The short-term mission team: Back row: Stuart Jamieson, Adam Kelsall, Tony Townsend (associate pastor of the Ocean Grove Baptist Church), David Adams. Middle Row: Mia Kafieris, Lynette Merry, Samarn Marksuk (founder of Pakpingjai),and, Geoff Gray, Jannah and Leanne Gray. Front row: Lilly Wojczuk and Gretah Gray. PICTURES: David Adams

30th July, 2004

LEANNE GRAY

Sawadee ka ('hello' in Thai)! My family’s involvement with the Pakpingjai Home started back in April 1998 when we took some time off from work to visit a child we sponsored through Compassion, Mookdawan, who lives in the north west of Thailand.

We arrived in Bangkok and headed north to Chiang Mai by overnight train. We had been asked to ring the Compassion office on arrival. We did this at Chiang Mai, but being the weekend they were not open! Several more phone calls came to nothing. We had arrangements to meet with the Compassion field worker on the Monday, but had no idea how.

That night we went to the local English-speaking church which I’d spotted on our way into town. It was a huge church with about 400 people. At the end of the service asked the pastor if he knew where the Compassion office was in town: no, he had never heard of Compassion.

Meanwhile people were greeting each other and my husband Geoff started to speak to the man in front of him who wanted to know what we were doing in Chiang Mai. Geoff said that we were there to meet up with our Compassion child in the morning but did not know how to find the Compassion offices. The young man smiled and went on to say that he worked for Compassion and that he was to be our driver and interpreter. This was not his regular church but had come with friends this one time. I was too amazed to believe this story - it had to be a ‘God-designed set-up’. We would have not been able to do our visit without this incredible, against all odds, meeting. The man’s name was Samarn Marksuk. Within the next six months he went on to help set up and run the project called Pakpingjai.

Pakpingjai is a home for about 60 boys in the village of Ban Don, north east of Chiang Mai . Some of these boys have no parents to care for them; others live too far from the local schools to attend so they have been sponsored by the project to live there. There are others who have parents with AIDS or AIDS themselves and have little support so they have been taken into care. The community is very poor and many people cannot afford school books, fees and school uniforms. Many local parents approach Samarn for assistance but because of the funding limits, not all of their children can be taken into care.

Some of the Pakpingjai boys taking part in the nightly devotions.

Those that do live at Pakpingjai receive a warm and loving environment, daily meals, clothing, and education from primary through to university. Every night there are devotions, games and singing and everything they do, they do in the name of Jesus Christ. Some of the boys have given their lives to Christ and several older boys are growing into become excellent role models and leaders.

We had the pleasure of returning to Thailand and visiting Pakpingjai several years later, in July 2002, to see first hand what Samarn was doing at the project.. We spent only three days at the project which was not long enough so we began planning a longer stay with a bigger group from our church back home - Ocean Grove Baptist.

After two years of praying and planning, a group of 11 people traveled back to Thailand in June and July.
Travelling in a large group can be a little daunting as there was a mix of personalities and characters. But - praise God! - our focus was on our mission and the people we had come to serve. The group responded well to their new environment and the sights and tastes of Thailand. Each morning began in prayer and that made the difference for the day. Every day was challenging and exciting.

We arrived at Pakpingjai on the 28th June. We all fell in love with the children we had come to know at the project over the week we were there. We practised the few words of Thai which we’d become familiar with on the children and locals, often being corrected or given a puzzled look, but we kept on trying. Not being able to communicate properly was a barrier but the love of God was the one thing that we could share and all understand without words.

On the second day of our stay at Pakpingjai, Samarn decided we could help paint their new meeting room and build a concrete stage. It all looked good when finished - those mixing concrete were a little sore and tired after such a long day but the end result was well worth it. We hope it lasts!

Leanne Gray and Lynette Merry serve up spaghetti only to find the boys later adding fish sauce to spice it up!

The women in the group decided to give Pranee (the cook) a night off and cook the children some spaghetti and vegetable sauce. If you have ever cooked for 60 people before you’ll understand how much chopping and food is required to feed so many. We managed to fill their tummies but they were not too sure about the tomato flavor, so some of them decided what it needed was a dash of fish sauce to complete the taste! Mai pen rai (never mind).

We traveled up into the nearby hill tribe areas and met some of the boys families as well as meeting and prayed for people living with AIDS and two disabled boys who are cared for by their parents. We also had the chance to meet some classes of Buddhist monks who had a lots of questions for us. All these people are seeking and we hope we were able to bring them a little bit of joy and hope. May God continue to touch these families and individuals.

We were also able to help out with running a Sunday morning program at Pakpingjai with the children putting on a puppet play, a show of tricks and making animals from balloons. We gave each child a 'salvation bracelet' which consisted of beads of different colors, each of which had a Christian meaning. This was all written out in Thai for them to keep.

The farewell to this special place was not an easy one. Hard to leave a place and people who hold your heart. This is somewhere I know that I will return to again. Please pray for these people and their country.

Phra jao hai phaw! (Bless you)!