Language Lessons Continue

การเรียนภาษาไทย

As a part of our living and serving in Thailand, we continue to study Thai language three times per week.  We can both now read and write (at a primary school level) and converse comfortably in daily life and work.  We are doing basic interpreting of meetings from Thai to English - and loving every bit of it, but it does not come easily....

NASSA lists the Thai language in the top 10 of difficult languages to learn.  The Thai letters originate from Bali Sanskrit and are not in any way related to the English / European alphabet we use.  There are 44 consonants and 30 odd vowels and vowel blends.  Mix this in with 5 distinct tones that can totally change the meaning of a word and you can begin to see the challenge we face.  Many letters are pronounced as different sounds, depending on their place in a syllable. Vowels can be written to the right of, to the left of, above or below a consonant, or in a combination of these places.  Keep smiling as it gets more challenging.... There are tone marks above "some" of the syllables to indicate the tone in which that syllable should be pronounced.  Very helpful, but the same tone mark can indicate different tones depending on the letter it is written above.  Just to top it all off, many vowels are not written in, but of course we all know to say them and where these unwritten vowels will pop up.  My favorites are the consonants that after being said (usually at the end of a syllable) get re pronounced a second time as the first letter of the next syllable, but using a different sound for the second usage - and they often have one of those elusive unwritten vowels to accompany the confusion over the pronunciation. See the example below...


มูลนิธิ Moonluniti - the word for a foundation
This starts with an "M" sound ม with an  "oo" vowel under the "M" followed by an "L"  ล which, as the end consonant of this syllable is pronounced as "N".  The ล is then used again as the start of the second syllable, this time being pronounced as "L".  The second usage of this "L" is followed by an "u" vowel sound, which is not written in but needs to be pronounced. After that the third syllable begins with an "N" น. This is the more common of 2 N's that could be used here and has an "i" vowel mark above it. This is followed by a "T" sound ธ.  This "T" is one of 5 "T" letters in the alphabet - you just have to learn which is used where- and it has an "i" vowel above it.


Oh yeah, did I mention there is no break between the words.  Everything just runs on in a long string!

University comes to The River

Last Friday we farwelled five "community development" students from Rajaphat Chiang Mai (university). These five had been working with us interns over their summer break.
As well as being involved in many of our community development works, these uni students also chose to sit in on our daily prayer, worship and teaching times. They understood virtually none of what was going on in our team when they arrived a couple of months ago, but now, after working with our team daily, they know that community development was more than deciding where to build roads and hospitals.  It is all about making relationships with the community and truly loving and serving the people.  They know that there was something very different about the way our team works and they know that it is because all of our team have a vibrant relationship with God.
Having completed their uni requirements and said good bye to us, they presented our team with a plaque (above) and then turned up the following day to help out with our kids club program.
They were all truly impacted by their time with us !

3 Years

This week we celebrated living and working in Thailand for three years.  (I use the term celebrated loosely as Tim was in Australia at the ACC National Conference and it was work as usual for me)

 
Over the 3 years that we have been living and working in Thailand, we have had the privilege of being involved in many areas.... We have been involved in work amongst hill tribe people and amongst the city's youth.  We have been training national Thail Christian workers and youth music bands, just to name a few. We have also hosted visiting ministry teams from Australia and been blessed by numbers of short term volunteers who have come to work with us. Everything we have done has been done as a part of The River Team, an amazing team of National Thais and some Aussies that are working together to see the transformation of Thailand.

 But by far the area of work we are most passionate about is working with kids!  Kids club, kids sports programs, teaching in schools, concerts in schools.  What ever method possible to demonstrate the love of God to these amazing young people and see all areas of their lives transformed.

 

We have had the privilege of establishing programs in 10 of our local government schools.  We currently have some fantastic Thai workers  planted in 8 of these schools.  These workers are developing great relationships in their schools and working toward creative ways of planting cell groups in each school.  They are being requested by their schools to begin home visitation programs to visit and assist the families from the school community who are in need.

 We have also conducted a number of morals based concerts in schools These concerts use song, games, drama and a high level of interactive excitement to teach children valuable lessons such as: "you are valuable", "you should say no to drugs".  These concerts have impacted thousands of kids and their teachers.  They are always very popular! 

 Not only do we work with the students but we also train the teachers in teaching techniques and English skills.  The local office of the Education department is regularly requesting that we work in schools in an increasing measure.  The only thing holding us back from this incredible opportunity is a lack of workers.  The fields are truly white unto harvest, but the labours are few. 

Please pray with us that the Lord of the harvest would send more labourers into the fields.

The Perry Family in Northern Thailand 2011

This is Yingwhit, a member of The River Team who was previously a Buddhist Monk.  Yingwhit now lives and works in a very remote hill tribe village as a cross cultural missionary within his own country.  He is from the Hmong tribe, a tribe with its own distinct language and culture and works with the Karen tribe, a tribe with another distinct language and culture.  Though both of these tribes (and many others) live in Thailand, neither has language or culture in common with the ethnic Thais.  Yingwhit is currently seeing numbers of families coming to Christ through his community transformation work in that village and many of the surrounding villages that have also requested that he work with them.  He is also seeing many miraculous healings in these communities. 

Above to the left, Yinwhit stands in his small bamboo hut demonstrating the environmental and time saving benefits of using a simple gas burner rather than cutting local timbers to light fires side the hut to cook each and every meal.  So far Yingwhit is the only one in his region using such technology, but others will follow as they watch Yingwhit benefit from the gas cooker....  Just as they followed when he modeled how to build a toilet, how to plant and use vegetable gardens and how to farm fish.

 

These are just a couple of the faces of lives that have been transformed thought the work of Yingwhit and the church he leads in remote Northern Thailand. Please pray for him as he continues this often lonely work, in harsh conditions, and bears so much fruit!