Papaya - Wonderful Fruit of Thailand

I had papaya in Australia where I grew up and honestly, I don't remember it being that good.  On my honeymoon I was in the Cook Islands and the papaya there was amazing.  Thailand's papaya is just as good.  

We had a papaya tree growing in our front yard and last year it produced some great fruit.  But it grew too tall and I had to chop it down.  However, I used some of the seeds to plant new tree at the side of our house.  The 3 trees are now producing an abundance of fruit and it tastes great.

Papaya are really sturdy trees and easy to grow, even for novice like me.

Chaff Sculptures @ Huay Tueng Tao Lake, Chiang Mai

 

These sculptures were made from the chaff of rice fields at Huay Teung Tao Lake in Chiang Mai.  They were amazing.  

Thailand Media Network Meetings

 

This is the Thailand Media Network, a Christian network which aims to collaborate and help each other in various Christian media projects.  The network meets once every 2 months in Chiang Mai.  We have the meeting at our different organisations and this time I hosted the meeting at the OMF Mekong Centre.

This month we saw the preview of the new movie, "Soul Prison" which looks great.  It will be released in cinemas in Bangkok and Chiang Mai later this year.

I shared a video from the Bible Project Thai. 

Largest Baptism in Thailand's history

 

On the 6th of September the FJCCA (Free in Jesus Christ Church Association) baptized 1,435 Thai people in Phetchabun. These new believers came from 4 provinces. It was the largest number of people baptised in Thailand's history.

This movement is seeing "hundreds of Thai believers going village to village bringing the light of Jesus Christ to those who have never heard of Jesus". They say that "this is just the beginning of what God is doing in Thailand".

Here is a video from Dwight Martin, a missionary who is helping the movement of the baptism service and a testimony from one of the people who was baptised.

May God continue to protect and use this movement for his glory.

Bible Project Thai

I am the local project co-ordinator overseeing the team that is taking the BibleProject videos from English into Thai.  We have finally been able to launch the first two video after a series of unexpected setbacks some of which may have had a spiritual element to it.

We have a team of 5 Thai illustrators and animators, as well as a language adviser, translators and voice artist team. 

There are 73 videos to complete in the Read Scripture series, 9 in the Luke-Acts Series and potentially others in their 140+ video collection.

You can view the BibleProject Thai youtube channel by clicking on the link. 

May God use these videos for his Kingdom for many years to come.

Grab Food

Grab food delivery

One business that has benefited from Covid-19 is food delivery.  Grab Food and Food Panda are the two largest companies offering food delivery services.  We used it quite a lot when the restaurants were only allow to offer takeaway. We are not using it much now that the restaurants are open for dine in.  Apparently, Grab Food take a 30% cut so it is not cheap for the restaurant, though they would mark up their prices.  The delivery fee charged is based on the distance and for short distances it is as cheap at 10-15THB (less than A$1).  

Trip to Kanchanburi

Bridge over the River Kwai

We have lived in Thailand over 13 years and we haven't visited some of the most famous places in Thailand.  So with Covid-19 restrictions easing, we made the 700km road trip from Chiang Mai to the Bridge over the River Kwai in the province of Kanchanaburi.  It was our first long road trip in years as it is so cheap to fly everywhere in Thailand.  It was very crowded on the Bridge, but it would have been many more times more crowded without Covid-19 and all the tourists been locked out of entering Thailand.

Unfortunately, the Death Railway Museum was closed until the end of July so we couldn't go in.

The Commonwealth War Cemetery opposite the Death Railway Museum was a sobering reminder of the sacrifices of the WWII.

The Erawan Waterfalls is considered to be one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Thailand with 7 levels.

It was stunningly beautiful but we were sorely disappointed as they had banned swimming in the water due to Covid-19.  Kind of an overkill really as there hadn't been a new internal case of Covid-19 for over 30 days previous to that and people could still go into cafes and shopping centres and other public places and walk very close to others on the trial up and down.  

Kingdom Training

kingdom.training

Kingdom training provides free online training to help you use media to accelerate disciple making movements.  I've started to do some of their trainings and it has been super helpful.  What they want to do is help you to: - "Get the right message, in front of the right person, at the right time and on the right device"

I only became involved in digital media ministries at the beginning of last year, taking over from someone who was returning home.  I had no previous experience in this are but I just couldn't see this ministry fading away with no one to lead it. 

Covid-19 and with some many face-to-face ministries being curtailed has highlighted the lack of preparation amongst churches and Christian organisation, in terms of engaging people through digital media. It was a real scrambling effort.  

With the internet and social media, missionaries and Christian workers are now able to reach people through their devices in a way which was never possible in previous generations.  There are similarities between what the system of roads in the Roman Empire leading to the rapid spread of Christianity, to what the internet and social media can enable, if it was utilised effectively. 

With the use of targeted ads we are able to find the people we are looking for much more easily and traditional means of going into a community and looking for seekers.  However, we have dedicated so few to this area of ministry.  A seismic shift of thinking is needed in missions.

Discovering Home Delivery

Before Covid-19 we only had home delivery for Pizza.  But we've discovered a whole new world ...

From gelato

Cinnamon Rolls

Chinese Dumplings

Pad Thai

and donuts ...

Just to name a few things.  We are fortunate to be able to avoid to buy these things but many other in our community are really struggling.

My wife and some of our kids have had a chance to help our missionary friends and local Christians in giving out food.

Zoom becomes the new verb

Zoom meeting with OMF Thailand Leaders

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, "Zoom" has become a verb.  It is no longer Skype or some other video conferencing but Zoom.  I can under why it has become to the "go to" video conference software.  It has been so much better than Skype.  We have had our North Thailand prayer meetings twice now on Zoom.  Even my monthly mentoring meetings we've switched to Zoom.

Thailand has been under an emergency decree for over a month now.  Social distancing and wearing of masks is mandatory as is the 10pm-4am curfew.  It was declared today that the emergency decree would be extended for another month as as the ban on inbound international flights.  Our children's school has been closed for the past month and won't reopen for face to face teaching until the second week of August!

Praise God that the number of new cases of COVID-19 has continued to decrease and as of last night it was below 10.  Like, most people we are looking forward to returning to some semblance of what will be the new "normal".