A Visit with Kit at the New Life Center and Two Other Bible Colleges

June 26, 2008

We are still in Chiang Mai and all are doing well although a bit overwhelmed by all that we have seen in the course of just one week. Today we meet with Kit Ripley and talked about what God is doing at the New Life Center. People here, whose ages range from 13 to 21, come from different situations: poverty, labor exploitation, immigration, prostitution, abuse, etc. What this center does is provide alternative education to help them deal with their situation such as schooling for adults, life school, by this I mean cooking, cleaning, laws that affect them, and so forth among other things. I could go on and on about the different things they do here but then this would be super long but one of the one of the issues that she talked about that impacted me was something that they are starting to see more often, in Thailand it is almost unheard of that you hire a college student as a part-time employee mostly because its seen by society as the parents not providing for their children, therefore, college students who have parents that are barely able to get them through school are now forced to go into prostitution in order to make ends meet. How sad that something that is seen so frequently back home, like working for a few hours at an office, is hard to come by here. The center is trying to help in this situation by giving them work doing handicrafts that can then be sold. Another program that they have is a vocational school for cooking and they had a special surprise for us, they put us right to work. We made something they call kanoom, a type of dessert made out of rice flour and sugar, baked in banana leaves. We had to do everything from cutting the banana leaves off the tree to packaging them. It was a lot of fun even though we had no idea what we were doing. They even gave us a whole bunch to take with us and the lady that was teaching us how to make it said they were good but then again people here are super polite so I guess we will never know.

In the afternoon, we had the pleasure of visiting two Bible schools, one was for the Karen people and the other for the Lahu. How great it is to see so many people interested in the Word of God and preparing themselves for ministry. To see all these smiling faces very xcited to see us, so excited to show us their school and sing for us, and all they want from us is encouragement, there are no words that could describe the love these people have in all circumstances. We spent the afternoon speaking the international language of sports with these people and between volleyball and soccer I'm sure that they felt appreciation and love we were trying to convey, no words necessary.



Todavia estamos en Chiang Mai y todos estamos bien aunque un poco por todas las cosa que hemos visto en una semana.

Hoy fuimos a el New Life Center para reunirnos con Kim Rippley y hablar sobre lo que hacen en este sitio. Las personas que estan aqui, que tienen de 13 a 21 anos, todos vienen de diferentes sitiaciones: pobresa, explotacion de trabajo, imigracion, prostitucion, abuso, ect. Lo que este centro hace es proveer diferentes clases de educacion para ayudarlos con su situacion por ejemplo educacion para adultos, euicacion de vida (donde aprenden cosas como limpieza, como cocinar, leyes que le affectan a ellos, ect.) entre otras cosas. Podria continuar diciendores diferentes cosas que que hacen pero esto se volveria demaciado largo pero una de los problemas que ella discutio y que me impacto fue algo que ellos estan viendo pasar mas frecuentemente, en Tailandia casi no se escucha que contraten a un estudiante de universidad para trabajar medio tiempo miestras termina sus estudios majormente porque se ve por la sociedad como si los padres no pudiesen proveerle a sus hijos. Por lo tanto, estudiantes universitarios estan obligados a entrar a la prostitucion para poder pagar por sus gastos. Que triste que algo visto tan frequentemente donde yo vivo, como trabajar en una officina por 2 o tres horas al dia, es dificil de conseguir aqui. El centro esta tratando de mediar con la situacion dandoles trabajos haciendo manualidades que puedan ser vendidas. Otro programa que tienen es una escuela vocacional para cocinar y ellos tenian una sorpresa especial para nosotros y nos pusieron a trabajar inmediatamente. Cocinamos algo llamado kanoon, que es un poste hecho de harina de arroz, y azucar hecho al horno en hoja de guineo. Tuvimos que hacerlo todo desde cortar las hojas de guineo de los arboles hasta empaquetarlos, fue muy divertido aunque no teniamos ni idea de lo que estabamos haciendo. Hasta nos dieron una parte de lo que hicimos para llevar y la muchacha que nos enseno a hacerlos nos dijo que salieron bien pero ellos son muy cordiales y no se su sabremos algun dia si eso es cierto.

En la tarde, tuvimos el placer de visitar 2 escuelas de biblia, una para la gente Karen y la otra para los Lahu. Que magnifico es ver tantas personas interesadas en la palabra de Dios y preparandose para el ministerio. Ver todas estas caras sonrientes bien entuciasmadas por ensenarnos su escuela y cantar para nosotros y todo lo que quieren de nosotros es apoyo, no hay palabras que puedan describir el amor que tienen estas personas en todas circunstancias. Pasamos la tarde hablando el lenguaje internacional del deporte y entre volleyball y futbol estoy segura que sintieron apreciacion y el amor que estabamos tratando de expresarles, ninguna palabra fue necesaria.





For more information on the New Life Center visit: www.newlifecenterfoundation.org