Thailand Mission Team Project at Huay Som Poi Karen Village “Starbucks Clinic”

Tuesday, February 9 –

This is the first full day of our mission team’s clinic project at the Huay Som Poi Karen village with Sandy, Becky, and I. The day dawned with a bright sun and the promise of a warm day, even though it must have been in the 40’s during the night. We had a breakfast “fit for a queen” cooked by our home-hosts of fried rice with herbs, pork meatballs, and tofu in a broth soup, along with bananas, watermelon, and coffee.

After breakfast, Sandy, Becky, and I began the 1 kilometer (0.7 mile) walk over a deeply-rutted dirt road through the Huay Som Poi Karen village to the Starbucks Clinic on top of a hill at the end of the read. The clinic is a spacious building with a large waiting room, a small room where people can sit and talk before they’re examined, and a two-bed infirmary. The medical technician for the clinic is Kuhn Rot, a full-time ITDP staff member. She’s a young married Karen woman who received 6 months of medical training at a school in Chiang Mai.

When we arrived at the clinic about 9:00 a.m., there were five women waiting with their toddlers to learn how to care for their babies’ teeth. I taught them about dental care, and answered their questions with Becky’s help. Sandy (a registered nurse from Rochester, Minnesota) and I (a retired R.N.) saw a steady flow of women and children throughout the morning. Two women walked nearly an hour from their Karen village after they heard that Sandy and I were there.

Kuhn Rot said she’d never seen anyone examine patients as Sandy and I did, where we first discussed the best treatment for those we examined, keeping in mind the medications available at the clinic before conferring with Kuhn Rot, and if necessary referring them to see a doctor in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, or another city. This is difficult for many village people to do this since most are poor and don’t have Thai government assistance for health care because of their non-citizen status.

At noon, Sandy, Becky, and I walked back to our home-host’s house for a lunch of rice, dried salted fish, meat balls, tofu, and fruit. Our ITDP driver Kuhn Boondai overheard us talking about our longing to have a Starbucks coffee, and ran out to a local store to buy the ingredients to make us a cup of mocha coffee. It was surprisingly delicious!

We are so appreciative of Kuhn Boondai’s servant heart. He was born in a poor Lawa village and was selected to receive an ABW scholarship to attend a Christian high school in Chiang Mai. While he was at that school, he received Christ as his Savior. He is now in his 40’s, and has such a joyful spirit and loves our Lord. He also ministers to people in his home village when he has time. We were so blessed by his servant heart during our time at the Som Poi village.

Kuhn Boondai drove us back to the Starbucks Clinic after lunch, and we continued seeing patients during the afternoon. We also met two young Karen men who’d left the Som Poi village to get a university education and then came back to teach at the village school. One of them (an English teacher) invited us to his home, but we were unable to go. To have such young educated people return to their village was such a blessing to the villagers. Most who continue their education past high school find jobs in Chiang Mai or elsewhere, and don’t return. The children in this village school attend kindergarten through grade 8 school, where the children from also seven other surrounding Karen villages. Some of the children from far away villages stay in a hostel during the school semester.

We finished our first day at the Starbucks Clinic at 5 p.m., and returned to our home-hosts for a delicious supper of rice, fried chicken, a vegetable that looked like peas (but was a bit bitter), soup with pumpkin leaves and stems, potatoes, and chicken. We all sat together after the meal, and Sandy and I enjoyed talking to them with Becky’s translation help.

To visit a Karen village such as Huay Som Poi, one must be adaptable and in fairly good physical condition. Since there are no showers, we took “sponge baths” using river water. Since there are no chairs in their homes, we sat on grass mats for our meals. Since there are no western-style beds, we slept on pads placed on the floor using sleeping pads provided by Mike Mann. Since there are no western-style toilets, we had to use “squatty-potties”. Since there are no paved sidewalks or roads, we walked on uneven ground with many ruts and stones. However, this was balanced by the mountain air in the village that was so refreshing, and the stars at night lit up the sky as I have never seen before. And our Karen home-hosts and other village people we met -- they are so gracious, welcoming, and hospitable.

Wednesday, February 10 –
As I wrote this account at 6:00 a.m. using a flash light in our host-home’s guest home, I heard the first rooster’s crowing. The first time they crow between 3-4 a.m., they told us that a new day was coming. When the rooster crowed many times in a row around 6:00 a.m., they let them know the new day’s darkness was about to break.

We heard our home-hosts get up, so it was time for us to get up too. Tuesday was “sponge shower day”. The water was numbing as I washed one limb at a time so as not to shock my body. Then Sandy, Becky, and I joined our home-hosts for breakfast.

As worn by the wife of our home-host family, married Karen women wear the traditional tribal dress of a wrap-around red skirt, blouse, and sandals. Older Karen women wrap their heads wrapped with a twisted cloth. Most of the younger women wear the “global dressing-style” of a T-shirt and blue jeans, while school-aged girls are often seen in their school uniforms.

On Wednesday morning at the Starbucks Clinic, we taught over 20 Karen women had to do self-examination for breast cancer through English-to-Thai translation provided by Becky, and spent the remainder of the day with Kuhn Rot examining many people who came to the clinic after Kuhn Rot announced our being there. Sandy and I were surprised by some of the women who went through great detail in explaining their medical problems, and then would tell us through Becky’s translation after we advised them of what to do to improve their condition that they’d been told the same thing by a doctor they’d previously visited. Apparently, they wanted us to simply reassure them that the previous medical diagnosis they’d received was correct.

About 4:00 p.m., Becky left the village to return to Chiang Mai with Kuhn Boondai since she needed to attend a meeting on Thursday morning. At 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday evening, Kerry arrived by truck with another ITDP staff member Somsak. Kerry had returned with team members Beth and Karen from the Akha village on Tuesday after they’d help construct a floor for an ITDP building in an Akha village that’ll be used to house coffee-processing equipment. He wanted to take photos our Sandy and me as we completed the Starbucks Clinic project on Thursday. The village was completely dark when they arrived since the power-generator run by a local stream had been temporarily shut down.

Thursday, February 11 –

After enjoying another delicious breakfast with Kerry prepared by home-host Kuhn Noi, Sandy, Kerry, and I were driven to the Starbucks Clinic by Somsak. Sandy and I talked with a few people who came to the clinic at 9:00 a.m. before we walked with Kuhn Rot to several nearby village homes to make “house calls” to check on people who’d previously visited the Starbucks Clinic. One of the calls was to see a boy 8 years old who’d become physically weak and sometimes unable to walk or speak about one year ago. Because of this, he wasn’t able to attend school and play with other kids in the neighborhood. Kuhn Rot and the village doctors the family had taken the boy to couldn’t understand what caused this affliction, but the boy’s mother said he’d lately been getting better. Then we visiting another village home to check on the health of a very elderly woman, and enjoyed meeting her daughter and granddaughter. Since Kuhn Rot had told the village that Sandy and I would be leaving back to Chiang Mai on Thursday afternoon, we didn’t examine any other people later in the day.

We made a short stop at the Huay Som Poi village school to talk with the two teachers we’d met on Tuesday before our ITDP drive Somsak took us back to Chiang Mai. Unfortunately, they were away at a teachers’ meeting, but we were given a tour of the school by a staff member. We were impressed by its facilities where currently 177 students from kindergarten through grade 9. The staff and kids take great pride in the school, and have many posters about the class activities. There’s also a nice school sports area for playing volleyball, “dekraw” (a combination of volleyball and soccer using a small ball made out of light wood strips), basketball, and soccer.

The theme our ABCRM Thailand mission trip is “Watch for God at Work”. I’ve seen God at work through the hands and hearts of generous and caring people like Becky and Mike Mann and their ITDP activities, the building of the Starbucks Clinic through the Starbucks high-level managers and the teams of Starbucks staff who come here to help, and the leaders of the village like our home-hosts Kuhn Nat and Kuhn Noi. God is at work here in northern Thailand, blessing and sustaining a community of hard-working people who’re very content in their lot in life, not wishing for worldly thing and living simply, and enjoying their work as well as their family and friends. I’ve been blessed to come here and be a part of their lives for a short while.

Arlene Bowie

Thailand Mission Team Construction Project at “Ban Kohn” Akha Village

On Monday, February 8, three of our Thailand mission trip members (Karen, Beth, and Kerry) traveled by truck with Mike Mann and an ITDP staff member (Somsak, who is Karen and a former pastor in Bangkok) to an Akha village named “Ban Kohn” about four hours northeast of Chiang Mai. We were first shown the construction site where the next day would be helping men and women from the village to hand-mix and lay a concrete floor for a building that’ll be used to house first-stage coffee-processing equipment brought there in March. We were also shown the garden near the site where the villagers are planting tomatoes for their meals and to sell for income.

After returning to the village, we brought our sleeping bags into the home of our home-hosts and got our beds arranged on floor mats in their “living room”, the “headman” (or mayor) of the village and his wife. Mike then showed as around the nearby homes where the villagers stored their newly-picked coffee beans, and later on the same day put them through a “hulling machine” (powered by electricity and connected to a water supply). The machine separates the “nut” of the coffee bean and the hull, where the hulls are funneled into a bin for later use as mulch in the tomato gardens. Because of the high productivity of coffee in the village through their ITDP training provided by the Mann’s, we saw many stacks of coffee beans picked earlier that day waiting to be hulled. The new building site for a larger hulling machine we’re helping to construct will provide a central place where the villagers can instead bring their picked beans to be hulled by a much larger hulling machine.

The following day, Beth, Karen, and I worked alongside 15 of the villagers, Mike, and three ITDP staff members to help construct the concrete floor for. We passed buckets of sand, stones, and water to the Akha workers who built “volcanoes” of these items then mixed by hand to spread into the new floor area. Each “volcano” made enough concrete for an area about 4 feet by 4 feet. After the concrete was shoveled into a new area, other workers used wood “floats” to smooth the floor surface. By continuing this process, the new floor was completed in about four hours.

We had lunch with the headman and the ITDP staff in a makeshift “tent” covered by plastic sacks, with again delicious food prepared by our home-hosts brought to the site. We said farewell to the headman, and then saw the areas nearby where the women from the village were picking beans that day. This is a difficult job for them since they climb up steep slopes to pick the beans, and the straw baskets they carry on their backs weighs over 60 pounds when it’s filled with picked beans. This area is nestled in mountain valleys about 4000 feet high, and the views from the fields were quite nice.

This construction project coordinated and managed by Mike and Becky’s ITDP coffee-growing project was largely paid for by $3500 in 2010 ABCRM Mission Team funds set aside for our ABCRM Thailand mission trip that were EFT’ed to the Mann’s Chiang Mai bank account before we arrived. Mike and Becky and the village headman very much appreciated this donation that will help many of families in the Ban Kohn village.

Kerry Hassler

February 8

On Monday morning, our ABCRM mission team checked out of the Chiang Mai “Downtown Inn”, and were driven by Becky to the Chiang Mai office of her and Mike’s “Integrated Tribal Development Program”, which is the focus of their American Baptist-International Ministry activities. Mike talked with us and showed a video about the wonderful things that ITDP has done to improve Karen villages in northern Thailand over the past 15 years through building over 200 village clean-water systems, providing village educational programs and medical assistance, and helping villagers to support themselves by growing and selling coffee to Starbucks and a Japanese coffee-house chain. We learned that the Huay Sam Poi village was selected by Mike on behalf of Starbucks to build the Starbucks Clinic to help seven Karen tribal villages in that area. The funds for the construction came from 5 percent of the sales of ITDP-produced Starbucks coffee that’s sold in the Far East and America. Starbucks employees were selected by them to travel to this village to help construct the clinic.

After Mike’s talk with us, he also gave us a tour of the coffee-roasting facility next to the office which process raw coffee beans brought to Chiang Mai from many villages in northern Thailand where members of the ITDP coffee-growing cooperative are located. After roasting, the coffee beans are backed into various kinds of bags here to be sold to individuals and churches in Thailand and the U.S. (Contact our team leader Kerry at kerryhassler@comcast.net if you or your church wants to buy this coffee.) Most of the coffee is shipped by Starbucks to their coffee-roasting facilities in the U.S. to eventually be sold in Starbucks locations in the Far East and the U.S.

God has been so good in His work through Mike and Becky that has helped particularly Karen and other tribal villages in northern Thailand. Becky and Mike need our prayers and monetary support to continue their good work in northern Thailand.

After having a delicious lunch at the ITDP’s “Lanna Café” coffee-shop next to their office and coffee-roasting facility, Becky, Sandy, and I were driven by Kuhn Boodai (a staff member of ITDP from the Lawa tribe) by truck over paved and bumpy dirt roads to the Karen village of Huay Som Poi about 2.5 hours (80 miles) south of Chiang Mai where the ITDP “Starbucks Clinic” is located. Towards the end of the journey, the bumpy deeply-rutted road took us near steep drop-offs which (as my family knows) is not my favorite thing to see. Kuhn Boodai jokingly called the last part of the bumpy road a “Karen super highway”.

We were greeted at our Som Poi village guest home by the “head man” (mayor) and our Karen home-hosts Khun Nate and his wife Khun Noi. We enjoyed an evening meal of rice, chicken stew, fruit, and herbal that they and Kuhn Boodai prepared. We talked over tea after our meal with our home-hosts thanks to Becky’s translation from English to Thai (and vice-versa). We learned that the village has over 500 people spread among 129 families, with many of them coming here from Burma (Myanmar) over the past decades. We also learned that in the past decade, over 100,000 Karen have migrated from Burma to many refugee camps along the Thailand-Burma border. Since these refugees are not Thai citizens, they can not receive free medical care from the government’s facilities, but they do have medical facilities in the camps provided by the United Nations and other refugee-help organizations. These refugees can not leave the camps and move elsewhere in Thailand unless they have government permission to do so, which is very difficult to get. Over the past five years, Karen refugees are being allowed to come to various cities in America through the help of the U.S. government, where many American Baptist churches in the cities they’re relocated to have helped them to adjust to our country’s culture and way-of-life.

We talked until 9 p.m. with our home hosts, and then headed for bed. We were not accustomed sleeping on mats and sleeping bags on the hard wood floor, but felt privileged to be in a guest house of wood construction instead of in the normal village bamboo house with thatched roof. The guest house was built by Starbucks for their work teams that helped to build the Starbucks Clinic. The rooms are spacious, and included a resident gecko and a few bugs, but it is a nice place to stay. Tomorrow morning, Sandy, Becky, and I will walk to the Starbucks Clinic from here to start our mission team’s project with the clinic’s ITDP medical technician Kuhn Rot.

Arlene Bowie

February 7

We awoke this Sunday morning to the bright sun shining, cool soft breezes, but unlike Bangkok with its oppressive humidity, it is quite pleasant here. We had breakfast together at our hotel, the Downtown Inn, and we Skyp-ed home to talk with our families from Kerry’s laptop brought by him to the restaurant.

Our first stop was to visit the Karen (Tribal) Siloam Bible Institute (SBI) where we were greeted by their Director/Principal Mr. Glad. I am most amazed at the Karen and Thai people, they are quietly gracious and shy, and Mr. Glad is no exception. He proudly took us on a tour of the campus.

We are told that there are 150 churches in the Karen Baptist Convention. Even though this Karen seminary is 50 years old, many of their buildings are fairly new having been completed in 2007. We are told that only 20 percent of the funds came from the Karen people, with the other 80 percent being donated by other organizations including ABC-International Ministries. There is a large educational building with four classrooms and a gathering hall, a woman’s craft building, the library and book store, and on-campus homes where theology and English teachers missionaries Eiji/Emi Osato (supported by the Japanese Baptist Union) and UK missionaries Peter/Lisa (supported by the Church of Christ) live. There are two old buildings that are the dormitories, where men share one and women are in another house across the way. SBI presently has 71 students. It is a four-year program, three years in the classrooms and 7 months on the field. This year they will have 18 Karen graduates, where half of them already have placements in ministry. We are told that next year they will be teaching English to the Karen students, because all the theological resources they get are in English, very few are written in the Karen language. They have a need for more theology books.

Mr. Glad shows us his simple accommodations where he lives with his wife (who is expecting their first child in May), his brother and sister-in-law. There are two rooms: one a kitchen, with table chairs and stove, no cupboards, the houses the new sewing machine that his sister-in-law just bought to do her work as a seamstress. There is also a small bedroom on the first floor. His brother and wife sleep upstairs. Their simplicity of living grossly exaggerates our homes filled to the brim with all conveniences.

We then went to their worship service. It is a large windowless room. There are 40 students who are in the choir and whose singing blesses us with their enthusiasm and harmony. The Sunday School teacher lays out a big mat and all the children gather around to sit on it. Children are the same here, the boys restless, playing around and need to be shushed, the girls quietly drawing with pencils and paper. The pastor who is preaching is from Korea and is the theology professor. He is warning the students that when the Karen people leave their villages and go the USA or into the big cities they loose their faith….and their culture. We join them in singing familiar hymns, not knowing their words, but knowing the songs. Prayer is the same world wide and we join them in praying to “our” God, who has been most gracious to all of us. They have prepared lunch for us and we eat with another professor from Sweden and some of her friends who have come to visit.

We next decided that we want to see the tigers. We joined with many other tourists to go into the cages of the tigers to pet them. Being a little squeamish, we think it more “prudent” that we go into the baby tiger cage, instead of the large cats. They are rather docile and lay there as we all gather around to pet them. As we walk out of the building a man playing with a baby python wants us to pet his animal….eeuuhh!!! Along our way, we meet many tourists from other countries and who stop to speak, asking us where we are from.

We stopped for meals eating in open air restaurants. Our next stop is to attend the large Chiang Mai Community Church service where all our American Baptist Missionaries attend. Here we join in with over 300 English speaking people, mostly Caucasian, from around the world who gathered together to worship and praise our Lord.

Sandy and I decided to go to the night market, the others head to bed. The streets are lined for miles with tall cages that hold the wares of the many international vendors and Thai people and tourists who come to barter. There are also many men from around the world who have blatantly come to buy the services of the Thai women. It was very disturbing to us to view this. We learned when we went to visit with Annie and Jeff and their NightLight ministry that seven out of ten international men who come to Thailand with the purpose of buy sexual services from these young women. They need our prayers and support.

We ended the day tired and grateful that we are so blessed to live in the U.S. We are also excited that after many changes of plans, we are leaving for the Karen and Akha villages to do our mission trip projects. We’re looking forward to this adventure and to see how God is at work here.

Thank you for your prayers! We feel the peace and presence of God with us. We are a good team and Kerry has planned well, where with a team spirit of “adaptability”, all is going well.

Arlene Bowie

February 6

We rose early on Saturday, February 6, and packed for our departure to Chiang Mai. After breakfast of omelettes, fruits and veggies, we shared the message in our ABC-IM Short-Term Mission Trip book everyone had a copy of, today’s theme focusing on God’s faithfulness in our lives. Kerry reminded us to look for God at work today.

We arrived at the Bangkok airport and moved quickly through security. This airport is just three years old and looks like a huge shopping mall. As we moved toward our gate, we marveled at the beautiful gardens below us and the bamboo trees all around.

The efficient staff on board our Thai Airways flight managed to serve us a simple meal and beverages during the one-hour flight. After collecting our bags, we spotted a man with a sign that read “Ms. Kery”, and we made the deduction that this was “our” man to take us to our hotel. We arrived at the Downtown Inn where Becky Mann, ABC-IM missionary with husband Mike in Chiang Mai, was waiting for us. We unpacked and settled into our rooms, then walked around our immediate vicinity.

Chiang Mai, a city of one million people, definitely has a “small-town feel” to it after coming from Bangkok with a population of 12 million. In walking towards the Chiang Mai “Night Market” just one block from our hotel, we spotted a MacDonald’s and a Burger King, then stopped at a Starbucks for Sandy and Arlene (the coffee lovers in our group) to get a good dosage of caffeine,. Kerry led us to the Galare Guest House, where he has stayed on previous visits to Thailand in his working with ABC-IM missionaries here. A lunch of soup, rice (of course), and veggies was followed by delicious fried bananas. Next, we caught a taxi ride to the Chiang Mai Flower Festival that happened to be going on during the weekend. We counted at least 25 floats loaded with every flower imaginable. There were Buddha’s, elephants, and dragons galore in a vivid splash of color. So many flowers! This was however a sad moment for me when I discovered that my camera was missing from my bag.

Back to our rooms for a brief respite, Becky picked us up and drove through crazy, heavy traffic (what a multitude of motor bikes in this city!) to the Old Chiang Mai Cultural Center. After dining on chicken, pork, cabbage, spicy sauces, pineapple and melon, we were entertained by a program of beautiful young men and women in costume traditional Thai singing and dancing. A final part of the evening was to visit a small theater featuring the hill tribe people (including Akha, Lisu, and other tribal groups) doing their dancing and music. Time to retire! We went back to our hotel after a full day of listening and learning in Chiang Mai.

Beth Kieft

February 5

Our ABCRM Thailand Mission Team arrived safely in Bangkok after midnight Thursday February 4, after flying from Denver leaving February 3. Our team is comprised of Kerry Hassler (Team Leader) from FBC of Boulder, Arlene Bowie from FBC of Colorado Springs, Beth Kieft and Karen Pinkham from Calvary Baptist of Denver, and Sandy Stensland from Autumn Ridge (formerly Baptist) Community Church in Rochester, Minnesota. We were tired but excited after our long flight and four hours sleep after arriving at the Grand Inn Come Hotel at 1:30 a.m. on Friday morning.

Following breakfast, we packed tightly into a taxi (4 women in the back seat) for an hour’s drive to ABC-IM missionaries Annie and Jeff Dieselberg’s “NightLight” office and church in downtown Bangkok. We wanted to join the worship service with Annie and the women from NightLight. We learned the Thai way of removing our shoes whenever entering a home or worship center. The morning service was packed with 60 women, and we enjoyed sharing the service with them even though we did not understand Thai language. We did recognize the tune of “As the deer…”, and sang along in English on that song.

Following worship we toured the three building facilities of NightLight Ministry. We learned NightLight now operates through two branches: Nightlight Ministry the non-profit registered in the U.S. and NightLight Design Company Ltd., the business as mission. The design company is a registered jewelry business that employs 80 women coming out of prostitution, or having been at risk of prostitution and/or trafficking. After meeting the employees and watching them at work we stopped at the sales office, we saw their beautiful jewelry of such things as black pearls, silver necklaces and earrings. Then we met with Annie and heard her personal story of growing up in Congo (Zaire) of a child of missionary parents. She talked about her ministry with prostitutes. We heard many amazing stories that we will relate in later blogs.

In the afternoon our team rode the Bangkok Sky Train (BST) to take a boat ride on the Chao Phraya River to go see the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. The Buddha is gold-plated with mother of pearl sandals over 150 feet long. We also enjoyed walking around the beautiful gardens behind the Reclining Buddha. It ended up being more of an adventure then expected when on our return got on the boat going the wrong way back to the BST station, and we spent an extra 1.5 hours on the river.

Although wee were two hours late meeting Jeff Dieselberg for dinner at a nice hotel next to the NightLight office and church, he patiently waited for us and explained more about his work as pastor of a local church where many NightLight “graduates” attended, his involvement with seminary theological training, and serving at the administrative leader of NightLight. We were all impressed Jeff’s and Annie’s to helping the women in Bangkok by teaching them another way to make income through jewelry-making, as well as leading them to Christ. In the past several years, they’ve baptized over 40 of these women.

After returning to our hotel, we spent the next night catching up on sleep for our Saturday flight to Chiang Mai to meet our host ABC-IM missionaries Mike and Becky Mann.

Karen Pinkham

February 3-17 2010 ABCRM Thailand Mission Team is Ready to Go!

From February 3-17, an ABCRM mission team composed of Arlene Bowie (FBC-Colorado Springs), Beth Kieft and Karen Pinkham (Calvary Baptist -Denver), Sandy Stensland (Autumn Ridge Church-Rochester), and team-leader Kerry Hassler (FBC-Boulder and ABCRM Mission Team member) will go to Thailand to meet and learn about the ministries of ABC-IM missionaries and do work-projects with many of them. Missionaries the team will meet include:

• Jeff and Annie Dieselberg, whose Bangkok NighLight ministries help women escape from prostitution, and to learn about and accept Christ;
• Mike and Becky Mann, whose Chiang Mai-based Integrated Development Program (IDTP) ministries provide income to hilltribe families by teaching them how to grow coffee, as well as by helping them with medical clinics and education programs;
• Karen Smith and Kit Ripley, whose Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai New Life Center ministries shelter in-need tribal women, and help them to get an education;
• Kim Brown, whose Chiang Mai “House of Hope” provides day-care for young children from needy families, and
• Chuck and Ruth Fox, whose Chiang Rai Akha Crafts ministry provides family income to Akha villagers, and whose Christian outreach ministries brings the message of Christ to Akha villagers in northern Thailand.

ABCRM Thailand mission team members will be doing work-projects with Mike and Becky in an area about two hours north of Chiang Mai, helping the Mann’s IDTP “Starbucks Clinic” medical staff to treat ill and injured villagers. Some team members will service as “helpers” to assist the Mann’s IDTP Lanna Café Coffee staff to construct a shed for coffee-processing equipment in a Hmong village. Several team members will be doing craft projects with Karen and Kit at the New Life Center and at Kim’s “House of Hope” in Chiang Mai.

During the trip, team members will be learning about the Thai culture and see beautiful places in Thailand. At the end of the mission trip, the team will ride elephants at an elephant reserve north of Chiang Rai.

To see on-going updates from the ABCRM Thailand team members during their February trip, check the ABCRM “Missions Experiences Blog” at http://abcrmmissionexperiences.blogspot.com/. Thanks for your prayers for the ABCRM Thailand mission team!

L-R: Arlene Bowie, Beth Kieft, Karen Pinkham, Kerry Hassler (Sandy Stensland absent)