January 16, 2011 8:55 Thai time
Today we are off to church. We are going to three different churches. I am going to a rural church. This afternoon we are going to another type of market. It should be a fun filled day. I will post the pictures later today. None of the services we are going to today will be translated into English.
Later on the same day... 14:20 Thai time
We are back from church. Today I went to a that was built to honor two Christian martyrs from Chiang Mai. The service was in Thai and was very traditional baptist in origin. The congregation was very warm and welcoming. They sang a song with an English translation so that we could all sing along together.
This was a very small congregation (about 40) that was predominately women. The pastor's small daughter handed out the bulletins and everyone seemed to have a small role if just yelling (really quietly because we are still in Thailand) out the answer to a question to the congregation. The congregation was warm and friendly.
The most interesting things about this church was the first hymn sung was a traditional Thai hymn. It was very beautiful. That also answered my question about whether or not there are Thai hymns. The other is that this church has a very interesting history. There is an out lining building that has the archives of church. I have attached pictures.
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| Outside of the church |
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| Next three pictures is the gang waiting for the taxi's to take us to church. We look so good especially after being so dirty from the day before. |
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| This is looking inside the church. The little girl is the Pastor's daughter. Her job is to hand out the bulletins. |
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| The obligatory photo of one of us taking a photo of everyone else taking a photo. Here we have Kathy, Sue and Charmaine. |
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| Beautiful flowers outside the church |
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| Name of church - top line is Thai, middle line is Northern Thai and bottom line is English. |
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| This building holds the history the two martyrs that this church is named for. |
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| This is the Pastor of the church explaining how two Christian converts were killed by the King of Chiang Mai for not obeying an order that would have been against their beliefs. |
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| John McGilvary was a missionary who rode through Thailand on horse back. He died from injures for a horse fall. |
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| Photo of the folks who built this church. |
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| Photo that shows history of the martyrs. |
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| Depiction of the last supper, Thai style. |
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| Area behind flower bush is where the two men were martyred. No one will build on this area. It is surrounded by two houses but this land is left vacant. |
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| Flowers of the fence at the church. They look like small trumpet flowers. |
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| After lunch. Raylena, Charmaine, Jen and Regina |
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| It's the Victory women - Charmaine, Regina and me |
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| It's the Atlanta, Georgia crew. |
