Chiang Mai

How coffee grows?

Rice

On the way to the ministry in mountains

Obstacles on our way- biig knife comes handy.

Us4

We are staying in a house of a Japanese sister who has gone to Japan for 3 months. House comes with two cats. Here they are: Diu and Maro

Hands full of work

We are so thirsty

This is my pleasure

Enjoying regular nap

Phuket – Udon Thani (UT)

From Phuket we went to visit our prospective teacher – Brother Masafumi, and his wife Kazuko, in Udon Thani, just by the boarder with Laos in the North of Thailand (distance of ca.1450km)

Masa is an experienced Thai teacher for Japanese brothers. He has been in full time ministry for over 25 years, special pioneering for few years and recently been appointed a missionary and also a substitute CO. He and his wife have a goal of going to Gilead School but brothers told them that they need to improve their English skills in order to get the invitation. They were praying for English speaking brothers to come to UT to help them to improve their language skills. When they found out about our need and desire to learn Thai they have asked us to come to UT so Masa will teach us Thai and we will teach them both English.

Japanese dinner with Masa & Kako

We really could not say no! Additional convincing arguments were that the Japanese sister, Tomoko, who lives next door to them was leaving for Japan for three months and we could live in her house and look after her 2 cats (!). We do not need to say how excited was Magdalena about this idea! 2 cats, Dew and Maro:

In UT there is a congregation of about 40 brothers.

They cover the whole province of Udon Thani, population of which is 1.5m! Than means publisher ratio is ca. 40,000! We are quite overwhelmed with the need over there and we ask Jehovah for the workers on the field, so the Word can be “preached in all the inhabited earth”!

In Udon we stayed only for few days as we had the prior arrangements made in Chiang Mai and the Thai course was not about to start for another month.

To be continued…

Surin-Bangkok-Hua Hin-Surin Beach in Phuket

We left Surin and headed to the South of Thailand for a short break. We stopped by in Bangkok and then went to Hua Hin following by Surin Beach in Phuket – total distance of over 1,300 km.

Hua Hin is famous of the Royal Summer Residency of the King. There is an English congregation over there.

Kingdom Hall in Hua Hin

Going preaching in Hua Hin!

From Hua Hin we went to see the beaches of Phuket and check out the famous Thai coastline. The welcoming sight was a pretty one, we must admit:

And there was more…

and more

and more…

and more…

and more…

And more…

And a painting made of our photograph:

Changing a scenery little bit – Thai petrol station:

To be continued…

 

Thai food

Thailand offers  variety of food. Streets of Thailand are filled with little restaurants offering a traditional meals at very good prices. For 30 baht you can buy a noodle soup or rice dish, cooked in front of you.

Bowl with excellent noodle soup we had straight on the street of Bangkok.

Places at the seaside offer an amazing seafood in every size and shape you can imagine. You pick the creature yourself and they prepare if for you as you watch.

If you like you can cook it yourself. We made an excellent soup 😉

The best thing to eat in Thailand are definitely fruits. They taste simply wonderfully, ripe and rich, and cost next to nothing comparing with the European markets.   For a dragon fruit in season you will pay 30 baht/kg!!!  Pineapple 10 baht, mango 20 baht/kg.  1 pound= 50 baht

Brothers enjoying lunch together after witnessing to hill tribes in mountains 2 hours drive from Chiang Mai.

If you worried you not gonna find decent coffee, don’t- here is a cuppa for 50 baht (1pound)

with a swan 🙂

But for 14 baht you can get a whole bag with iced coffee – and here it is (that was our choice back in Surin!):

to be continued…

Surin congregation

This gallery contains 37 photos.

We spent less than 2 months in Surin but we absolutely loved the congregation. Below is a picture of Surin congregation taken at the wedding of Karolina and Yoshi in Surin. The ministry gave us lots and lots of happiness. … Continue reading →

Surin

Surin is our first destination to stay for a longer period of time. Surin is a 100,000 people city famous of elephants and silk.

We came here because we knew Karolina, a Polish sister that has been in Thailand for the last 3 years. She helped us with our first attempts at Thai language. She is here with her sister, Ania. Surin is not the most attractive of places but it is in the heart of real Thailand, not the one from the postcards. We are surrounded by fields of rice, very skinny looking cows and bulls, lots and lots of coconut trees, mango trees and other exotic palms and flowers. Plus staying here is rather cheap, there are houses to rent for £60 per month!

Thai people are very humble. Publishers can have nice chat almost in every house ( “baan”). Sharing the good news with those people is pure joy. Karolina conducts at the moment 14 bible studies. We wish to speak Thai as good as she does. She also gave us a contact to follow – English speaking Dutch – Hubert. We started a bible study on the 2nd visit to Hubert. He loves the Bible and has been disappointed with his contacts with the Mormons.
We love our ministry here in Surin and the small congregation with around 30 publishers.

We also went to Sis a Ket – 2 hours away with a small congregation of around 10, where we listened to the talk in English – brother Walter, originally from New York, gives talks once a month over there, where he has been for 11 years.

However, we feel that we really missing out on the meetings, not being able to understand them at all… taking this and Matt’s suggestion and also other factors into consideration we have decided to move to Chiang Mai at the end of June.

So, our experiences so far are great. It is a very different, exotic country. The language and alphabet are completely different. What is more, there is a completely different attitude to life, understanding of the world and of the place of people and God in the world and the ministry needs to reflect that to reach the hearts of the people. There is also a different and innovative way of parking cars in the limited space – people park here behind other parked cars leaving their cars on neutral and if needed, people with blocked cars just push those blocking cars away!

The underlying experience is that THE NEED HERE IS REALLY GREAT. Brothers expect big growth in Asia very soon and now is the time to be a part of this great work. Already there was a record number of people attending the Memorial – 8,600 with 3,400 publishers in 70 million people country. Workers are needed!
To be continued…

Sightseeing Bangkok

After leaving Bethel we stayed few days in Bangkok, extending our stay to attend the pioneers meeting and the English assembly. After the assembly we went by the night train to Surin.

Thailand – first steps – Bangkok

It has been over a month since we arrived in Thailand. At first every time we went out of the air conditioned building we could not believe how hot and humid the weather was! It was as being directly under a heater working on a full power – yes, we discovered a new side of our powerful star, the Sun! Only a week earlier we had snow in Poland and here we were, right on the frying pan!
Our first steps were to the Bethel in Bangkok. Seeing our beloved hard working brothers in this distant part of the world was a wonderful experience. There is 56 Bethelites in Bangkok.

Once again we re-discovered how wonderful organization we have a privilege to be in. We also learned how to make elephants out of the towels! Detailed guideline in the pictures – stages of making an elephant.

We spoke with members of the branch committee, George and Matt, who encouraged us greatly.

George is from Canada and has been serving in Thailand for over 40 years.
Matt originally comes from England and he used to serve in Bethel in London. 15 years ago he and his wife decided to “step over to Macedonia” and moved to Nicaragua where they spent 14 years serving as pioneers, then special pioneers and in the end in the Nicaraguan Bethel.
8 months ago they have been reassigned to Thailand! His is very enthusiastic about what is going to happen in the spiritual field over here, in Asia in general and in Thailand particularly. The new brochure “Pathway to Peace and Happiness” has been written for Thailand and other Buddhist countries where still only few heard about Jehovah, or as Thai say “ Praa Yaho-waa”.
Matt gave us many great tips and encouragements and assured us that everywhere we choose to go we will have similar great experiences and that we will need to make sure that we are happy with the place we have chosen.
He also pointed out for us on the map of Thailand Chiang Mai where apparently the need is greatest at the moment. Chiang Mai is a rather large city with 700,000 people in the north of Thailand. There are 5 congregations – 3 Thai, 1 English and 1 Lahu (hill tribe). It is in a mountainous region with 70 different hill tribes (!) who speak 70 different languages. Only few of the languages where ever approached by Jehovah’s people!

Matt also invited us to the English Assembly that was being held over the next weekend in Bangkok. It was great to see around 300 brothers from all parts of Thailand, Laos and few other countries of South – East Asia.

At Bethel we also met Nurit who was our host in Bethel – before joining Bethel he was a fashion photographer for the fashion journals and he took that picture on the June cover of the Watchtower. He works in the Bethel studio.