We landed in Bangkok on a Tuesday, the heat thick enough to taste. The flight from Tampa took thirty hours with two layovers, and we arrived at the apartment with two suitcases each, three Bibles, a folding chair, and not much else. The neighbors brought soup the first night.
Thailand is loud in a way that's hard to describe until you've been here. Motorbikes, vendors, monks chanting at dawn from the temple two streets over. Within a few days the noise becomes a comfort, a reminder that the city is alive with people God loves.
By Sunday we had shared meals with three different families on our floor, attended a small Thai church on the city's east side, and prayed with a market vendor whose son had been ill for months. None of these felt like ministry milestones. They felt like the beginning of something honest. Relationships that will, Lord willing, deepen into discipleship over years rather than weeks.
What we keep being told by missionaries who have been here longer: be slow, learn the language, eat what's offered, listen more than you speak. The harvest in Thailand is not measured in altar calls but in patient years of presence. We're at the very beginning of that.
Thank you for praying us here. Thank you for sending us. Updates will come monthly. The small things, the hard things, the ways God is moving in Bangkok and beyond.
Set Free to Serve · Field Dispatch