regenerate northern thailand trip

While on the campus i met the daughter of a good friend from Sabah. She had been handed over 5 English 1858gcs that i had printed there in 2005, and being down to only 4 copies myself, it was good to get replenished – thank you!!

The following evening, my friends came up with a pickup from Bangkok, and with several of us riding in the back with the computers and books, 4 of us sprawled spaghetti-like in the back, and endured over 12 hours of bouncing around. Actually, it was quite nice at first, with the rising moon providing a soft light for the rice fields and rows of shoplots that we passed. As the nite progressed tho, it got a bit chilly. As usual, i envied all the others who seemed to have little problem dozing off to sleep. How can anyone sleep when you are moving is beyond me, but i admit that it is within the realm of possibility. I finally got some sleep in the morning when we stopped at a relative’s house, and i drank some cough syrup 🙂

We arrived in Phrao around noon. One church member runs a fried-banana shop, and i ran over there to say “konnichiwa” to her. She and her husband lived in Japan for several years, so we usually speak in Japanese. She graciously presented me with some yummy fried-bananas, which i took back to everyone who were already starting to eat in the little vegetarian restaurant.

The pastor’s house is just a couple of km out of town, but is very large and old. It sits on about 1/3 acre of land with some lychee trees and a vegetable garden. Actually, he is just renting it – for 1,000thb a month (30usd). Most of the houses there are grouped together, surrounding large rice fields. Sometimes we could hear the chanting of the monks in the large temple nearby, but overall, it was very quiet.

The purpose of the trip was to baptize a young man. He worked as a nite guard at the school i worked at last year. My friend who invited me to work at the school introduced Jesus to him in May, and he rapidly became a strong believer in Jesus Christ, giving up his old sorceries, and upholding Christian principles in the work place. For some reason, the pastors in Bangkok would not baptize him without going thru the standard courses, so we found a pastor in northern Thailand who trusts our pastor friend’s recommendation, and he agreed to baptize him. The young man is originally from a small town not far from Phrao (Waing Pa Pao), between Chaing Mai and Chaing Rai. While remaining Buddhist, they were not against their son from becoming Christian, as they could see the fruits in his lifestyle of his conversion.

On Sabbath we drove to a Hmong village near Chaing Mai, up past the elephant farm, and had a lovely church service colminating with his baptism. There was a group of young people from Southern Adventist University in America, and they detracted from the service by snickering during their song, and wearing short pants to church, but it was great to see the place full with many Hmong-speaking people. After the service we gathered around the baptismal, and rejoiced to see a newly born child-of-God arise from the water.

The people there are quite simple, and while not having so much knowledge of things, they are mostly humble enough to follow what the leaders tell them. So they didn’t cook on Sabbath, wore nice clothes, had good music in church, etc. etc. It was good to see those wanting to do what God tells them to. The only danger is if the leaders get wacko. A few years ago, a man arose among them who claimed to be a prophet. After hearing about him, i believed too that he probably was a true prophet, but had a few reservations. Then in 2006 he said that most of Thailand would be flooded with the global warming/tsunami stuff, and held a meeting a year-end which was attended by around 300 people. When it didn’t happen, many of the people gave up all their faith, and the little flock has dwindled in size since then. Hopefully it is back on the upward track now. The need to get them great, inspired literature into their own language was felt even more keenly after being with them awhile. My pastor friend invited me to live with his family for 2 years so he can learn English, and read all of Ellen White’s material in the original tongue. Those of us who grow up with all this inspired material in our native tongue don’t realize how blessed we are.

The next day we went driving over the mountains to look at some land. There is no defined title deed to the land, but is probably possible to get. The piece of land available is 115 rai (around 46acres), which is perfect size to start a school. at 21,000thb/rai, it would take over 70,000usd to obtain it, and then to not be sure of actually having title – a huge risk! The seller told us that a Korean man had recently bot a large tract with a deed for 5 times that price…. The land is bordered on two sides by a small river, with a hill being the border on one side. The soil is very good, and is currently being rented out to some corn farmers. We also stopped at the newly-baptized member’s home which is very close, and it was nice to pick a passion fruit from a vine growing on a tree. Next morning – yum yum!

Food stories make me lose track of where i was…..yes, after that, we drove to Chaing Mai, had a meal, and waved bye-bye to the 4 going back to Bangkok by bus (596thb by vip bus, 463 by slow bus). I went back with the pastor and his wife, and spent one more nite in their lovely old house. The next morning i went to see my friend who used to live in Japan. I planned to only stay one day, as i knew there situation. It was so pleasant holding a conversation in Japanese with someone again, something i hadn’t done in a long time, that i could hardly tear myself away. Of course, having all the fried-bananas you want too didn’t make it any easier – ha! Actually, i hardly ever eat oily foods, so it was a shock-treat for my system. The best thing was that we could talk deeply about spiritual things, trying to help her see the importance of receiving the blessings of God by doing what he says. I was a bit surprised at the amount of sales, and then around 3:30 we closed up shop and rode the motorbike to their house about 6km from town.

The husband raises fish and ducks, and showed me his little zoo-like place. It was so peaceful to go to the last fish pond and look at the fish swimming around, the swallows swooping around, the blue sky, puffy clouds, vivid green rice fields, and the dark green mountains in the distance – so peaceful. What could be wrong with a paradise like this? Well, in lifting your eyes, you can see a row of white buildings on one of the larger hills….that’s right – a temple to a false god. So sad. My friend told me of the millions of baht that was used to build it, and how busloads of people used to come until the head priest had an affair with someone…. Riding on the back of the bike in the evening air (of course without a helmet), was so lovely (and a tad scary, especially after he told me that a Japanese man died just the week before in a motorbike accident nearby!) Evening worship with his family was a treasure, ensuring a peaceful, and happy rest.

I had planned to leave the next day, but a lady at the shop next to theirs told me she was planning to drive to the same place i was planning to go to (Tak), so i was easily persuaded to spend one more day with them. I spent more of the morning with the daughter, reading the Bible and watching cartoons with her (!) My earache was getting worse, so i got out in the sunshine and leaned in just the right way to get the sunshine down into my ear canal, and then bot some vitamin c at 7-11 – no more earache:) The husband took me back in the afternoon, telling me that he was planning the next day to start work in his father’s rice field to earn more money, as it is a bit difficult to make money outside of the big city (like everywhere). He uses unsellable bananas, food scraps, sweet potato scraps etc. to grind up into pellets to feed his fish and ducks. He boasted that he probably has the only vegetarian fish in all of Thailand – haha! We had a good talk during the evening meal, and i pray that they will both do what they know to be right. They told me how it was a blessing to them that i came, and i assured them the same goes for myself. Next morning at 2:15 i awoke, and the husband kindly drove me to the shop to wait for the lady to drive me away…..She didn’t come, so finally he called her, and found out that she had decided to leave the evening before…….So i’m dropped off at the bus terminal, where i’m the only one in the chilly air until around 5am when people start arriving, and then fill up the bus at 5:30 for the 76thb ride to Chaing Mai. Thank you so much Brother and Sister!! May your family be united in following all of God’s commands.

The 279thb bus to Tak left at 9am, and arrived around 1:30 when my friend came in a pickup to get me. We went on to the hospital where he took his nephew and one student, so i read/dozed in the lobby until around 5. He works at a place run by a German Christian that is trying to train young people for service in God’s kingdom. He brought around 10 Mien young people with him from Chaing Rai area, most of them semi-orphans, and there are a few students from off campus, and they teach them ACE program in English. The Educational officials were not happy at first, as you might imagine, but a good rapport has developed, and they allow them to continue their school. The campus of Avoda has one school building, an open-air church (no walls), a building for computers, a large home, 4 bungalows, and one staff home. There is a rice field, garden, kitchen, and around 20 cows on the 60 rai. This is hard to explain, but the area is like jungle-desert. That means, that the soil is bad-red, and it doesn’t rain much, is very hot most of the year, and there are scorpions etc. around, but also there are quite a few trees.

The owner told me his conversion story – an amazing adventure from catholic to disbelief to buddhist to Bible-believing Christian. Now he wants to help train young people, and has a dream to have a school for 1,000 kids here in the future. He also is/has helping those who are trying to help Burmese orphans, as his place is only around 100km to the Myanmar border. He even has accepted the Sabbath truth, all from reading the Bible for himself. He hasn’t become Seventh-day Adventist yet, and currently does not wish to believe any written material apart from the Bible, but in his running of the institution, and in training the children, nearly all of the inspired counsel is being followed.

My friend and i had lots of good talks. He is very alone there, and thirsting for more knowledge of God, and especially the prophecies. Actually, he used to be a SDA pastor for the Mien people, but wanted to increase his usefulness by studying Chinese and starting a training school, so left the employment of the Mission. He wants to help where he is awhile, especially in getting training for how to have his own school in the future, but his heart is back in Chaing Rai where the Mien people are. Many Hmong have already become Christian, but very few Mien have. Brother, may God bless you abundantly as you follow him in this work of saving souls among your people.

He was very hesitant about having a worship service Sabbath morning in the prayer house, but the 3 of us finally went there and sang a few songs and read some Bible. It was nice. He is taking care of his nephew, whose parents were both opium addicts, so his sister basically took him to be her own, and he is hoping this 7y.o. boy will grow up to be a worker for Jesus. The little boy can read English quite well, which really surprised me. I pray his hernia operation will go well.

My friend took me to see a place that burns limestone. The workers are Burmese, and i was told it was quite illegal how they belch lots of smoke into the air while burning the rocks. The finished product is then sold to some cement company for what use, i’m not sure. Since the children of the workers have no Thai papers, they are not entitled to go to school, so after they get around 10 years old or so, they too start helping in the hard work. The younger ones tho are driven to the Avoda school each day.

While the owner rests on Sabbath, church service is held on Sunday. I was needing to get back to Bangkok, and while talking with the owner about many mostly spiritual things, he offered to take me the 17km from Avoda to the Tak bus station. We continued our nice talk along the way. I sure hope he fully follows the Bible some day, as he still believes in “once saved always saved” right now.

The bus ride back to Bangkok was supposed to take 6 hours, so i thot that by arriving at the Tak station at 10:45, i would be in bkk around 5 or 6pm – wrong! We stumble into the northern terminal (Mor Chit) at 7:50. I think our bus got one flat, and it felt like i was sitting right over that tire, as every “fallump, fallump” seemed to hit my bottom. Bangkok traffic was routinely horrendous, taking us 15 minutes to just get 200meters out of the bus terminal, and after walking 15 minutes from the Siloam bus stop, i arrived, one tired boy, at my friend’s 14th-floor door.