Sawadee Kha from Thailand!

Sawadee Kha from Thailand! S Squad arrived on Monday, January 27th, after a 3 hour and 15 minute flight to Denver, then a 3 hour and 45 minute flight to Vancouver, then a 16 hour flight to Bangkok. We then parted ways as our three teams. One team is staying in Bangkok and teaching children English. The other two teams then took a 10 hour bus ride to Chiang Mai. One of the other teams is partnering with a ministry that assists victims of exploitation get back on their feet. Once we arrived in Chiang Mai, the second team went off to their location, and my team was picked up by our host for the hour and a half ride to Chiang Dao, a small town in the mountains where we have been serving.

The ministry we are partnering with is called Fountain of Hope. It is a children’s home that is run by Wanida and Aaron, who have taken in children who have come from a variety of tough living situations. Aaron and Wanida have raised these children as their own, along with their own biological children. They currently have 12 children living at the house with them. There are 4 other children that have grown up and moved out, but still come to visit often when they have time off. Aaron and Wanida pour so much love into the kids, teach them English, and worship with them. 

Aaron and Wanida have welcomed us into their home to stay with them and the kids, and we partner with them to minister in a wide variety of ways, which I love! They have hosted several other teams before us as well from the World Race. They live in a house with some land where they have some animals and trees which they use to source some of their food. They have pigs, some of which they sell, chickens, geese and turkeys. They also have avocados, papaya, limes, jackfruit, rambutan, longkong, durian, longan (which they also sell some of), and in season right now, they have bananas, star fruit, mangos, pomelo, canistel, and my new personal favorite, passion fruit!

Wanida, and sometimes some of the kids, cook all our meals for us and they are delicious! Thankfully the food isn’t spicy (or separate spicy and non spicy versions of a dish are made), but teammates can add chili if they want. This works well for our team because we range from a spice tolerance of absolute zero (like me), to the spiciest our hosts have seen from any of the teams that have stayed with them. 

We do a variety of forms of ministry, and it changes from week to week, but we follow the same basic schedule. From Wednesday to Friday, we either do manual labor or teach English at a school, and we alternate between these two types of ministries from week to week. On these evenings, we also worship with the kids. We alternate leading in English, and the kids leading in Thai. On Saturday mornings, we teach English to the kids who live at the house for two hours, which allows them to practice with and hear from native English speakers. In the afternoons, we’ve either had opportunities to explore Chiang Dao, work on preparing for Sunday worship, or continue with additional work.

Sunday mornings, we lead worship for house church by one of us preparing and delivering a message, and every other week, we also lead worship songs. Elijah, one of the squad leaders who is with us most of the time, plays guitar, and I play piano. If we aren’t leading that week, the kids lead in Thai. We have house church because the town we are in is primarily Buddhist, and there aren’t many Christians around. It has been really cool to worship with the kids here. Even though we sing in different languages, we are worshipping the same God, and he understands us all, and it reminds me how even though we live all around the world, Christians are united together as brothers and sisters in Christ! Mondays are ATL (Ask the Lord) days, where we have the opportunity to go out, explore, and seek God’s direction in ministering to the people we encounter. Tuesdays serve as our Sabbath, a personal day to rest in the Lord and recharge for the week ahead. 

During our first week of ministry, we had a variety of manual tasks. We first started with weaving bamboo fences for a neighbor. It took us a bit to figure out the best process, but we got it down! We then cut bamboo shoots to uniform size to be used later for fences. We also disassembled a shed and preserved the roof to reuse later, and pruned banana trees by cutting off the dead leaves. We also dug up fence posts from an area where a fence was no longer needed, and placed them in new spots. 

During our second week, we taught English to 7th-9th grade students at the school where Aaron works. Aaron provided materials for us to use and we were able to teach the kids what words meant and used flashcards, pictures, motions, and participation from the kids to help them learn. On the weeks where we are teaching, we teach at a variety of schools with kids of different age ranges. 

During our third week, we primarily farmed Cassava. The family rents land to farm Cassava on, which is a root vegetable that can be used in both in animal and human food. It can be turned into cassava flour or tapioca flour which is used in baking, and it can also be used to make boba. Our team was very excited once we found out we were farming boba! The process of harvesting cassava involves cutting the stalks down with sickles or machetes, bundling and tying the stalks, and stacking them into a pile. These stalks are saved, cut into small 4-6 inch segments, and will be replanted in a few months for next season. Later, a tractor will come through and harvest the cassava roots, which will be sold. So far, we were able to complete the chopping, bundling, and stacking of cassava stalks in the first and smallest of 4 fields. Moving forward, the vast majority of our manual labor will consist of more cassava farming! We also did some work around the house too by moving some dirt and pieces of concrete around that needed to be moved. 

This past week, our fourth week, we taught kindergarteners at two different schools. We played a lot of Simon Says and other games, and taught things like colors, numbers, the alphabet, and fruits and vegetables. The kids are all so sweet, and have so much energy! 

We minister in other ways as well. We do a lot of walking to get into town or various stores and cafes, and we tend to turn these into prayer walks. We are also building relationships with the locals, and have been able to strike up conversations with tourists we’ve come across as well. We also interact with the kids at home a lot through playing Uno and other games, and having conversations, particularly with the older kids who know more English. 

I’ve been able to really connect with the oldest girl who has taught me some guitar, which I’ve been wanting to learn for a really long time. I’ve also been able to teach her some piano, which she had just started to learn. The family has a keyboard, which was a pleasant surprise! When I left for the World Race, I didn’t think I would have the opportunity to play piano and lead worship with it. I was so excited when I found out they had one! It’s been fun to teach her and learn from her. We played the song “All in All”, at first with me on keyboard and her on guitar, and it was beautiful. Then we switched and had her on keyboard and me on guitar. It didn’t go nearly as smoothly, but we still had a lot of fun! 

Wanida plays guitar, and 5 of the children do too, very well. I joke that they’re like the Thai Von Trapp family because of how big of a family they are and how musically talented they are! 

It has been a blessing to be able to grow together as a team, build relationships with our host family and be able to partner with them in their ministry! It has definitely been a time of adjustment and I am being stretched as we’re learning how to live and function well as a team and how to serve well in our various avenues of ministry, but God is good and we’ve been learning and growing a lot! I’m excited to see how He continues to work in and through us! 

We will be staying with Fountain of Hope until March 16th. After that we will meet up with the rest of our squad for debrief for our last two weeks in Thailand before heading to Malaysia.

Check out this video tour of Fountain of Hope Ministries!

Prayer Requests: 

• Strength, endurance, and wisdom to be able to minister well.
• Wisdom and discernment as we seek out opportunities to minister to the people we come across in the various places we go.
• Continued growth in our relationships with God, within our team, with our hosts, the kids at Fountain of Hope, and the people around us! 
• Continued health.
• Fountain of Hope will be hosting an English camp for about 60-70 kids March 14-15.