All the women who come to Home of Grace (HOG) have different backgrounds and different stories. Some of the women are working as prostitutes. Others have become pregnant with a man who they later find out is already married. Common for all of them is that they have ended up in a difficult situation and […]
Nong Va is a little girl living under the busy highway within a two minute walk to Home of Praise, a school run by the ELCT (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Thailand). Nong Va is only 2 years old, but has already experienced many painful things in her life. She has never known her dad, and […]
It was my privilege recently to visit the Lua people in northern Thailand. The land is steep and mountainous. In the wet season it rains heavily most days. The vistas are spectacular but the people are poor. The Lua, who live on both sides of the Thai/Lao border, have long been itinerant, partly because of […]
High in the mountains, close to the Thai/Laos border in Northern Thailand, on the thatched floor of their one roomed house, sit Boon, his wife Chum, their daughters and granddaughter, together with Lua evangelist Neng. 72-year-old Boon has been the village witch doctor for 22 years. The people in this Lua village, came to Boon […]
Gem and Tui live in northern Thailand, in the village of Ban Huay Pong. Married for 27 years, they are softly spoken and can be found spending their days in their garden and with their neighbours. People believed Tui had a powerful spirit. People living in the village believed that if they planted rice fields, […]
Dr Rova, a Malagasy Lutheran Church (MLC) missionary in the Nan province of Thailand, coordinates the Mother and Child Healthcare program in the remote and impoverished Lua communities. Many of the locals are immigrants and refugees from Laos and Myanmar and none of the local villages have hospitals or clinics. People face many problems with […]
I had previously been a Youth Counsellor for SHWALLY for many years including two trips to Malaysia with the assistance of LCA International Mission. After having a couple of years’ break from doing anything major for the church, I was at my desk at work one day thinking that it was time to get out […]
In the last week of February I spent a week with some first generation Christians in the Nan Province of Thailand – mostly people from the “Lua” ethnic group. I went with Erin Kerber (a project officer with LCA International Mission) and Chris Sumner (a member from the Springhead congregation.) Our “mission” was to “look, […]
Ouan was the last remaining doctor spirit in the village of Ban Huay Tong, in Thailand’s Nan Province. Spirits exist in many forms in Nan and the common element they share is the possibility that they will become evil if they are not properly appeased. Therefore the placating of offending spirits plays an important role […]
In the warm shadow of the overhead Bangkok highway, alongside the railway tracks slicing through the slum structures, in an area full of sights and smells most people go out of their way to avoid – lives Kainui. Kainui already wears his environment like outer clothes. Although 6 years of age, he has the size […]