July 14 - Missions, Part 3 (to be continued)

Relationships played a key role in my third, and to date, last, missions trip. This trip was to Chiang Mai, Thailand. The largest city in Northern Thailand, Chiang Mai has long been a tourist destination and NGO hot spot. My dad had touched down in Chiang Mai, where he met Michel Vandenhautte, a French missionary doctor. Michel came to visit our family around Thanksgiving of 2008, and during his stay, I had connected with him in a way that I didn't normally connect with people. One vision we had in common was working in China, so when I found out he was thinking about traveling to China for a visit and wanted me to join him, I jumped at the opportunity. As it turned out, he never made that trip to China, but I, at the Lord's leading, went to Thailand anyway, where I would stay with his family. Because of an illness, his work had been put on hold, so I worked with another man my dad had met while there. Nathaniel Heng, a Singaporean missionary, works at a local university, where he heads up a center that aids students in learning English. As an intern, I would teach a few English classes once school started up again. Until then, I spent time with the young people who worked at the English Resource Center, as the center was known.
Meanwhile, I was becoming very close to the Vandenhauttes. I lived with them for the first week, then afterwards spent every evening with them. Through activities ranging from playing chess and watching episodes of a BBC series of Robin Hood to a mini-trip to visit a refugee camp with Michel's wife and eldest daughter, I found them to be some of the most extraordinary people I have ever met. To this day they are like family to me. Leaving them was, if anything, even more difficult than leaving the orphanage in Siem Reap.
The time came for school, and thus my work, to begin. I was to teach two English classes a week. Sounds great, until you realize it was only for two weeks. Now you see why I said you won't find any extraordinary accomplishment in a description of my missions experience. I was uncomfortable with my position as a teacher, to say the least. I had no clue as to how one should teach English. Fortunately, I had Ruth (Michel's wife) as backup. I'm not sure what I would have done without her suggestions to push me through that handful of classes. However, I came through it, only to be astonished by the gratitude that my "students" showed me. Other than a couple of college students, I had a lady in my class who worked at the university. She expressed her gratitude for what little I had to offer by organizing the purchase of some gifts for me. That gratitude has been a mark of all my trips, where the return on investment for the little effort that I put out there is so much greater than I deserve.
The time came to say farewell. I went back to the university one last time to see everyone there. I remember the day I was to leave I was playing Scrabble with Michel's girls while trying to hold off the emotions that I knew were bound to come. On the plane back to Bangkok, I had to fight back the tears that threatened to break out of the feeble restraints I had established. When I arrived in Singapore, I spent a few days hanging out with Nathaniel Heng and his family (who had traveled back to Singapore a few weeks before for the summer) and some of the young people from his church whom I had met while passing through Singapore before arriving in Thailand. The young people showed me a wonderful time, from hanging out in the evenings to visiting a history museum, but I struggled during those few days to get past some of the emotion from leaving Chiang Mai. However, four or five days later, I left Singapore for the US, ready to go home, though knowing I would miss my new Singaporean friends.