So, I wanted to fill you all in on what ministry in Thailand was like last month. You’ve already heard about our amazing host Pat. For our team Beloved Daughters, we taught English at an English camp in the mornings and did farm work in the afternoons. The school principal we worked with was a new contact for Pat and so we helped pave the way for future teams to teach English at her school since we were the first team to partner with her. We taught students who chose to come to the English camp during their break from regular school. There were elementary age students, middle-high school age, and senior citizens.
I taught the middle-high school age with my teammate Heather and we had fun pouring into our students. We only had a few so we really got to know them and see them improve and grow in confidence in the span of 1.5 weeks. One of our students was 15 and was 20 weeks pregnant so that was sad but she was so sweet and willing to learn. We had no curriculum or books to aid us. No translator or white board. Our classroom was outdoors in the shade outside the building. Our only instruction was to teach them conversational English. So, as us world racers do, we did the best we could with what we were given.
We recited common statements daily in a cumulative fashion (i.e. I am ___ years old; I want to be____when I grow up; I have ____ brothers and sisters.) We used the scenery and items around us to practice vocabulary, we went over parts of the body, and we practiced writing sentences. The students loved playing hangman and even stumped us a few times! Our one student started off very bashful and embarrassed when called on and ended up teaching her friend and reprimanding her when she was wrong by the end. If you think you can’t possibly make a difference in 1 ½ weeks, you’re wrong!
Some of my favorite memories from teaching English were:
1. Watching our students grow in confidence as they mastered new things
2. Performing a song our principal made up called “English camp is fun and wonderful” with accompanying hilarious actions literally one minute after she showed us how to do the dance
3. Eating at a local restaurant and having the ladies remember us and be so hospitable
4. Watching the older ladies ride in on their Motos (mopeds) with their giant name tag necklaces on
5. The daily tons of paparazzi pictures taken by the nearby school’s principal
6. The same principal snapping pics of our students reading gospel pamphlets in Thai we’d just handed them and him unaware of what they were reading
7. Receiving a certificate for completing English camp, straw hats, and love notes from students on our awards day at the end
8. Our principal saying “One finger” during picture-taking time (“one finger” means for everyone to put their thumbs up in the pic)
9. Raking leaves at the school with our hands and pieces of board or whatever tools we could find
10. Riding to school in Pat’s truck with people in the cab, sitting in the back, and on top of the truck and hearing their squeals as they tried to dodge branches in our path
11. Just hearing Pat talk and speak out pure truth and wisdom during the rides to school
12. Swimming with the kids at the pool on Fridays (I mean, who gets to do that for ministry???!!!)
13. Having the director attend our awards ceremony and Pat telling us they’re so grateful for us and can’t wait to have more teams come into their schools in the future to teach English (and share the gospel, wink wink)
14. Doing the gospel skit with another team for the kids on the last day
15. Attending a funeral for a woman we hadn’t met and being treated to a full course meal
Pat told us that he doesn’t agree to come teach English if the school won’t allow him to preach the gospel. He is bold and his method is working. He assured us multiple times that he is a good shepherd and that he will water the seed that we planted and make sure that our students are okay (a lot of them have rough family lives) and that they are being pursued. He is changing lives, one student at a time and we are blessed to play a small part in the kingdom work he is doing.
We also worked on the farm during our afternoons. We pulled weeds and uprooted plants with our bare hands, machetes and any tools we could find. We all got stung by bees one day! We carried poop buckets (literally our human toilet wastewater) in an assembly line to water the banana trees. Nothing goes to waste around here! One team built a small hut for a recently divorced homeless man and painted/ fixed up a former convict’s new house (shoutout to Team Uprooted!). They led the water buffalo out to the fields and to the mud pond and a few lucky people got to ride the water buffalo. People cut bamboo and built rabbit cages and fed the rabbits/ chickens/ pigs. Pigs will eat anything: I’ve seen proof now!
Most people went to the juvenile detention center and shared testimonies and ministered to the prisoners. All in all, it was a variety of ministry and it was hard but it was so good. Living with Pat on his farm with his family and amongst his “boys” (ex-convicts) was humbling, convicting, refreshing, exhausting, and life-changing. I am so grateful for the chance to get to know Pat and see the gospel lived out as it should be in all of us. Radical, bold, passionate, strategic, persevering, raw LOVE for the lost and those who need discipling. Saving souls one person at a time. Because every person is someone in Jesus’ eyes. And if you don’t tell them the good news, who will??
Raina, sounds like a very full but rewarding month. We are continuing to pray for you every day.