Chiang Mai Youth Outreach July 2011

The sound coming out from the hall at the beginning of the 2 weeks was loud, wrong and aweful !! But by the end of those 2 weeks of rehearsals, it had the resemblance of music.
We had been given the opportunity to lead the praise and worship at a city churches Youth group rally/concert.  The local boys from our HangDong Youth group  whom we have been working with for some time now were contacted and the rehearsals began.


For the first few nights the hotel staff and our team graciously put up with the noise, but by the end, many people were coming in to the rehearsals and enjoying the music with us.
The night itself was a fantastic night. The band played so well, the energy level was
huge and our team led the way with passionate and enthusiastic praise and worship.

Students Impacted by Thailand

 A team of 22 students from Melbourne, most of whom had ever left Australia before, had the experience of their lives volunteering with us at The River Team for 10 days.
Sure, they also rode elephants and had an amazing tree top jungle adventure, not to mention market shopping at the night Bazaar, but almost everyone commented the most life changing part was getting away from the tourism and ministering to the kids of Thailand!


These students mixed with, ate dinner with and performed for the youth of Hang Dong.  They taught a 2 day English camp for over 100 students selected from 12 local  Primary schools, taught 60+ kids from an extremely remote hill tribe village (whilst having to endure living in some quite trying and primitive conditions) and taught at two high schools in a remote township. Below are some of their highlights.




Cultural exchange night with the Hang Dong Government and youth included traditional butterfly dances and knife dances.

 

Remote hill tribe school

Singing Heads shoulders knees and toes, and playing games to teach right, left forward and backward.  In this school the Australian students had to endure quite harsh conditions (compared to home), but the local kids live this way all the time.  The school teacher is the only person in the entire village to own a computer.  These children have never used a computer or seen TV.



City School


These young Australian students all sacrificed and saved to come and serve the children of Thailand and we greatly appreciate their efforts and diligent service.  But to a person, I think they would all agree, far greater than what they did in this nation through their 10 days here was what God did in each of their lives.  They all went home quite impacted and changed

Congratulations Jordan - Class of 2011

While this blog is usually to report on the ministry we are involved in in Thailand and neighboring nations, please indulge us as we honour our amazing son Jordan who has lived in Thailand with us for the past 3 years and has now graduated high school and is leaving to do missions work in Japan.

Jordan Ray Perry - Graduating in the class of 2011

Despite (or maybe because of) 3 years in an American based International School, Jordan has remained fiercely Aussie and is also now claiming his New Zealand heritage. Jordan entered Grace International school in the Sophomore year, Grade 10 (year 10), completed his Junior year last year (yr 11) and this year has graduated his Senior year (year 12).  I have no issue with the titles the Americans give to each year level.  I don't mind the yr 12 students continually being referred to as "Seniors",  BUT I do object to all us mothers of year 12 students being referred to (apparently affectionately) as "Senior Moms".  It makes me feel way too old.


Right: Jordan leaves home for his last day of school, giving his sister Lizzy a lift as he goes.  Yes he does have a valid license and we do insist on quality helmets, but the rest of the safety gear is not quite at Aussie standards. (Note Lizzy carrying the cookies on her lap for an end of year class party)






 Graduating from an American school is a protracted series of events full of ceremony and celebration. We start with the sports awards night for Varsity (senior) teams.

Jordan leaving the stage with his soccer team - trophy in hand

Jordie had a great year, excelling in a number of sports.  We reported on his triathlon feat in an earlier blog.  Above: Jordan (black shirt) is honored and awarded for his feats in soccer.  Jordan was the "Varsity Team" goal keeper and broke the school records for saving goals.  As goal keeper he wears a black shirt/ white tie while his mates wear the opposite.  The team dressed this way for school each game day.

Next is the Celebration Dinner for all the families of seniors.

Left: Jordan receives a "fun" award for an ongoing joke with his journalism teacher.  This was a relaxed night before we got into the more formal & serious ceremonies.

Jordan, Tim and Lizzy having fun at the Senior Celebration Dinner

Next is the award giving and candle lighting ceremony

All of the seniors walk onto the stage with a lit candle and light the candle of one of the Juniors, then blow out their candle, signifying the passing of the flame from one year level to another.  Right: Jordan lights the candle of a friend, Hanna.
At this event, awards are also given for academic excellence. Prior to this ceremony other class awards were also given out.  Of the 18 awards given for journalism, Jordan received 6!

Finally it is the Graduation Ceremony and Senior Prom

Jordan seated in the top right corner, 1 of 62 graduating students

During the ceremony all the seniors come down off the stage to present their mothers with a rose and to thank their families for their support during their school years.  It is a very emotional and touching part of the evening's ceremonies. Certainly lots of tears in our family at that moment!

And of course there is the main event of the night, the awarding of the High School Diploma.  Right: Jordan receives his Diploma from one of the board members of the Grace International School.  Jordan will return to Australia on June 8 for one month to apply for a visa to work in Japan.  He will serve with Jesus Life House in Japan for a year, then probably return to Australia to study before returning to Japan as a career missionary.

Congratulations Jordan, We are so very proud of you!

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!