A team of ten adults left the comfort of Kearney (Nebraska) to travel thousand of miles to Chiang Mai (Thailand), to be the hands of Christ and be part of a water project in a remote village. Angie Gillming, the team leader shares these reflections:

“The woman in the picture was the oldest person in the village in Thailand my team from Nebraska visited. We were God’s instruments of peace, mercy and love for 15 days this past February. From the time I laid eyes on her, she intrigued me. She was bent almost double. Yet, every day she came to watch us work, as we helped build a water system and latrines in her village. We saw her in the morning and we saw her in the evening. She came to the fireside to be with us in the evening. I observed people going in and out of her small hut. I wondered if some of them might have been her children and grandchildren. The other women in the village seemed to look up to her, and show respect by their humble behaviors when they encountered her. One thing that made me stop in my tracks, was that everyone in the village looked out for and cared for each other. I saw Galatians 6:2 unfold before my eyes in this remote village in Thailand; “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

This woman intrigued me. I wondered how she coped with her physical needs and how she attended to her daily needs. Many questions were swimming around in my head. Then, I was confronted with language challenges since I did not speak her native tongue and she did not speak English. Yet, as the days went on, I longed to see her. I was truly noticing her; as perhaps many embraced her as “the grandmother” of the village. Were we a curiosity to her or were her daily visits part of the quality control? Were these foreigners truly going to accomplish what had been promised?

I marveled at her beautiful, wrinkled face and all the bracelets on her arms. God spoke to the silence of our hearts. My intrigue turned into delight, to have been blessed by her presence. I hope to see this beautiful woman again some day.”

Short-Term missions provide cross cultural encounters for us to be in God’s presence. If you would like to know more about short-term missions, please contact the STM office at volunteers@internationalministries.org