By the time we boarded our trans-Pacific flight almost nine hours behind schedule, and touched down in Beijing, Christmas had come and gone. We spent most of Dec.24 in the airport at SFO, finally getting off the ground around 10:30pm and when with the time change and 12 hour flight we didn't land in China until 3:30am on the 26th. So we over flew Christmas, but we didn't miss it.
After a 16 hour layover in a very cold Beijing, which allowed us to get a hotel room and a few hours sleep, we flew on to Chiang Mai where we were greeted by Tessa and Cavell and escorted to The River Training and Convention Center, a Christian run facility that offers groups, students and missionaries low-cost accommodations as well as classrooms and meeting halls.
Up bright and early Friday morning, Cavell picked us up at 7:00am and drove us to the SanPaTong School where we spent the day helping present the Christmas story to over 1,000 K-6 mostly Buddist students. Through an interpreter, Teresa told the candy cane story to 11 groups throughout the day. How much the students grasped the message, we'll never know, but the interpreter was clearly moved by the simple presentation of God's love.
Meanwhile, Jim spent the day outside overseeing the groups during their "sports" time, as he ran them through games of dodgeball and frisbee football.
After helping clean-up, and loading up Cavell's car, we changed some money and got back to our room around 5:30pm. Tessa and the two of us then feasted on a meal of noodles and fishballs at sidewalk stand a few blocks from The River, which set us back almost $3 for the three of us. With darkness covering the area, we headed back to our little room where we conducted our own Christmas Candlelight service. Teresa opened with prayer, we lit Buddist candles that Tessa brought, Tessa and Teresa sang Silent Night and Joy to The World, and then Jim told his Christmas tree story.
Saturday we got our first taste of the loose way time works in Thailand. We were invited by a local church group to accompany them to a village in the Chiang Kham district where they would help present the Christmas story to a children's home. Originally we were told to be ready between 6-9am but it would probably be closer to 8. So we were ready at 8, before finally being picked up at 1215pm. We joined about 14 others in a pick-up, most obviously who rode in the bed of the truck for what was supposed to be about a 2-3 hour drive. We arrived at the home about 5:30pm.
We were warmly greeted and invited to join in the outdoor meal which was quite good even if we didn't know everything we were eating. There appeared to be no program or time frame, and the presentation began about 645pm on the outdoor basketball court was a hodgepodge of preaching, singing, skits, dancing, prize drawings, and gift giving and lasted about four hours. Though we didn't understand much, enjoyed the happy children engaged in the program. The highlight of our evening was meeting a young Filipino man who shared his compelling story of being rescued from drug pushing and alcoholism and is now working in as a traveling pastor/missionary even though he has been a Christian less then six years.
Sunday morning we were awakened by roosters crowing, and after a breakfast of sticky rice, fruit and rice milk, we drove several miles to another part of town and enjoyed our first Thai church service. Again we didn't understand much, but there were a couple of worship songs that Teresa could sing along with, and a few young musicians played some Christmas hymns. But what was encouraging was seeing that over half of the approximately 175 in attendance were youth. The words of Unilito, our Filipino brother came back to us. As we stood in the back Saturday night, he told us how he had wanted nothing to do with kids, but that God had impressed upon him that the country of Thailand which is somewhere between 0.2-0.6% Christian will be raised as a Christian nation through the youth. If you could have seen the joy and the passion on the faces of the young Thai people, you would believe that that is indeed in the future. So many of the Christian organizations in this country are geared to reaching out to the youth.
We came back to the children's home for a Thai lunch before leaving, and though we were mostly spectators we were able to help the home by buying some hand bags and other items which are made by the kids at the home. Another long drive through the mountains got us back to our room Sunday night about 830pm.
Even though we have only been here three days, it feels like we have done a lot already, so Monday with Teresa's birthday, we will have a little bit of a down day, hang out at The River, do some laundry, and celebrate later with a massage and jungle dinner. So although we over flew our traditional Christmas, we did not miss it at all. In fact we are experiencing it longer and in a whole different way.
