February 13-14

February 13

ABCRM Thailand Mission Team’s Last Day in Chiang Mai

On Saturday, February 13, our mission team enjoyed its last breakfast at the Downtown Inn hotel in Chiang Mai. As we tried to do every morning during breakfast, team members talked about the daily topic in the International Ministries “Short-Tem Missions Handbook” that provides mission teams with a 10-day “spiritual framework” for their trip. Also as was often done, Kerry brought his laptop to breakfast so team members could write up their mission trip articles for publication on the ABCRM “Missions Experiences Blog”, as well as send emails and make Skype voice-calls to family members in the U.S.

Little did our mission team know how frustrating our last day in Chiang Mai would be! After breakfast, Becky Mann called to tell us that the “VIP Bus” we’d hope to take from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai at 11:00 a.m. had been sold out, and our team would have to take a bus later in the afternoon. Also, as Kerry was loading the team’s luggage and other items on the truck Becky borrowed from ITDP, a box full of Karen Bibles (to be brought back by our team for IM missionary Duane Binkley to distribute to U.S. Karen refugees) slipped off the truck track, and dented the fender of a car parked next to it. After working out a settlement with the car’s owner, Becky drove us to the bus, and we said our “good-byes” to her. We didn’t know it at the time, but one of our team member’s suitcases had been left in the Downtown Inn’s storage room, and also our later VIP bus from Chiang Mai would break down three times on its way to Chiang Rai, delaying our arrival there by another two hours. What a troublesome day!


February 13-14
Team Activities with IM Missionaries Chuck and Ruth Fox in Chiang Rai

After our team arrived at the Chiang Rai bus terminal, we were met by Chuck to take us to our hotel, and then later we met wife Ruth and the Fox’s son Kenny at a downtown Chiang Rai Thai-food restaurant. We enjoyed a delicious meal together, and then had a “guided tour” of Chiang Rai’s Night Bazaar by Chuck. Since Chiang Rai (100,000 population) is about one-tenth the size of Chiang Mai, its Night Bazaar has a much cozier, friendly place to shop compared to Chiang Mai’s Night Bazaar.

On Sunday morning, February 14, our team went with Chuck and Ruth to the “Sukasem” Akha village about 30 minutes from Chiang Rai. This is an all-Christian village that the Fox’s are closely connected with since Chuck helped arrange for the funds and work-teams to build their church. He’s also a good friend of the village’s Akha pastor Pedru, and shares the pulpit with him often. There was also a connection between this village and our ABCRM mission team since Kerry had worked with Chuck during the past year to arrange for his FBC of Boulder church to donate $1000 so the Sukasem village could build a clean-water system through Chuck’s project ministry help.

After we arrived, our mission team joined with the Sukasem villagers in worshipping at their church overlooking the village. The Sunday start-time for their main service (they have two other Sunday services) varies each week somewhere between 10:30-11:00 a.m., so the villagers are called to the church by a small church-bell. As the villagers starting coming to the church, the women sat on one side of the church; and men, on the other (as is the custom in all tribal churches). Many of the village’s men were absent on that Sunday morning since repairs were being done to their clean-water system far up the mountain. After the service started, our mission team was introduced to the congregation by Chuck, and we sang to them (as best we could!) portions of the traditional hymns “I Love to Tell the Story” and “Amazing Grace”.

As Pastor Pedru and Chuck preached to the congregation in the Akha language, Ruth translated for the women in our mission team. During the service, we were able to sing along with the congregation in the Akha language (for such traditional hymns as “How Great Thou Art“) by reading the phonetic English spellings of the Akha words printed in their hymnals that also included the words in Thai. This multi-lingual printing in Akha and English is due to the many years of hard work done by well-known American Baptist missionary/linguistic expert Paul Lewis. Paul and Elaine (originally from Calvary Baptist of Denver (good friends of team member Karen Pinkham and her husband Ken, and Beth Kieft and her husband Gordon) dedicated their lives starting in the 1960’s to providing a written language and dictionary for many tribal groups in this part of the world. This led to the first printed versions of Bibles/hymnals in the Akha, Karen, Lahu, Wa, and other tribal languages 50 years ago. What an amazing impact these two American Baptist Christians had on bringing Christianity to the tribal people of Thailand, Burma, China, and other Southeast Asia countries!

At the end of the service, Pastor Pedru thanked Kerry and his American Baptist church for the past year’s donation made to their village (through Chuck Fox) that allowed their village to have clean water. Kerry then gave his greetings to the congregation from his Boulder church, and asked members of the Sukasem congregation to pray for the future of FBC of Boulder, while at the same time his church members are praying for the Sukasem church and its members.

After the service, our mission team enjoyed meeting the members of the Sukasem church congregation with spoken translation help by Chuck and Ruth. We then had a lunch of delicious Akha food shared with Pastor Pedru in a newly-built village eating area. It was such a blessing to share this Sunday with our Baptist brothers and sisters in Christ in the village of Sukasem!

Kerry Hassler