage area. It was a fascinating system; tiring but fun. (My team called this our T&T week, tanned and toned!)
The second work day we made mud walls. We were in muddy water up to our knees and pulled up mud from under the water and piled the mud on top of each other to make the walls that separates and protects the rice patties. Everyone did so well! I was so proud of my team for not only not complaining or making a fuss but enthusiastically getting right down to business not afraid to get dirty (which we did).
Our third work day we cleaned up the streets of the village. We swept up trash, dead leaves, sticks, and dirt and made the village roads look beautiful! For every work day we were there we worked from 9am until noon. It got too hot to work anytime after noon. We would then have free time until about 4pm when the kids would get back from school. We would hang out and play with the kids until dinner time. After dinner we had worship. Some of the villagers enjoyed watching and smiling at us during the ‘singing time’ as they called it.
I was sad to leave on Friday. One week was again not enough time! I am so excited for our next month of ministry because we will be in one place working with one ministry for the whole month! So excited to have more time to increase the depth of the connections I am making with the people my team comes across. We leave for Cambodia later today, the 31st; which is actually my birthday! We will be traveling back to Bangkok on an overnight bus, proceed to the Cambodian boarder, and then to Siem Reap. My team will spend a day in Siem Reap and then head down north to Phnom Penh. My team will be working just north of the Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia, for an organization called Evangelical Mission Organization for Development. This organization has many different programs including: a children’s home, feeding program, home for high school students, english classes, a beauty salon, and church planting. Not sure which program we will work at during our time there but I am excited to be a part of such a worthy causes to serve the people of Cambodia! 🙂
