yadayadayada: June 2008

THAI MISSION TRIP 2008 JUNE 13th - 20th

I’ve thought of how I would like to give an account of my experience on the mission trip and I’ve decided to just describe the pictures in chronological order. I will add on to this thread as and when cause its just too tedious to write everything at one go.

What's the trip gonna be like?

This is me on board a song-tiao looking all pensive and full of thought. I look like I thinking sutff like, "How is everything gonna work out?" or "What kinda accomodation would we be staying in?" Truth be told I was really just stoning. I had just slept a paltry 3 hours prior to arriving at Changi and I was knackered to say the least when we finally arrived at Chiang Mai International airport. I just saw Mich for the first time in 4 months and we hugged each other albeit her saying hi to other people first (lousy sister!) ahhaha.

Grace Fellowship @ Chiang Mai University.

Grace Fellowship at a house off Chiang Mai University. Mi and his wife graciously hosted us. They also served up some really really delicious Khaw Soy. Whilst at Grace fellowship, we saw a group of university students. There were 12-14 of them. Mostly girls though. We had a great time singing songs and playing games. Dinner was a gastronic delight with Khaw soy being served up. Khaw soy consisted of this coconut based curry sauce and flat noodles topped with a crispy deep fried unknown condiment. The coconut was not too overwhelming and everyone was raving about it after eating. We proceeded to games after dinner and Good ol’ 100-seconds-no-NG (Angie) kept everyone occupied. It was interesting to note that while these people were regulars, a lot of the girls have not come to accept Christ. My sister was saying that growth is slow amongst them. I figure that’s down to the lure of the world and whilst at university, your priorities can be really skewed. I spoke with si-er (thai for tiger) and got to know about how he came to know Christ and stuff. He came to know about Christianity and the good news because he was studying in a mission school. He's the only one in his family though. I tried to encourage him by telling him that it was the same with Mich and myself, so he shouldn't be discouraged and should continue praying. It was a short 2.5 hours we spent there but nonetheless, we had a good time of fellowship and did i mention that the khaw soy was kickass? Oh...i did...

HUH?!! So much to pack?!!

Saturday came and went in a flash. We spent most of the day in a conference room packing the gifts. I felt it was great that we could pack gifts and stuff. It was a good time of fellowship and laughter. A Saturday morning when the sun was beaming into the room, the lot of us seated on the floor. The AC made the temperature really comfortable. Just horsing around and joking while getting the gifts into the wrapper was a refreshing change to the kind of stuff I might be doing on a sat morning. Lunch was a trip down to the campus canteen where the “mixed veg” rice stall was a huge fare with a range of dishes from liver dishes to plain stir-fried cabbage. It was delicious nonetheless. I was seated with Jiahui, Sam, Emily and Nancy at a stone table. It was great to see the campus buzzing while we were all gobbling down our food. Then news came through that Emily’s uncle had passed on. She was in pieces and tears were streaming down her face. It was terrible and she seemed in consolable. I just kept handing out the tissues and prayed. The mood in the camp kinda changed and this was just one of the two events that we had to deal with. We did the only thing we could do, pray. Once we got back from lunch we rallied around Emily at the stone benches in Uniserv and prayed.

Mambo Queens

A quick trip down to Hang Dong church to carry out the Sunday school program was the order of the day. There were just a little over 12 kids at the Sunday school. My sis had already pre-empted us as to the amount of people who could be there at any one time. On good days, there were thirty. On a bad day, there could be a meager five. On rainy days, there could be none. Nancy kicked us off by teaching I’ve got Joy in my heart. Mich was doing the translation. It was to be the first of the many times we would be singing that song. We went on to do crafts and I was helping this kid named Johnny. He spoke perfect English and his pronunciation was better than the average Singaporean. He was a missionry’s son from LA. He was pretty straightforward in telling me that he preferred America to Thailand and would rather be back there. Tough huh? When you decide to go into the mission fields, Your kid might still wanna be back home. Just tough….

Johnny and me

Anyway, Jimmy (Pastor Tharawat’s wife) ended the session by teaching two songs. One was Yu Kit Sa Nit and the other was … Well I don’t know the title. The actions to the songs were so cool! There was cave-exploration (Adele’s description), shimmies, hand movements, twirls, leg movements, launching of space crafts, bobbing of heads, and shaking from side to side. Then it dawned on me, it was all Mambo-qse moves. The kids loved the songs and actions. The adults did too. So i thus conclude.... Deep down in our hearts, we all just love Mambo. HAHHAHA!

Kids playing games at the Shun Village

The craft maestros and their proteges

After a quick lunch at Hang Dong church, we made our way to the Shun Village. It was kinda amazing when I recalled that my sis said this wasn’t in the schedule till two members of the church alerted Pastor Tharawat of these Shun villagers. We were told that these Shun villagers were rather impoverish. We were told to do a children’s program at a school canteen near the village. Dark clouds were looming large but we prayed and prayed for the weather to hold up. Some of the kids were trickling shortly after we arrived. Pastor Tharawat went round the village on his pick-up to ferry the kids over. Along with that, the others were walking in on foot. We were highly aware that, the numbers would drop really drastically if the rain came down. Just as the last bunch of children came in, the rain came pouring down. Mich talked about having to exercise our “prayer muscles” and this was it. We prayed for the weather to hold up and graciously He withheld the rain till the last of the children came in. The kids warmed up really quickly and were really happy to see us. As we gave them balloons to participate in a game with, they were really elated to have these given to them. I can’t recall ever having seen a child thrilled at receiving a balloon. They were playing this game where they had to get their balloons from one end ot the other. They were required to blow the balloon and then let it loose to “gain ground”. Doing this would mean the balloon having to land on the concrete floor but they were totally oblivious to it and it wasn’t an issue to them at all. We were again remarking Singaporean kids would pick it up and wipe the balloon or refuse to participate altogether.

The Squatter like residence of the Shun kids

The craft bit of the program was really refreshing. Most of the kids really enjoyed themselves and took ownership of what was made albeit most of the handiwork was being done by us. They were really grateful for the craft session and the mood around the whole canteen was that every single one of these kids was happy that they made their “My Family” gloved puppet.
When time was up, Sam followed the pick-up when Tharawat was sending the kids back Sam came back and reported that they were living in rather run-down conditions. Michelle said the Shun villagers were mostly odd job labourers who would commute in and out of Chiangmai to do odd jobs. Sam then quipped that it would be a viscous cycle, about how the rich will get richer and poor will get poorer. This is a classic example of that. It won’t be too much to say that most of these kids will follow in their parents’ footsteps. I really hope and pray that God has a plan for them. Upon checking into our designated Bangkok hotel (this was post mission trip), I had all these DVD peddlers and pimps (how else could I describe them) wither shoving these porn DVDs in my face or asking if I wanted some “paid love”. I can’t help but think that some of ‘em will end up doing those things. We really need to pray for them.