Today is our ABCRM mission team’s last full day in this beautiful country of Thailand! We start the day by visiting the Chiang Rai New Life Center facility next to the Fox home where Barbara has been teaching the Akha women sheltered to knit. The Construction Crew team, busy most of the past week in the Sansuk Akha village, is led on a tour of the facilities for the first time by Chuck accompanied by other members of our mission team. Chuck shows us a photo of Paul and Elaine Lewis on the wall of the NLC dormitory that reminds everyone that they are the primary reason why the Akha women are able to be sheltered here as well as at the New Life Center facilities in Chiang Mai. What an impact these two American Baptist missionaries have made on helping Akha people in northern Thailand through their many years of ministry starting in the 1950’s!
Our mission trip is ended by our mission team taking a “fun trip” to see the elephant reserve about 30 minutes north of Chiang Rai as we again all pile into Chuck’s truck. This reserve has about 35 elephants that have been placed there to protect them since it’s now not possible for these magnificent animals to be in the urban areas of Thailand due to lack of food sources and too many people in the cities. Our team members enjoy feeding the elephants bananas and taking a short ride around the small city next to the reserve. Karen Van is the only one on our team who is brave enough to have a giant python placed around her neck at a tourist store located at the reserve!
The last part of our day is spent in touring the “Queen’s Garden” further north from the elephant reserve, where the Thai government has created a botanical garden containing facilities for orchid and other plant research, as well as large area of beautiful gardens containing all sorts of Thai flowers. Everyone on our team is astounded by this beautiful place. It’s another reminder of how beautiful this country of Thailand is!
We arrive back in Chiang Rai about three hours before the mission team checks in at the local airport to fly to Bangkok to then fly back to Colorado early the next morning through Japan. It’s been a wonderful experience for all of us to meet many ABC-IM missionaries who are doing so much to help the people in northern Thailand, and to help in our own way to help Akha people with our construction projects at the Sansuk village with Chuck, as well as to help Ruth with her ministry activities in Chiang Rai. With sadness, we say our “good-bye’s” to Chuck and Ruth at the airport. We hope we can somehow tell our church congregation friends and others about the experiences we’ve had here since arriving on February 8 to give them a true impact of our mission trip, but this will be difficult to do. We’re all so proud of our American Baptist missionaries, and hope we can help them in some way to continue their work here in the future!
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