As expected, it was a full and tiring day. We completed our first health fair and made some necessary adjustments. For example, Steve and Eric started out working with Patrick Boonrang in the personal hygiene station. But we discovered that Patrick was more than an interpreter, he was an excellent teacher. We also found that Hans needed more helpers because doing a health screening for each child was too time intensive. So Eric ended up the day working with Hans.
Bob warned us that we needed to be flexible. He got to work on flexibility as soon as we got there. Bob wanted us to start setting up as soon as we got to our location, which was a fish farm and camp and church. But to our surprise there was a full-on welcome planned, including traditional Isaan music and dancing and speeches.
God blessed us with a day of cloud cover and cooler temperatures than had been expected. In fact, it rained! But the rain waited until we had finished the health fair and were almost finished putting everything away.
We went to a nearby seafood hotpot restaurant for dinner.
After dinner we had singing and testimonies and debriefing. Becca got to share her faith journey. Then for those with the energy, we went to a night market for mango sticky rice!
In our debriefing, I (Steve) was surprised to learn that the neighborhood adults who came to the fair were surprised that we farang (foreigners) wanted to eat with the children. They expected us to think that kids’ food was beneath us. I was glad for an opportunity to help build relationship bridges between the neighbors and the local church as they saw us expressing God’s relational love.
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