May 2005 - Survey Trip

Dates: 18th – 31st May

Team:

From Australia: Daniel Loo, Aileen Ibuki, Remy Landman, Rebecca Chan
From Thailand: Satit, Ratanna, Ping, Boy.

Location:

Malaysia (18-19th)
Rangsit, Thailand (19-21st, 29th-30th)
Surin (21st – 28th)

Summary of Ministry:

Malaysia – Collect VBS t-shirts
Rangsit – Sunday preaching, Sunday school, cleaning up, youth workshop.
Surin – school ministry, children’s VBS, painting gospel banners, knitting, sports against teachers.

Continual development of Surin ministry

We continued to build our relationships with two villages in Surin (Ban Choke and Pom Sittern). At Ban Choke we had our first convert to Christ – Lek (the woman who hosts us our team her home). A few months ago she had stopped giving alms to the Buddhist monks who pass her home. As a Buddhist she had prayed to spirits every night before she slept and as a result had heard many creaking noises as if her house was about to fall. She said that since she began praying to Jesus, the noises ceased altogether.

We also had a few deep discussions with adults who were interested in knowing how to pray to Jesus. Many people in Surin have problems in their life (financial, health, relationships) – we believe that through both answered prayer and physical help from Christians they may turn to Christ.

Our relationship with the school principals has also improved. This was demonstrated by how they went out of their way to organize an interschool basket / volleyball game between our team and teachers from Ban Choke and Pom Sittern. Ban Choke school also extended an invitation for us to run a school funded English camp for year 7-9. The camp will run for 3 days and 2 night. The program design has been left to us. They were happy for one session will be Christian related. They have indicated that if the camp is successful, they would like us to run it on an annual basis. I believe that this will be a great opportunity to deepen our relationships with the children and teachers.

The Principal at Ban Choke school also accepted our request to set up a library at the school. A section of the library will be allocated for us set up as the “Australian Corner” in which we intend to place information on Australian history, culture, lifestyle, and Christian heritage. Second hand books will be collected from SCUC members for the December.

We also had a chance to visit the village chief at Pom Sittern (who is recovering from a car accident). Mr Satit went to visit the new village chief of Ban Choke on his own. He had heard much about us even before taking up the post. The village chief at Pom Sittern invited us to run a children program at her village in December and will seek to find accommodation for us to base half our team there. This will allow us to target two villages simultaneously.

Scholarship children

We have 20 scholarship children studying at Ban Choke and Pom Sittern schools which are supported by the fund set up by SCUC-Gospel Hall from the collection at the 2004 Christmas service. Mr Satit returns to Surin on a monthly basis to follow-up on these children. Time did not permit us to visit our scholarship children. However, both Ban Choke and Pom Sittern school allowed us to have a 15 minute session with the children where we could take their photos and give them some encouragement. One scholar child (Bert) is suffering from cow pox. Some money was given to his mother from the scholarship fund to allow him to see a doctor and obtain medication. The photographs of the scholarship children will be placed on the SCUC notice board.

English Teaching

English classes were taken mainly by Aileen and Rebecca at Ban Choke and Pom Sittern schools. We also recorded some additional English lessons using our own voices and gave them to the English teacher (Tip). The teaching helped us build our relationships with the schools. On the final day we were allowed to visit each class one at a time at Ban Choke where we could share our testimonies and gospel as we said goodbye and announced our next visit in December.

Evening programs using video projector

The video projector was used on daily basis to complement our ministry. This included

(1) The screening of a movie about Genesis to Noah’s ark at Ban Choke to 15 children (Tuesday night).
(2) Slide show presentation on Australia was screened at Pom Sittern school (Wednesday night). Remy did the commentary. About 100 people consisting of parents, teachers and children attended. Photos were scanned in from several picture books on Australia. The final slide was a picture of the choir performing at Gospel Hall (city) depicting Christianity in Australia.
(3) Screening of photo and video footage of the previous mission trip; this was great fellowship and bonding time between team and children to recall our past together. Many of the children still remember our first visit to the village 2.5 years ago.

Knitting

A knitting group was conducted by Aileen and Rebecca after school as another point of contact with the girls in the village. We provided 10 sets of needles and wool to the students and taught them basic knitting skills. Many of the students practiced their knitting for hours even after the classes were over.

Children’s VBS program

This formed the conclusion of our Surin trip. The VBS came in the form of a Friday night “party” at Ban Choke village. Each day after school we painted banners with the children (design courtesy of Yana Zhang). The banners consisted of five scenes of the life and ministry of Jesus – birth, teaching, miracles, crucifixion and resurrection). At the “party” we explained the stories and meaning behind the banners that the children had painted. This was interspersed with games, craft, songs and photo slide show presentation. Many children had remembered the songs and actions that we had taught them in the December 2004 VBS. Milo, biscuits, and sweets were provided as snacks. About 20 children attended the “party”. Publicity for this event was deliberately avoided to keep the turn out to a manageable size.

Issues

As our work at Surin has developed, so too has Satan’s opposition. Two incidents are worth noting on record from this trip. First concerns the vandalisation of our host family’s property. Our host family runs an electric cable from their house to their paddy field (800 meters long) to supply electricity for night lighting and water systems. We doubt that it is coincidental that this cable was deliberately cut during our stay.

Secondly we are sad to report that some of our team members were spied on while bathing. This happened for 2 nights in a row. Our efforts to catch this person on the third night failed. The school apologized to us for this incident and suggested that it might be some mischievous ex-students. They are investigating the incident.

Daniel Loo (May 2005)