Vacation Bible School at Happy Home Ministry – Chiang Rai
Three full days of Vacation Bible School (VBS) and a Sunday service in a jungle clearing an hour north of Chiang Rai was conducted by Good Community Church (GCC) of Torrance. The 118 children and students who reside at the Happy Home Ministry (HHM) near the northern borders of Thailand with Laos and Myanmar were presented four days of worshiping our Lord in a joyous approach with lots of singing, dancing, crafts that exemplified the sermon of the day and enough good food for seconds and thirds. Most of the children had never tasted pizza before, we changed that after our Sunday service. By the last day of our program, we had all the children dancing and singing to each and every body worship song to glorify our Lord and King. We magnified, we worshiped Christ, we glorified God not with Bible study and lectures for hours at a time as the children and staff of the HHM have come to know but other ways to honor our Heavenly Father with a joyful songs in our hearts.
The children and students at HHM are from families of ethnic tribes living in the jungles of Northern Thailand and surrounding countries. Most of them do not possess birth certificates or have identification numbers. More than half cannot read or write. Parents can’t afford or don’t know how to send their kids to school. Some are orphans, many from broken homes and single mothers. There is a long waiting list of children who want to enroll. The staff do their best to take care of each child as their own with what is available. The ages range from around five to until they graduate high school but each receives a formal education and of Christianity.
Withstanding the oppressive heat and high humidity of jungle weather and without air conditioning, our service team members who live in temperate Southern California, expressed their love of Christ through all the sweat and tears that poured out of them. I am so very thankful that our God, He was looking out for their health and hydration, nobody got hurt or sick, though they were laden with jet lag from traveling for over 28 hours. I pray that the team will recover quickly when they return home from Chiang Rai but return to their lives forever changed.
