Itsara

The Coast team has just left Chiang Mai to go Bangkok, Rayong, and then back home. Cindy and I had very little to do with them this year. We basically just hosted them for a day and night last week and another one this week and that’s it.

It was really cool, though. We saw a few old friends and met a lot of new ones. It was actually really interesting to see people that I know only from the Coast mission trips. I wish we could have spent some more time with them and gotten to know them better, but it couldn’t happen this year. It seems we do less and less with them each year, which none of us really like.

But it’s the nature of what we do. Foster care (or children’s homes or orphanage or whatever you want to call it) does not handle mission teams well. Some ministries, like Philipp’s, have work for teams to do - things to build, outreaches to run, etc. But much of all ministry is relational, and short term teams just can’t do that. And unfortunately our ministry is 100% relational.

It doesn’t mean we can’t have visitors. It just changes the relationship. We don’t have work for a big team to do at our house, but we have a place for friends to come visit - live with us, see what we do, even get involved in family ways. Help cook, help clean, teach English (either overtly or sneakily - trying to communicate with the kids across the language barrier), etc.

Otherwise, with a big team, it has to be a vacation. That was one of the problems we had at Im Jai House. With all the teams they had coming in, it was always vacation, and the kids knew it. Once or twice a year isn’t a big deal (especially if it’s during their actual school vacation), but when it happens too often it can really wreck a home.

But I was talking about Coast. It was really good to have them and open our home like we did. We’re looking forward to seeing them in September.