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.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Mae Salong


Doi Maesalong

Last weekend, i had the chance to go away for the weekend with my friend and her family to Doi Mae Salong. It's a little village in the mountains just north of Chiang Rai. Apart from being freezing cold at night (i actually got to wear my flanny pj's here!) it was really nice to get away from the city, get some fresh air, drink some chinese tea (lots of the people there are chinese who have moved to Thailand, and their livelihood is mainly from growing and selling tea), cos of the lack of nightlife there, the evening was nice to just chill out, catch up on some sleep and spend time with friends.


views on the way to Doi Mae Salong


Markets at Doi Mae Salong


One of the big highlights for me in going up there was on the Sunday when we we went to try and find a church to go to. Given that none of us had ever been there, we had no idea if there were even churches there to go to. So after going for a little drive and then thinking maybe we shouldn't go too far down this road or we'll get lost, we stopped the car to think about what to do. When we looked up, we realised that we were right outside a church! Seeing the doors open and lots of shoes outside, we figured we may as well go visit that church. Biggest thing we were all worried was that they were all hill tribe people who might not actually speak Thai - they speak Arcaa - a hill tribe dialect. We all got out of the car and were soon greeted by some church people who invited us in - to sit in the front row! What was really weird walking in was that many of the people in there were dressed in their tribal dresses - which i usually only see down at the night bizarre. So it was really weird to see it at church and made me feel like i had really stepped into a whole new world! Was actually really surreal. Anyway, my friends dad had a quick chat to 2 of the guys who seemed to be 'in charge'. And next thing you know, my friend's dad is up giving the message for the day- with all of about 5 mins 'get to know you' time. All he said was translated into arcaa.


the church we went to


some of the people in church in traditional dress


Jai's dad preaching

After he finished his impromptu preaching we were told a bit of the history about the church. For me it was a real eye opener to the reality of many of the churches in Thailand, especially in the country areas. Basically, there's a church full of people who are hungry to learn from the bible, to know God more, but as simple country people who are mostly uneducated, this is just not possible. So it made sense to me when we arrived and they wanted my friends dad to preach to them. To see many of them want to respond to things he said, just demonstrated how hungry they are to learn more. But there's just no one there to teach them, and those that are there, aren't equipped to do so.
One thing that really touched me was that after church finished, we were invited to the church leaders house. While we were there, we had many of the church people to give us pumpkins, bags of tea, bags of rice etc as a 'thank you' for coming to preach and visit them that day. Many of them saw our coming as an answer to prayer as that week, they had tried to get a few people to come preach, but no one was available to do so. Then we turned up and they had someone to preach. Funny how God works at times. We thought we were just a bit lost and were thinking of turning around and heading back. Anyway, please be praying for the many churches in Thailand that are like this. This random visit really made me think a lot more about the needs of the church around Thailand so much more. Even though there are so many needs i see at the church i go to in CM, when i see a church like that, it makes me realise how even at grace church, how blessed it really is.

here are a few other photos from our trip


with Jai and Nong Dao


Dinner at the Golden Triangle


with Dao, Jai and Aom