Thailand Week 3

The kids made their own animal masks for our Noah skit

Learning Bible verses

Our location for weeks 3-5 in Thailand was Mae Sai. Mae Sai is the northernmost part of Thailand and houses a major border crossing into the country of Burma. Our first week we spent split up helping out with different children's ministries. I went with 2 of the students to a ministry called the Rainbow of Hope Children's Home. It is a home run by a Filipino family that houses 9 children (most of them from Burma) ages 7-12. The home is run more like one big family than an organization because that's essentially what it is. The kids live, eat, play, sleep, and are taught in this home. We went for a couple days to teach English and love on the kids. They all have different stories as to why they are there, some of them have parents but they can't take care of their kids for numerous reasons. Some don't have parents at all or it isn't safe for them to go home. These kids were some of the smartest kids I have ever met. They knew English better than any kids we had met so far, they would sing us worship songs in English with rounds, they would draw pictures they found in their story books perfectly. They excited something in my heart that there is huge hope and potential for these children's broken lives. One little girl attached herself to me the first day we were there. Her mom passed away when she was little and her dad got tuberculosis when she was about 3.  He died while they were trying to get him over the border into Thailand to go to the hospital and she disappeared. The couple who runs the home tried everything they could do to find her, and by the grace of God they did and she has been living with them ever since. She was quite the character: beautiful, stubborn, smart, independent, and quite the photographer. She loved taking pictures with my camera and would make me sit by the flowers so she could take pictures of me. I love that little girl and its stories like hers that give me hope when working in these seemingly hopeless and cruel situations.

Me my little photographer

Teaching the kids English

Acting out Daniel in the Lion's Den