Recently I took two of our faithful widows and four of my Heavenly Treasures teen girls with me to another missionary's work 16 hours away to run a Bible English Camp for them.
It took two days of travel to get to Mae Sai, but about an hour before we arrived, we passed through Chiang Rai. This is where Pii Fa (one of the ladies with me on the trip) grew up. We were able to stop at her family home and see her two older sisters who she hasn't seen in many years.
Pii Fa told me how a missionary came to a jungle area around 1949 before she was born and decided to start a church. He cleared some land for some cows he bought and looked around for a family willing to raise them. He did this again and again with pigs and other animals. He made "work" for other families to move into the area. And he held Bible studies. Those Bible studies turned into a growing church. Many people got saved and eventually an entire neighborhood and town grew up around the church. At one point, they had 300 families attending services that were working and living around the church. They started a Christian school for the children where Pii Fa attended and graduated. They established an orphanage and built the church property up to include a large auditorium, a huge three-story building for camps and special preaching conferences, as well as a venue for weddings, and several other buildings.
After we had dinner with Pii Fa's family, we drove down the street and went to see the church, which is still going strong 73 years later. So much so, they have a building project going on where they will tear down the current auditorium and build a bigger one. It has been pastored for quite some time now by Thai pastors, but Pii Fa remembers the first missionary coming back for visits when she was a young girl. Her father is the one who built the pews by hand that they still use.
That missionary and his wife have long since passed away, but the work they established carries on. Praise the Lord.
In between Pii Fa's family home and the church is the orphanage. There were about 25 kids there ranging from 6-18 years old. I sent two of my teen girls to go buy the children ramen noodles and ice cream. What a joy it was to see their smiling faces as they received the treat and to have the opportunity to pray a prayer over them.
Lord willing, this work will continue on for many more years.
