Matt, Miriam and Timothy

Zwarts Family DTS Major Outreach

Back from 5 weeks away working in different places in eastern Thailand! It was the final “practical” stage of our training course here with Youth With a Mission, learning more about the culture, speaking and performing in front of large groups of people, leadership practice and opening doors for local churches to do more things in and for their community. Here is a summary of what we did…

We flew down to Ubon Ratchatani via Bangkok while the rest of the team bussed down, we stayed at a pastors House from Kitikhun Church. The family we stayed at were awesome and pretty much moved into 2 rooms of their house to free up the rest of the house for us. We went to a village called Baan Prane, had a church service in the evening that Miriam spoke at. We went to a local public high school (all public schools follow Buddhist traditions) the next day in the afternoon, and did drama, songs, games and dance and gave all 600+ kids a bible, which Timothy was very excited about. Visited Mental Hospital (facility for patients with long term mental disabilities and illness), did drama, dance and songs and Matt even mentioned to them that people in Australia thought he was crazy coming to Thailand for a year with his family, got a few laughs. We held a youth seminar at Kitikhun church, Matt taught on using music and other performing arts in church. We helped at a Compassion Project – taught music, dance and drama to children sponsored through Compassion and in the evening the children performed what they had learned.

We then went to Ubon Ratchatani AOG church. We went to village and did drama, songs and dance at the public primary school there. We visited a local university and spoke to students, prayed for Ubon, went to a slum and did activities, performed dramas and dance and prayed for people who were unwell. The next day we went to a Juvenile detention centre in the morning, we did drama, dance, songs and one of our leaders spoke about his life as a gang leader and how he has changed. There were a lot of teenage boys serving sentences for various crimes, and then in the afternoon we ran the same program for 100+ teenage boys and girls in the rehabilitation part of the centre. We visited a school that an American missionary volunteers at, did our dramas, dances and songs in front of 700+ (kindy to year 12) students and then the principle had lunch for us plus another team in his office – it was a big office! In the afternoon visited another smaller school. On the Saturday we helped at AOG church Compassion project, (approx 80 children).On the Sunday we helped at morning bible studies and Miriam spoke in church. The next Tuesday we helped at a medical clinic held in a church in a village, there was a Dr’s team from Australia supported by a Malaysian church.

The next day we visited the Candle Festival with youth group from Kitikhun church. It’s a very famous Buddhist festival, thousands of people come from around Thailand and the world to see the big candles on floats – like the Christmas pageant but with wax! The candles are made by monks in each province which are then presented to the local temples for granting of more merit/power.

We then travelled to Buntharik, staying in Noom’s (DTS staff member) mum’s house, in a village about 10 minutes drive from the town of Buntharik. It was small and nice, Matt even went fishing in the dam nearby, Timothy tried a ride on the back of the tractor. We went to the local village primary school, across the road from Noom’s mum’s house and did a program for them, and in the afternoon went to Noom’s old high school in Buntharik and did drama, dance, songs, games with 900+ year 10-12 students! Then the next day went back again, this time for students from years 7 to 9. There were over 1800 students at that school!

We all crammed in a van and travelled to Sisaket, staying at empty apartment rented by a couple who have started YWAM Sisaket and used to work with YWAM Chiang Rai. We went to a seminar in the evening at Hope of Sisaket church, Matt taught on music and worship. The next day after lunch, we joined the church in the “Hope Games” sports carnival, indoor soccer and “chair ball” (kind of like net ball but instead of a goal post and ring, someone stands on a chair and holds a basket!) quite a bit of cheating went on if you ask me, but nobody did… then we went to church in the evening. The next day we travelled to a village to paint and clean a house (it was missionaries who are currently away doing a different DTS with YWAM!) and tidy up their garden.

The next day we travelled back to Ubon and stayed at the AOG church again, and then we flew to Bangkok in morning. We had a stopover so spent time at YWAM Bangkok and went to local shopping mall were we managed to get in our first hamburger in 6 months. Then we flew to Chiang Rai in the evening, on a very delayed flight, and eventually arrived home at midnight! All up our outreach was hard as a family, but we have some great memories and learnt so much…