Thai Journal ‘26 - #2

 

Sabbath morning began in my room with the formal Orientation for the group. Everyone seemed bright

and cherry-eyed, as if they had already overcome jetlag. We then worshipped in the sanctuary of the Asia Pacific International University with the non-Thai English-speaking congregation (the International Church). This is the largest demographic at the University. This week the Thai congregation met in the Fellowship Hall. At 1:30pm we joined the group conducting the Branch Sabbath School at Auntie Nang’s farm, where four members of our team will be working regularly. As always, they invited me to give the worship talk. We could not give Nang the dog and chicken feed (compliments of Kalene Dittman and Lorraine Jacobs, and Real Time Pain Relief, compliments of my wife, Violet) due to the plane

delay yesterday. We’ll get those on Sunday and Monday. Auntie Nang was absolutely overjoyed to see us return; yet mixed with sadness with Uncle Prasarn not being there. We took some time to lay out plans for repairs to the house this week and replacing the roof. After a tour of the farm, we headed for the White Buddha – a 600-step climb! Again, some of our team members did it in under 10 minutes! I again skipped the hike. I’ve not been climbing the three floors to my office in the Admin building this entire summer. I was not ready for this year, again. I hope I will be in shape next year! We ended the day at our famous dinner spot, Srifa (Blue restaurant) and celebrated Nadia’s birthday. Another delightful reunion and sumptuous food, although Tom was not there.