I’ll start off by apologizing again for the scarcity of my blog posts. You may have been wondering, “Where in the world has she been??” So here’s my attempt at a little recap for all you people out there who may or may not have been curious.
After finishing up our first two courses on History, Society, Religion & Issues of Exclusion and Exploitation of the Greater Mekong Region the six of us students broke off into pairs and embarked on the practicum portion of our study abroad experience. Practicum is a course “designed to give students hands on cross-cultural experience with community development work in the field.”
For the past month I’ve been living in the amazingly hospitable and embracing community of Santonepin located north of Chiang Mai about four hours in Mae Ai, Thailand. Though practicum started off based in a lot of unknown factors, it ultimately landed us a three part engagement:
1. We had the grand opportunity of being a part of the Santonepin church community, living at the church parsonage and engaging cross-culturally with the beautiful people surrounding us.
2. We taught english at two local government schools.
3. We volunteered with ECHO a seed bank (based out of florida) that is committed to “reducing hunger and improving lives through agriculture.”
I had the wonderful blessings of being paired with the one and only Lyndsay Feather (If you’ve kept up on any of my photos via Instagram and/or Facebook she’s most likely the one you’ve been seeing). She’s great! A bio major out of Messiah College passionate about agricultural forestry/sustainability and cross-cultural ministry.
How did the two of us, a Biology major & a Christian Ministries major, get matched up you ask? Well, let me give you a little background into the situation we found ourselves in.
Going in we weren’t exactly sure what our role in the Santonepin community was going to look like. In the past this practicum option had been based around giving practicum students interested in agriculture/sustainability an opportunity to intern with a rural development organization known as UHDP (Upland Holistic Development Program), which is located basically on the same property at ECHO.
It was obvious at the beginning of the semester that Lyndsay was going to be doing the ECHO practicum option, but who was going to be her partner in crime? She is the only one explicitly interested in what ECHO does.
With a little tweaking & a whole lot of unknown a new practicum was designed for the two of us.
I knew Lyndsay would have Echo but as far as my purpose was concerned, for the longest time, I remained quite unsure. I knew after our groups initial visit to the church months prior with Ajarn Chulee (our professor from 1st term who also serves as the pastor of Santonepin Church), I had felt a strange connection to some aspect of the community. I remember leaving and feeling like, “wow, I wish we could come back here some day,” and thanks be to God it happen! But even though I felt this underlying connection I still remained unsure of what my role was going to be in this community. There was talk about being involved in some aspects of the churches ministry (which was to cater to my major/interests) but no concrete explanations of exactly what that would practically look like.
We started off teaching English at two of the local schools near by the church (really only about a bike ride away in either direction). One, Huay Muang, was made up of almost entirely Lahu students and the other, Hang Tum, was mostly Shan. Because teaching was a later addition to our agenda and neither Lyndsay nor I felt comfortable at all teaching for the first time ever, utterly unprepared, inexperienced and practically on our own, a lot of fear surrounded the begin of our practicum experience. Upon arrival we were quickly placed on what felt like a pedestal and in our minds, a very undeserved one. For the first week I really struggled to understand the overly gracious attention, respect and hospitality we were receiving at both of the schools, as well as within the church community in which we were staying.
We are not qualified teachers and yet these teachers who are qualified were assuming, based on the fact we are Westerns that spoke English, we had much more ability than we actually did. We had never planned and lesson in our life and it frustrated me that we only had a short time together and little resources to try and get anywhere. I often question the purpose of any short-term engagement and teaching English unprepared and unqualified on top of that didn’t sit well.
But I remember praying at the end of our time at the schools that, regardless of how I feel about how beneficial our “teaching” was or how seemly useless the little amount of time we had, that God would take that experience (for the students, staff and us) and mold it into something ultimately glorifying to Him. I had written in my journal that while I hope that these students at Huay Muang and Hang Tum remember the English that we taught them, I can only hope more importantly they will remember we were Christians and that through the love, kindness and time we spent with them, they will be turned ultimately further and deeper towards the love of Christ. Being a teacher at these schools, while thinking about the use of short-term engagements, I was constantly reminded of the biblical imagery of some being entrusted to plant seeds and other to water.
And Lyndsay gave me a good reminder that in times like these we have the opportunity to be ambassadors for both Christ and America (& I’m not implying those are synonymous). This fits into what I’ve been discovering of what it means and looks like to live missionally.
No matter what circumstance or situation we find ourselves in we, as christians, have the responsibly to remain on mission.
The Santonepin church expanded this concept I’ve been hashing out for a while now. This community of people we found ourselves living in was extremely hospitable, caring and loving. The amount of blessings they poured upon us through delicious food, fellowship, staying the night with us, worshiping together, laughing and doing silly dances, showing us the ropes, giving us gifts, etc. was sincerely overwhelming–to the point of me feeling guilty and questioning if I was literally offering anything worthwhile to this community in return. This was the hardest part of practicum for me, learning to receive without having anything tangible to offer in return.
Being on practicum stretched me in many areas but far surpassing any of the perceived cultural barriers, was the challenge of simply accepting the service of others.
I had to put down my desire to be the one serving at all times and allow the power of God to lift up a community of fellow believers in an awe-inspiring movement of Christ-like service and love around me.
The Santonepin community embodies Christ-like service and actively portrays the love of Jesus in all that they do. Multiple times Lyndsay and I prayed for God to make a way for us to somehow repay them tangibly & it never came to fruition in the form we were expecting.
I will honestly say I still don’t know what we had to offer the Santonepin community apart from simply being in fellowship with them. They definitely taught us and impacted us more than we could have ever impacted them (an all too common happening in short-term, cross-cultural settings). The only thing that brings me a bit of hope in our being there is knowing that somehow, through the grace of God, He used our presence for something good. I will never be able to understand how this presence, yet only paired with the cultivation of being and developed friendships, brought about such tears and heartfeltness (b/c that’s a word) at the end of our time together. But what we experience was the love and faithfulness of Christ in bringing together a community for a greater purpose than themselves. They served and loved us in unity with one another. Lyndsay and I saw the true body of Christ portray over practicum and we had the honor and privilege of being welcomed into that by a community we now call family.
We will never be able to thank them enough for the time, love and care they shared with us. In retrospect a month seems so short, but when you consider how much life was lived in that seemingly short amount of time it stretches to what feels like an eternity. The Santonepin community filled our hearts with so much joy, love & laughter. They serve as Christ and love with all they have. It was a sincere honor to learn from them in what it means to be a follower of Christ; to serve and to love as He truly did.
Thankful, yet again, that we are all one in the body of Christ.
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So, that’s a bit about my practicum experience. Please feel free to ask questions! There’s so much more that could be said and dissected from this experience.
And for a more frequent set of updates check out my Instagram and/or Facebook.
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