The world of Barro

7 days in klong Toey

Well I have been here in Thailand for just on a week now, and it feels that this is the first time I’ve had to catch my breath. I’m here again with UNOH as part of one of their ESL short term trips, coordinating the trip for 15 people from Melbourne, and partnering with the Ta Rua church here in the slum of Klong Toey. One of the biggest things you need here is FLEXABILITY. I thought I was going to be with a group taking 50 kids away to a beach side camp, and was so much looking forward to the beach, but in the end have been leading a team in the slum of Rong Gow. I am the person with the most Thai and experience on our team, having no locals at all, which at the beginning of the week I was feeling not real keen to say the least, but God has other ideas. The week has been fantastic with some great relationships with the kids and with the community. One of the challenges we have had is that there has been some kids card gambling right where we do our lessons, which is on a stage directly under a freeway overpass. This is so sad, as well as highly illegal to see 10 year old kids introduced to this EVIL so early on, not knowing the language has been hard as we can’t speak to anyone about the issue there. But our strategy, as well as praying is to offer a better alternative and each day our group of kids has grown, so now we have about 22, 10-12 year olds who love to come each morning. We will go back next week to teach again and at night time teach also at Glua Prick community, a real challenge as the weather here is very HOT so tiring.

Another highlight has been spending time with Celtic muso Sammy Horner, who was with us for 2 days on route back to Scotland. I had never met him before despite having known of him for 15+ years thru John Smith and Sean Stillman and God’s Squad, and played heaps of his music. So was great to hang with him and we got on like a house on fire and he seemed very moved by his experience here in the community as he met Jesus thru the poor. So now is the halfway mark, its also been great seeing old friends, both UNOH workers here, Ash, Anj, Rod, Jodie and Chris as well as many Thai friends that I have met over the years as well, it is a real blessing and privilege to have sisters and brother from this part of the world. Will be interesting spending Holy Week here in a Buddhist slum, attempting to share the love of Jesus.

posted by Barro @ 12:26 PM