Hello all of you Friends and Family of Hanna and I,
This is a quick update on what we have been doing here in Chaiprakarn Thailand. We arrived and were quickly transported on a 9 hour bus ride to the second most Northern province of Thailand Chiang Mai (Chiang is Thai for Elephant). There we were picked up by Pi-Lek (pi is a sign of respect to an elder and Lek means small, which Pi-Lek is by no means small, so its comforting to know that Thai's have a sense of sarcasm as well) and his daughter Ning. We have a translator named boy (and yes, hes a boy), we have become amazing friends with him and are able to disciple him a lot as he is still young in his faith! We took a 3 hour open truck ride (pick-up truck) through the cold hills of Chiang Mai province up to Chaiprakarn, specifically to an Orphange called Sila's Home Ministry. This ministry is a beautiful and extremely necessary safe haven for children. These children come from poor hill tribe parents who either died from HIV or some other cause, or who were to poor to keep the children and the children would have been left to die or sold into prostitution (even some of the boys risk this fate!). Rather than being left to fend for themselves or be sold into a future that emotionally tears them apart and physically abuses them, they come to this orphanage are provide an excellent education and are introduced to their Father. I don't believe one of the 27 children were Christians before they arrived at Sila's home. But they are all passionatly in relationship with God now. Getting up every morning at 5:00 for worship and prayer before they go to their 1st grade to 12th grade mission field...school. They are amazing little kids with an amazing spiritual father named Paw Kyiet (Father Kyiet).
As for our role in all of this we are taking them after school for amazing in depth english teaching. Because Thai does not have articles (a, the...etc..) or tenses (past, present, future), so we are having to really break the language down, it takes hours of preparation every day. Urs, from Switzerland and Oyvind, from Norway, are taking leadership of that. (Yes they speak english very well and have already have learnt as a second language so they can break it down well). We have been told, and have seen as we have gone to schools to teach english, that the teaching we are doing is far more systematic and productive than the way they teach english. The english we are teaching people don't receive in this area and that gives these little kids who would otherwise have a future in prostitution an upper hand in their education and in getting a career. Amazing or what?
Hanna and I have taken up the responsibility of teaching some bible to the older kids who don't want to learn english and doing kids games and skits for the younger ones. This is a tiring role. Its a global phenomenon the amount of energy that kids have. Hanna and I are learning young what it would be like to have 15 kids for a month! haha! The girls are also helping and learning how to cook their local foods while the MEN are using hoes to dig 1 and a half meter holes for fish ponds for them to keep the next months fish in! Hopefully in the next update I can have some pictures of this for you! We also are visiting pastors in the hill tribes, very very poor villages where their 10% tithe is actually the best 10% of their fruit crops because that is all they have. The pig farmer brings a pig and the fruit farmers bring fruit and they have a feast once a month (as modeled in the Old Testament!). Here we pray for the pastors, visit the schools where some of the kids have never seen white people and visit homes of the remaining family that the orphanage children have!
The Sila Home staff have become our family for the past few weeks and Thailand our home! We will miss them when we leave here in a couple weeks. But we are leaving them with many powerful things. Praise God that we can bless them with an education, and deeper revelations in their walk with God. Also please be praying for their ministry, if they shut down that is at least 10 girls who may go to prostitution and many other boys and girls who will be left to fend for themselves, many dieing. The ministry has just recently lost long term supporters and have a debt of 350,000 baht. A mountain of debt for them, but our teams plane tickets for us (about $12,000). For a church in the west that is not much! So please pray and if you know a church that wishes to support a mission project, please pass the word along! You can be a huge part of this ministry! These are real people and real children of God!
If you want their account details, please let me know at marshywam@gmail.com.
Peace, Love and Prayers!
Adam Marshall and Hanna Grossmann
