Hindi group end of service year lunch |
The Sunday before it all officially started, a study from Sri Lanka, who speaks Tamil brought three Urdu speaking men with him. Thankfully Alanna and Terry are back and as with all foreign language groups, they have been kidnapped without their knowledge or consent. Much like BonBon and I. Anyhow we had an impromptu meeting in the second school. Terry and Alanna speak Thai, Brian speaks Hindi and BonBon and I are willing helpers. Terry translated the Thai talk to English. I looked up pictures to use as visual aids and Alanna and Christina helped them find the scriptures. I managed to locate the scriptures in the Tamil bible and the Urdu men followed in the English bible. By the middle song we were exhausted. Then Brian took the WT and Terry read in English. We gave them all our English magazines which left us with our Thai copies which made answering interesting. Brian half translated in Hindi/Urdu, as I helped the Tamil man follow along and it was like the tower of Babel. After the meeting the men were very happy and grateful, which made all our adventures even more worthwhile. We asked where they lived and they said Soi 77. So we decided to explore Soi 77 and see what we could find...
Alanna in Soi 77 |
After that building we headed down along the klong (stinky canal of rubbish and sewage) basically stalking a woman. When we finally caught up to her, she actually stopped and waited for us, she was really excited about my incomprehensible gibberish I pass for Urdu and talked with us at length. She indicated three more streets where Pakistani families are living, so we headed off in their direction. We found another building where we were again invited in, we sat on the floor with them and chatted for nearly an hour and were filled once again to the brim with orange soda... yay! While we were there the man we had met at first appeared and we perused his Urdu brochure, since we had run out of literature. The next door invited us in again and by the time we got out of there it was already 6pm. We headed home with three more streets untouched.
We have been going every Wednesday afternoon and have found more buildings filled with Asylum seekers. At one building the Patriarch was talking to Brian and we looked up to see a myriad of tiny faces peering over the railings of four floors above us. The longer we stayed the braver they got and by the time we left, we were surrounded by little kids, who speak a fair bit of English and some older girls I had preached to earlier. We promised to return and as we looked back all four floors of the building were filled with little waving hands and smiling faces. This week we went back armed with YPA and coloring pages about Abraham. Alanna gave them coloring pencils and their little hearts were overjoyed. They kept showing us the pictures as they colored them in and held them all up proudly to show us their fine work. We can't wait to go back next week!
Terry studies with a Chinese man, who is now an unbapitized publisher. He has little hope of getting out, as he was born the second son of a Chinese family and was therefore never registered- so he in effect doesn't exist. He is ever patient and never loses hope totally, always relying on Jehovah. That week they were reviewing the first article about the revised understanding about the prophecies. It is crazy, the prisoners are all called out at the same time and they stand behind their fence yelling and you are straining to hear you prisoner over the 30 others who are all yelling through the fence. It is mayhem! Now imagine trying to discuss the prophecy WT study over that din. While Terry was studying with him BonBon and I wandered about here and there, preaching to some Hindi and Tamil speakers. I found a French speaking man from Cameroon and managed to preach to him for a bit too. After an hour everyone is sent back to their bunks and the visitors are sent away. But really 20 minutes of yelling suffices.
With all these projects going we still managed to sneak away for a beach day in Hua Hin and see some elephants... finally! Five months to see elephants. A man also has a pet gibbon, it's adorable! I want one.
SO these are just a few of our current adventures in Thailand. Next week we head to Vietnam for a visa run. So our next post will be Vietnam.
Love you all! Thanks for all your comments and encouragement. xo
CC replenishing electroly tes in service |
Terry getting his shoe repaired |
Hindi Ministry |
Japanese friends at our home |
Meat market |
CC at Chatuchak market with some gigantic shrimp |
Green Papaya Salad with fermented crab |