Just like you can almost be sure that in every town across America, you can find a Chinese restaurant, Thai restaurants increasingly equal popularity. And the number one dish on the menu is the sweet noodle dish topped with crushed peanuts, Pad Thai. Many of us eat it but do we have any idea where this dish came from or where Thailand is?
Founded in 1880, the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco celebrated its 125th Anniversary in 2005. After all of the programs commemorated our anniversary was over, we had one more event to do. Since we were founded as a “Chinese Baptist Mission” to reach the Chinese for Christ, our church has now become a mature, capable and growing faith community in Chinatown. Inasmuch as we were once products of American Baptist missions, we believed that it is now our responsibility to become actively involved to advocate for and do missions today.
From the many possible American Baptist mission fields we could have selected to visit, we chose Thailand and specifically the work with the Hill Tribes in northern Thailand because of a historic connection one of our fellowship groups developed with the Namlat Village School in Chiang Rai. After the late ABC missionary Astrid Petersen served in China, she eventually came to our church to serve as a church staff in our night school ministry teaching English, the Bible and citizenship. While doing this, she challenged the Emmanuels, a college fellowship that eventually became the Emmanuel Family Group to support the students at the Namlat school with warm sweaters and scholarships for the students. We wanted to visit this school that has been a part of our church’s ongoing mission support for decades.
In January 2006, eight people from our church accepted the call to participate in the Thailand Mission Discovery team to visit ABC missions in Thailand for two weeks. After one of our planning meetings before we went, we visited a local Thai restaurant in the Richmond District of SF to eat Pad Thai. We practiced the greeting of “Sawadee krup” said by men and “Sawadee ka” said by women. The restaurant manager gave us some pointers on what we must see and served us good Pad Thai!
We first traveled to Bangkok and visited the Maitrichit Chinese Baptist Church which is the oldest Protestant church in all of Asia. In Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, we met Karen Smith and Kit Ripley at the New Life Center, Kim Brown at the House of Love, Alex Rodgers, tour coordinator for the Thailand Baptist Mission Fellowship office, and my old friend, Sunny Dangpongpee, Executive Minister of the Karen Baptist Convention. On our next stop to Chiang Rai where we met Ruth and Chuck Fox, we had the opportunity to visit the Namlat Village School. Today this school for hill tribe children has a new name, Saharset. When we arrived on a Friday, all 1900 students in their cultural clothing were gathered outside on the ball field for opening ceremonies. On behalf of our group, I was asked to just share a few words of greeting. What an amazing moment to finally connect the mission support of sending sweaters and scholarship funds to those who received them!
Wherever we visited in Thailand, at least one of us would try the Pad Thai on the menu. Even with some variations, it was always very good. Living in America and having Asian restaurants like Thai ones makes it too easy to forget that there’s really an entire world known as Thailand that have needs that through ABC missions we can help meet. We know that our mission discovery experience will not be the last visit to Thailand or for that matter to other places in God’s world. We plan to become more active in support of missions especially through the annual offerings and our United Mission Giving. We are exploring ways that we may support economic development of Hill Tribe people by distributing Lanna Coffee which is produced in northern Thailand. But the most important outcome of our mission discovery is that we returned transformed to help make this world a better place as God intended.
Every time I order Pad Thai or pass by a Thai restaurant, I am forever reminded that we have a mission responsibility to share the Good News of Jesus Christ in partnership with ABC missionaries and Baptist leaders in Thailand.