Touch Points and Tech: A Mini Report on Highview's Thailand Sunday January 22

 

One of the most challenging learnings for me as a shepherd-leader during the pandemic has been how to counter the necessity to employ "high-tech" methods with the need to remain "high-touch" shepherds.(1)  During the height of the lockdowns this was especially difficult.  As we all navigated our way through online services, taped messages, and virtual meetings, there were times when it all felt so distanced, so impersonal, so sterile.  As one frustrated person said to me, "It feels like church is being 'done to' me."

The lack of warmth from in-person, high-touch interactions was made even more chilly for us at New Family Foundation when it meant we couldn't travel.  A normal touch point year would include three visits.  For almost three years, nothing.

Well, not quite.  

They say that passion-driven learning is best, and I would add maybe even the only way some things can be mastered.  Zoom for instance.  The fact that I now have a Zoom account AND that I actually know how to use it (for the most part anyway) is only because it was intolerable for my heart not to connect, face and voice, with Suradet and Yupa and the children during the travel restrictions.

All this to say that on Sunday we invited Pastors Suradet and Yupa to bring to us a message (via recorded Zoom interview) of resilience and hope based on Isaiah 35:1-10 and the truths it holds that are lived out so vibrantly in their lives.

Strengthen feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong; do not fear: your God will come."  Isaiah 35:3-4a

And this profound picture of joy later in the same chapter.

Therefore the redeemed of the LORD will return and enter Zion (God's ultimate city of peace) with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads.  Gladness and joy will overtake them and sorrow and sighing will flee away.  Isaiah 35:10

I will invite you to remember that these are people who have experienced life in harsher ways than many of us in other parts of the world can properly appreciate.  And here they are, inspiring us.  

Via Zoom, no less!

Sunday was for me a high-touch moment, even though it involved so much high-tech.  For all the behind the scenes support, I absolutely must thank my good friend Dave Driver, whose own passion for Thailand and his heart for our children kept him hunched over his computer for several weeks working on the tedious subtitling/translations.  Thank you!

And also a big thanks to Derek Goupil, Highview's Music Director, who can lead our worship teams to make any request for any particular song not only sound fantastic, but be part of what brings us into those spaces where we can imagine for ourselves what it will be like to be part of that throng going through the city gates one day.

It would be important to also mention our gratitude to Pastor Erin and the Elders of Highview for their continued support of all we do, as the leaders of New Family Foundation's 'umbrella' church.

And of course.  Always.  To all our Sponsors and Supporters.  There is no possible way to bring enough gratitude, in any way it might be communicated, to adequately express how much we see you as our heroes.   Thank you, thank you, thank you.  And may God bless you in accordance to the measure that you have blessed us.

And if you ever want to 'touch base' with me about anything at all to do with our incredible family in Thailand, please reach out (via tech) at rabreithaupt@hcckw.ca.

(1)  This was just one of three counterpoints in my thesis for a directed reading and research academic study of preaching for spiritual formation during disorienting times, undertaken in the winter of 2021.  Fascinating opportunity and I learned so much!!!

Healing Hospitality

Baby bananas, if you're wondering.

That's what the picture is.  From under the petals of this gigantic purple bloom emerge the first bits of what will be afternoon snack in a few days from now.

They say a fun hello to welcome me each morning as I walk back and forth from the house to the gate on my mini fitness routine while at Hot Springs last November.  I imagine their voices to be small and chirpy, (like Alvin and his friends, for those who would get the reference).  They amuse me, even just being there.  Because no where at home do I walk past a banana tree.  And well, just look at them!

Beyond the novelty and cuteness, though, there is a picture of a deeper invitation.  As if the slow spreading of the purple petals drawing me in is a picture of the sweet healing of this place.

I felt it first in 2008, my second only trip to Thailand, but the first time I actually stayed here.  I was still reeling from one of my life's worst nightmares, just five months out, and still de-numbing from it. I had no sweet clue as to how much I would need the healing.  Certainly didn't expect to receive it.  

I was, after all, here to serve, right?  I was here to represent the support and love Highview had so recently offered in this new-then adventure of partnering with Suradet and Yupa to raise up a gathered family.  I was the bringer, the one with the goods, the one they needed.

Right?

At this point in telling our story I always must stop.  

Father, thank You for Your forgiveness, mercy and grace that somehow saw through my arrogance and held it up for me to view, in all its ugliness.  Jesus, thank You for offering Yourself freely on the cross to pay for my sin of superiority.  Spirit, thank You for Your patient, intimate interactions with my soul as I continue to be shaped more and more into Your humility.  Triune God, please don't stop this work in me.

There.

Healing.  

If ever a spiritual gift was needed in ministry to children traumatized by poverty, it's the gift of hospitality.  And both Suradet and Yupa have it in spades.  And we feel it when we are here.  We all do.  The welcome of it, the comfort of it, the belonging of it. 

The healing of it.

I once had a team member say that they felt more loved at Hot Springs than they did among their friends at home.  That they 'belonged' here better.  And without getting into a bigger analysis of it, I would say that in some ways, for different reasons, in a different home context, I knew what they meant.

Two takeaways.

One is that if you're serving kids who desperately need the love and security of home, healing hospitality is the way to go.  It's what's needed first.  More of a priority, even, than good education and expanded opportunities, which is still part of what we seek to provide, of course.  So for our kids at New Family Foundation, that we know and experience this ourselves is a good reassurance.  Yes.  

And two.  It makes me want to do this better myself.  To be a place of healing hospitality, just in my personhood.  Maybe that includes offering a meal or a cup of tea.  Maybe it includes my physical space of home.

But more importantly, I want this to be just part of what people experience when they are in my presence.  A sense of being welcomed into the space of presence.  That they have my undivided attention.  That they are heard and seen, understood and validated.

I can describe this so well because of the people who have done this so well for me.  Suradet and Yupa.  And others.  And I am so grateful.  I need them.  Badly.

Phot cred:  Dave Driver