Hope for Bangkok

Part of my 'job' description while in Thailand is to visit each of the 28 church plants to get to know and interact with the people. I participate in church and any afternoon program they have and I share when I'm asked, which is every time I'm visiting with either my testimony, and/or my design ministry and how it can be effective to a church. On top of this I'm asked to write about my experiences, so starting to do so. 

What do you do when you have 20 people, one fine day and a van?
The team at Hope for Bangkok’s Nawamin Church Plant had a great Sabbath idea a little different from most. The focus is on their Family Ministries initiative, where they encourage families in the community to take time out together through a monthly ‘Nature Discovery’ outing. 

Totally enjoyed the little delicate flowers in the water pots, 

Now, I’m all over that idea like a rash. I’d just spent my 3^rd week in Thailand and all I’d seen till this point was the urban life of the inner city; so to be invited to come along with the promise of countryside and trees totally appealed to me.

So here we were; 10 adults with a gaggle of children, a push car, guitar, bags of subsistence, and water out for a lovely jaunt into the country. Destination? Kaset University, heading that-a-way about an hour and half. We were booked to have a tour to learn about all things creepy-crawly, and visit their agriculture farm. In short, the University is a credit to Thailand, beautifully landscaped and presented, we were not disappointed. Trees offering dappled shade, small lakes, and grassy plains for expelling the energy of our pint-sized sojourners awaited us.

We explored the Butterfly enclosure and its accompanying museum where the first ‘family’ task was given - to explore and document their favourite ‘families’ of any of the creepy-crawly displays presented. It was a delight to see little groups of parents and children working together. Next, the happy crew explored the vegetable farm and learnt about some of the innovative and healthy ways the university grow their produce. Being typical tourists as we were, no trip to the country is complete without the clickdidy-click of photo-hungry people, in particular children, who photographed everything they could to the utter exhaustion of camera batteries in a few instances.

At the butterfly enclosure

Now to this point, as we enjoyed the hot sun-shiny day, I was involved in an activity that was very ‘familiar’ to me. My upbringing in New Zealand was full of wonderful memories of family outings, such as this, and camping holidays. But, I learned that to my new Thai friends, this was a unique experience. Families don’t spend such time as this together. Nana, whom I’ll introduce in the next paragraph, in her 65 years, had never ever been on an outing such as this in her life! So I looked upon the picnicking party with new eyes and marveled at what I saw. 

She never told me her name and it is respectful
to call an elder grandmother or father, I called her Nana

I watched a couple of mothers feeding their brood, one of their teens included the two young teens accompanying us solo (as girls do), a mat was laid down for the kiddies and I heard all sorts of mouth-filled banter from who had the latest Angry Bird keepsake to other very important subject matter. I watched the community’s grandmother, Nana, being included by another family. This lady and I had bonded earlier in the day. She shares the same age as my parents and spoke English very well. Best of all she totally complemented me on my Thai and reassured me it wasn’t said in flattery, this gave me the confidence to try it out throughout the day and she was both my instructor and translator. In fact, technically she is not yet a Nana, her two sons have not provided her any little angels to call her own, so this wonderful woman became Grandmother to her neighbours little ones, and she is loved and included by all. 

On my right were our hosts and church planters, with their visiting parents from the Philippines, two sisters and a brother brother-in-law as well as three children between them.

the family that stood out

The family that stood out to me the most were a lovely warm Thai brood of Dad, Mum and three young ones, all in green. Up until this day, only the mother and her three children had chosen to come along to anything the church-plant has offered, but today the husband and father joined in. In a country where men are preoccupied with all things manly, like work, and seem to do their own thing, I saw this man being totally present with his family with genuine warmth and enjoyment. They laughed and had fun throughout the day. 

After we ate our lunch under the, before mentioned, dappled shade of the trees, scripture songs were sung by guitar in Thai. The children particularly enjoyed this and I was called upon to help sing one in English, which we did twice – gotta love kids action songs! Then I was up, in leading the group in a game applicable to the day’s outing. 

Giving the parents a little breather from the wee ones, I instructed (through Nana) for the collection of leaves, bark, seed pods, and any flowers (already off the plant) to be gathered and brought back to the pathway next to us. Once done, the parents joined in and everyone had to create a tree from what was scavenged, every family unit working creatively together. For me, this was the highlight of the day. Afterwards, I spoke to everyone of God being the Creator of all we’d seen today, and although we can be creative at what we put our hands to, only God can create something as amazing as each of us and all we can see. It was short and sweet and in easy English for Nana to relay it.

And the winning families are.... everyone

After a prayer we packed up and headed for home. A longer journey than coming out due to traffic, but a great day was had by all. 

A little fact realised at the end of the day. Of the 20 of us that enjoyed the outing, only 7 were Christians, the remaining 13 were Buddhists families.