Radical Hospitality

News from Bangkok has recently included many pictures like this one.

Flooding has reached crisis proportions, and countless people have been displaced as they continue to wait for the waters to recede.

I've watched with keen interest, given my love for Thailand as a whole. Though half way around the world, when it's a place you've not just visited, but have begun to invest pieces of your heart......everything seems not quite so far away somehow.

Still, all this was happening in the south. Way south. Those I know and love way up north, near Chiang Mai, were unaffected. Until now.

This is a picture of what's left of Fahkram Church, Bangkok.

Recently 120 displaced people from this church have left their homes, their church, their city, and their lives, and have found a temporary refuge in the simple and beautiful space we know as Hot Springs. This is, of course, the church-turned-orphan home led by a young Pastor and his wife, Suradet and Yupa.

I can barely wrap my head around it. The logistics of it alone are incredible. Yet, it doesn't surprise me. There's room at Hot Springs. Not just physical space, but the enormous expanse of the generosity, compassion and radical hospitality of one young but sensationally wise couple serving God with all they have in a remote town in Northern Thailand.

We will be taking up a special flood-relief offering at Highview on Sunday (November 20, 2011). Seems like such a small way to help, but we want to participate.

And we'll keep on preparing for our time there in March of next year, when 13 Highviewers will get on a plane and take our love and language half way around the world to spend time with our Thai family, working with them for an ESL Day Camp for neighbourhood kids. At least, that's the plan.

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To My Astonishing and Faithful Brother and Sister, Ahjahn Suradet and Yupa,

You teach me so much.

Humbly,

Ruth Anne