Thinking of going on a short-term mission project? It could go something like this:
Our mission team convened in the First Baptist, Newberry, parking lot in the wee hours of a July Thursday. Six of us from our church, plus Ben Harr, pastor of Willow Swamp Baptist Church of Norway, headed off to catch a flight out of Charlotte.
After a short flight (followed by two long ones), we were on the other side of the planet, in Bangkok. After another short flight, we were in Chiang Rai, in northern Thailand.
We were met there by our International Mission Board partners: the dad, and two of his and his wife’s five children. They had a hand-drawn sign welcoming our team — complete with a child’s rendering of yellow jessamine and a Carolina wren (some homeschool research had been done). The rest of the family was busy at their Chiang Rai home. After a shopping run, we were off to our lodging in the countryside.
Our IMB partners in Chiang Rai work mostly in rural areas. Some of their work is done in partnership with several other like-minded missionaries from other parts of Southeast Asia. Such was the case with our project.
Thailand is an overwhelmingly Buddhist nation. The Thai constitution protects Buddhism as the religion followed by most Thais. Most Thais, indeed: 2021 statistics show that Thailand is 92.5 percent Buddhist, 5.4 percent Muslim, and 1.2 percent Christian. Although the Thai constitution favors Buddhism, it provides freedom of religion.
Our team took advantage of that freedom as we came alongside our IMB team to help advance their strategy. Part of their focus is a small grouping of villages nestled between hills and rice fields west of the city. They are building relationships and sowing gospel seeds with a view toward eventually planting a church in the area. Our purpose in teaming with them was to help them move closer to this goal. We could best help by building relationships and trust while serving the people and sharing the gospel.
The key to connecting with the targeted cluster of villages is through a local school with about 150 students, K-8th grade. Prior to our arrival, the IMB partner scored an invitation for us to teach basic English lessons to the students. We used American baseball (well, wiffle ball) and football — as well as lessons about American foods and the Christmas and Easter stories — as vehicles for these lessons, with all three approaches yielding opportunities to share the gospel multiple times with all of the children.
God provided college-age Christian translators for us as we taught and shared. Most were young ladies from tribal groups who are Thai by citizenship, but minorities by ethnicity. We also built relationships with faculty members and administration.
In addition to teaching, we were invited by the leadership to paint over an old, fading mural on a large exterior wall at the school. It took most of two days to complete, and the asking of permission about a new mural, but we were allowed to paint Noah’s rainbow in a blue sky over green hills, with a red cross in the center of the wall. We also received permission to paint the text of John 3:16 in large, neat Thai script, next to the cross.
The week culminated with a community-wide fair attended by close to 300 villagers. Personal testimonies from two of our team members were shared with the crowd, as well as a gospel presentation. We led them in simple carnival games, awarded them prizes of American candy, and held drawings for bags of rice, cooking oil, laundry detergent, 15 chickens and two geese. On top of all that, we also had the surprise opportunity to distribute hundreds of mosquito nets to villagers, to help them combat an outbreak of dengue fever. The nets were provided by Southern Baptists through Send Relief.
We got home 13 days after leaving, used up and worn out. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.