Celebrating Christmas in Thailand

We have just finished our first week of ministry at Abba House and I already love it here! Every day is filled with lots of joy and laughter!

On most days, we are with the guys in the afternoon for Bible study, worship, and English lessons. Abbie and I are teaching the beginners class and we have two students – Sit and Lek. It’s great because we can do more one-on-one stuff and really focus in on what their needs are. So far, we’ve been learning ABC’s, counting to 100, some vocabulary, and conversational English (How are you? What is your name? Where are you from? etc). It’s awesome to see them learning and really grasping what we are teaching them. And it can also be pretty funny! Picture this scenario with me for a minute:

Me: How are you?

Lek: My name is Lek.

Me: No…how ARE you? (re-emphasizing the words and saying it slower…)

Lek: I am from Thailand.

Me: OK…repeat after me…I am fine.

Lek: I am fine.

Haha…these are frequent conversations in our class but both of our students are doing SO good at learning English! I’m amazed at their progress already! Sit often shouts out ‘Thank you, Jesus!’ when he gets something right! I love his enthusiasm!

We eat dinner with the kids almost every night and have English lessons with them in the evening. Again, Abbie and I are teaching the beginners and we have 5 students: one boy (Laa) and four girls (Sih, Patcha, Sophia, and Gift). They are ages 8 to 11 and we all have so much fun together! We do lots of songs and games with the kids and they love it! We often end up chasing them around after class because they are very playful and love to run around. They are also very affectionate and like to hold our hands and give us hugs (we like it when they do that too! J).

My first Thai Christmas was incredible! We had an amazing opportunity on Christmas Eve to go and speak at a men’s prison. We were there for about an hour and a half and we each shared part of our testimonies and about what an awesome God we know and love and serve. God is so good and it was great that we got to go there because the doors have closed now for churches to go into that prison – we were the last group that was allowed in to the prison for a while. Pray with us for the 150 men that we had the opportunity to share with about the love and grace of Jesus Christ!

Later on Christmas Eve, we all (guys, kids, and YWAM team) went Christmas caroling from 7pm til almost 1 in the morning! We squeezed in to 2 song tao’s and set off on our adventure! Our team quickly discovered that Christmas caroling here is different from caroling back in Canada and the States. We drove to the first house and all hopped out of the song tao’s. We then snuck up to the house (with lots of ‘SH’ing and whispering) and, once we were all ready, yelled ‘Merry Christmas!’ and started singing loudly and dancing around! After we finished singing a few songs, the lights came on inside the house and they opened the doors to welcome us in for snacks! We drove around to about 10 houses of people from the church and this is pretty much what happened at each house. Thai people are so welcoming and hospitable! I think that we need to start welcoming people into our homes in Canada and feeding them delicious treats when they carol for us!

Loading into the song tao on Christmas Eve (the guy on the left doing the peace sign is Sit and the guy to the right of him with the purple sweater is Lek - they are in my English class)

Caroling and dancing at the first house

Laa (one of my students) eating some soup at the last house where we went caroling

Christmas day was a full day and it was even better than Christmas Eve! Our team met together and enjoyed a little celebration that included stockings and a gift exchange. I got a beautiful purse from Catherine! In the afternoon, we played outdoor games with everyone - there were water balloons and sack races! Our Christmas dinner was a barbeque which was so cool since that’s how my family always celebrates Christmas! Because we lived in Botswana, we had summer Christmases and would have a barbeque (or ‘braai’, as we would say in Botswana) each year on Christmas day. So fun! After dinner, there was a piñata (how random is that? I never expected to see a piñata in Thailand…) and we all laughed as people took turns trying to punch it down! Later, there were Christmas skits, opening presents, and a dance party to end off an amazing Christmas day!

Playing outdoor games on Christmas

Sack race

Watching the games (the girl next to me is Sih, one of my students)

Gift (another one of my students) getting ready to throw some water balloons

Christmas BBQ!

Throwing punches at the piñata

Dance party!

Christmas in Thailand is all about being together to celebrate Jesus’ birth! It was really amazing to see how gentle and loving the guys were with the kids. They were all holding hands and joking around! These guys that used to be in prison have been totally transformed by Jesus! They are some of the most gentle and caring people that I’ve ever met!

It is such a blessing to be at Abba House and I’m looking forward to this next week of ministry! Thank you for your prayers and financial support! Merry Christmas!