Chiang Mai Times: Mission to Mae Daang

Welcome to PlaaPlaaPlaa!

So you may be wondering why PlaaPlaaPlaa? What are those strange fish symbols above? What is ปลา and what does it mean? In short, this is a blog site, so surely there's going to be plenty of rambling. Unfortunately BlahBlahBlah was already taken, so I had to settle for the 'Plaa'. But there's actually more to it then just ramblings. The first fish symbol is actually a Christian symbol meaning ICTHUS - a greek acronymn which means "Jesus Christ is God's Son, the Saviour". The other strange letters you see in the last fish is actually the thai word for fish which funnily enough is pronounced "Plaa". So when you put it all together, this site is going to be my ramblings in telling people about how Jesus Christ is God's Son, the Saviour in Thailand (with plenty of good stories about food in between). Happy reading.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Mission to Mae Daang - July 6

Today, our church went on a one day medical mission trip to Mae Daang, a small village about an 1 1/2 north of Chiang Mai. Most people might know this village cos they end up going elephant riding, bamboo rafting, or white water rafting there. But unfortunately today, none of those things were on the agenda at all. Much like our trip to Mae Tia in December last year, we went there as a medical mission (it helps to be in a church with lots of drs and nurses). While people wait for their check up, there's a group of people who are using the time to meet the town people and share the gospel with them. For me, i've usually ended up on the 'kids team', helping run a kids program for all the kids that come along.

Since midday yesterday, the rain hasn't stopped in Chiang Mai, so there were doubts on whether anyone would even turn up, and for those of us running the kids program, where we'd do it, as we were counting on doing it outside in the garden, as the church building in Mae Daang has one room, which was being used for the medical checkups. Even when we got there, there were only a handful of people, and it felt like the team from church was going to significantly outnumber the town people that went along. But as time went on, praise God, that there were probably about 50 or so adults and kids that came along :)

In the kids program, we have just finished going through Acts with the kids and helping the kids understand and know how to share the gospel. So the timing was perfect in getting the kids to help be part of the gospel content of the kids program. It was REALLY exciting when were trying to practice and get them involved at church yesterday, to see them all volunteering to be a part of it, and be really excited to help. They all learnt their 'line' and did a fantastic job. We're hoping that the kids will be able to do the skit they did in front of church on sunday so all the adults can also get a chance to hear the gospel, and be encouraged by the kids and what they've been learning too.

We haven't had a full chance to debrief and hear about all the different opportunities that people had to share the gospel, but as i looked around the room during lunch, and looked through some of the church photos, it was really exciting to see church people engaging in conversations with the locals and taking the opportunities they could to be sharing the gospel.

There's so much more that i'd love to share about today, but will leave it there for now :)

Here are a few photos from today, if you want to see more of the 'official' photos, you can check out the church website Grace Church Mission Photos