Boonchu & her husband are a disabled couple that Denise and John have been working closely with in the past year. They are a non christian couple who have their own business in making painting thai designs onto various wooden articles, however because of their disabilities, they have never been given a 'fair go' by society. Boonchu is unable to walk and in a wheelchair, and her husband only has 1 arm. Unfortunately in Thailand, the perception is that if people are physically disabled, they are also mentally disabled, so these guys, while really able in many senses of the word, are just never given a chance. Denise & John have been working hard to help them be able to start their own shop. There are lots of possible opportunities to be helping them with their new shop with regards to fitouts, merchandising and displays, marketing and promotion as well as teaching them english so they can help serve english speaking tourist who come into their shop. It's a great opportunity to be a part of their lives and start building relationships with them. Already, it's really exciting to hear how through Denise & John's relationship with them and helping them, Boonchu & her husband have expressed an interest to come to church. There are also some great opportunities to build relationships with Boonchu's sister who is also a single girl about my age. A new opportunity that i'm really excited about.
CBN Siam
One of the most ‘out of the blue’ opportunity that fell into my lap was on the second last day that I was in Thailand last July. I met a girl called Gao who works for CBN Siam – the Christian Broadcasting Network in Thailand. For those who don’t know I currently work at Anglican Media and part of what I do is video production and I’ve been involved in producing some of the TV programs that I do at. She was really keen to get me to go to her work and wanted to introduce me to her boss and all the guys involved in production over there. I’ve got no idea what opportunities might lie in that, but who knows if there might be opportunities to help provide them with some content from TV shows we’ve produced in Sydney, or use some of the show ideas for over there. There might be really good opportunities to build relationships with the producers over there and by sharing with them some of the things that we do, sharing my life with them, help influence some of the content that they broadcast. I really don’t know. It might be that there’s nothing that comes of it. But in some ways, even though it’s not about me, it’s about God an his work, I’d like to think that lots of the skills that I’ve learnt over the past 5 years at Anglican Media would be able to come in useful over there too.
At the end of the day, i think it will be wishful thinking to think i can fit all these opportunities in, and i'm sure that there will be plenty more things that will emerge from the woodwork when i arrive. I think no matter what, there's plenty of work to be done there and things that i can be involved in. I'd really appreciate your prayers for wisdom in deciding what to do and how to spend my time.
