In 2016 I traveled to SouthEast Asia for the first time on an officially commissioned Art Ministry Travel to Thailand. My hosts were missionaries with an international Christian missions organization. They are not a part of a specific church in Thailand, but minister through daily relational evangelism by building relationship with their neighbors, teachers and parents at the schools their children go to, and other people they meet in the market place within the city they live. Most of their ministry is through conversations over meals. We are long time friends, we met when I lived in Scotland. They are from the Netherlands and Canada. Over the years we have helped to support each other's ministries (I had even included them on my short trip to the PNW and Canada in 2013, as they were on furlough in Vancouver).
While in Thailand I was able to travel to Lampang where my hosts lived where I facilitated collaborative art for small groups, facilitated personal prayer art for my friends missionary team members, painted live at a private event, and conversed with and encouraged a local artist about his work. I also was able to travel to Chiang Mai where another Christian missionary lives who is also an artist. There I was able to meet some Thai Buddhist artists that he had been building relationship with in their studios and converse with them about their art. And I traveled to Bangkok where I was invited to teach some art workshops at an annual retreat for the women missionaries who were serving in that Christian missions organization.
My experience in Thailand was beautifully unique and memorable. There just might be another trip in the future!
To read more details of this trip go to:
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