In late 1985, our family moved to a small town in Central Thailand called Banphot Pisai in Nakon Sawan province. We lived there for just over a year, in a group of houses off a "soi" (street) near the banks of the River Ping.
My parents were OMF missionaries and were hoping to start planting a church in Banphot. There was one Christian lady in the area, but no-one else. And so they started with relationships with neighbours (some of which were not straightforward) and my Dad would cross the River Ping by ferry taking with him book-table, books, tracts, chair and umbrella all balanced on his motorbike to set up in the Banphot market place.
My memories of Banphot relate to learning to ride a bike without stabilisers, crossing the River Ping by ferry, inspecting the sandbagging along the edge of the river due to the threat of flooding, going to a Foremost Icecream parlour in Nakon Sawan on days off, washing the pots outside the house and eventually heading off to boarding school in Malaysia age six in August of 1986.
Crossing the River Ping by Ferry.
Just over a year after moving to Banphot, we moved again to Bangkok, so my Dad could work at Kanok Banasaan - the OMF publishers.
During our recent trip to Thailand with the help of my Dad locating the house on google maps and the assistance and hospitality of Bob and Jan Trelogan, Mark and I were able to locate the neighbourhood and specifically the house that we lived in 30 years ago.
In high humidity that makes you sweat whilst merely standing still, we found the house to be greeted by a chorus of barking and aggressive dogs. Neighbours started to emerge from houses partly in response to all the racket. There had been little change in terms of whom was living in the houses apart from our old house which was occupied by two young women working at a Seven/ Eleven. With the help of Bob, who chatted to them in Thai, there was much smiling and laughter and remembering when we had lived in that house.
The landlord's wife turned up and immediately recognised who I was, sticking her head out the vehicle, gesturing and laughing. In the fashion of 2015, out came the smartphones so they could take snaps of these long lost "farangs" (foreigners) who had suddenly emerged from the past.
Later the crowd dispersed and we made our way back to the car and on to the now established church in Banphot. This was planted in the 2000s by a Swiss couple, Emmanuel and Barbara Zwygart and a Thai pastor, Ajarn Suppochort and his wife.
When we arrived at the church, it was to find that the Ajarn was resting, with two other visitors already with him, Alan and Averil Bennett, now retired, but missionaries in Thailand for many years. The building itself is on a piece of land next to the Public Health office, with some good sized rooms, nicely furnished for church ministry.
The Marketplace Singer of Banphot.
It turned out that the Ajarn was keen to write a history of Banphot Pisai Church, and so by translation through Bob, I explained when we had lived in Banphot and how things had been in 1985. He was excited to tell us of a man living in Banphot, a maker of Buddhist idols, that had visited with my parents and talked to my Dad in the marketplace. Apparently he had been taught a simple Christian song by my parents, which he reproduced to the rather dis-believing Ajarn. He recognized the song as being in the Thai hymn book but could still not identify who the OMF missionaries had been who had lived in the town at the time, until, of course, we came for our visit! The Ajarn continues to be a friend to this marketplace singer who still as yet remains a Buddhist.
The Ajarn had been somewhat downhearted due to various issues and over-busyness, but re-vitalised and encouraged by this new piece of information relating to his history project, he and his wife, bustled off to get changed in order to be "riaproy" (tidy) for photographs.
Full of enthusiasm, for his history quest, the Ajarn asked Bob to show him the neighbourhood and house we had lived in, in the hopes of speaking to the Landlord and Lady and perhaps of following up the neighbours who had remembered the "farangs" who lived in their midst.
This was all a remarkable day, from the finding of the house, the crowd of neighbours, the actual church building to the orange shirted very busy Ajarn and his smiling wife. The planting of a church in Thailand can take many years and the Dickinson family were only living in Banphot a short space of time but the Ajarn was so keen to thank my parents for the seeds planted those thirty years ago in the seemingly stony ground.
"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Galatians 6:9
