The Last Days of 2011 with the Venture Team serving in Thailand at the Venture Expeditions Ban Pong Community Center

12/30/11

The team worked at the Ban Pong Center. We scraped mold off fences, built a basketball goal, cleaned a storage room, planned activities for kids’ events, and played with an absolutely stunningly beautiful baby Golden Tree Snake we found on the fence post. After we roamed around the super crowded night bazaar soaking in all the noise, lights, people, music, random stuff to buy, watching some people get massages on the street and other people get their callused flesh eaten off their feet by hundreds of tiny fish.

12/31/11

This was our first day of teaching and hanging out with the kids at the Venture Expeditions Ban Pong Community Center! We had a ton of fun teaching the kids English words about food and cooking. After the teaching we played a matching game to help them remember the words and then went outside and played other games using the words and water balloons (We also played some other games and did relay races using regular balloons)! Thai kids absolutely love playing with water balloons and anything that involves getting wet! Once the games were finished and we were soaked, we served the kids an “American lunch” of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup with puppy chow for dessert (none of which were my suggestions….) It was a great day hanging out with the kids and beginning to build relationships with them. Learning, knowing, and being able to speak English is HUGE for Thai people. It opens so many doors and gives them opportunities to do many things that will give them a chance to make decent money so they can provide adequately for their families.

Some people say Ban Pong is THE most difficult place to share Jesus and have people accept Christ’s redeeming love. Ban Pong has one of the strongest and most outspoken Buddhist monks in all of Thailand, so for there to be a Christian influence in Ban Pong was quite an upset in the community. But after a year and a half, the Venture Ban Pong Community Center has started to make an impact… and it is starting with the kids. It is now more than ever that Ban Pong needs your prayers, so please remember to pray for Ban Pong, for the kids, for the strong oppression of Buddhism in the community and just for the people to start to become more open to Christ and the hope he holds for the world.

Run the race, fight the good fight, keep the faith.