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.
Even though we were just able to say few simple sentences and ask simple questions we had many nice conversations with the locals. It looked like that:
All people have problems – tukhon mee pen haa.
Do you agree? – khun hen duey may khrap?
If they said – mai duey – don’t agree – then we just acted surprised, smiled and gave them a Truth tract.
If they said – hen duey – then off we went with the brochure Pathway to Peace and Happiness!
We pointed to a first paragraph if it was man or to 2nd paragraph if it was a woman and asked –
Kho chuey aan die my khrap? – can you read this please?
After they read we asked the same question as before – khun hen duey may khrap?
After that we usually did not have a clue what they said but happy smiling asked to read the last paragraph of chapter 1 and after that we said that next week we will come to discuss further pointing to chapter 2 – khrao haa rau maa eeyem khun!
And here we go – a bible study started and what a lovely conversation!
Em and Gai – special pioneer couple. They spent few years preaching at the river market featured on the June’s Watchtower.
Em’s shoe – Landrover – bought as seen for 40 pence!
Noriko – Japanese pioneer who spent 5 years in Surin, first one on the left, with Mem and Gai at the lunch break.
Takeshi – Japanese pioneer who learned Thai in Japan, where he was in Thai group for 5 years. He has been in Surin for the last 2 years.
Jet and his bike – Jeep
It was a difficult to leave this lovely congregation but we felt that we really needed to be closer to English congregation. We did not understand any meeting for nearly 2 months! Additionally we had been encouraged at Bethel to consider Chiang Mai (CM) as our preaching assignment due to few factors: the great need in the hill tribes languages near CM, lower temperatures, in 30’s rather than 40’s and the English congregation being established in CM.
Goodbye Surin…
On the right there is a pioneer sister from Phillipines/Hawaii – Olivia – she was visiting her family in Hawaii for most of our stay and only returned to Thailand during our last week in Surin.
With Magda is Ania, Polish pioneer sister who has now returned to Poland.
Magdalena & Daniel in Thailand! 