This year, Send Relief hosted its very first international Serve Tour!
Its first stop? Bangkok, Thailand.
The Bangkok Serve Tour was an intentional expansion of the partnership between Send Relief, the Thailand Baptist Convention and affiliated ministries and their ministry strategies.
Send Relief Area Director Pat Melancon commented on the inaugural Tour stop, “In Thai culture, the idea of community is paramount, so sticking together and working in unison—as a community—creates new venues for sharing the gospel. While Thai churches don’t have a concentrated history of ‘community service,’ during the pandemic, Send Relief provided supplies for them to take care of many families. The seeds of community investment were planted back then and are bearing fruit now through Serve Tour.”
Projects for volunteer teams on the ground included distributing food to vulnerable and elderly people, offering education options to refugee children, painting and refurbishing public libraries, hosting English classes, fixing community playgrounds, building relationships with the local church, distributing school supplies to at-risk children and supporting activities at the local Baptist Student Center.
A team of 25 volunteers worked across eight different sites as they partnered with local Thai Baptists to implement Send Relief programs. Below is a highlight video of their time in Bangkok:
Melancon commented, “The acts of kindness done by volunteers here will be mentally recorded in each community’s history and, years from now, they will remember the work that believers did for them.”
If you or your church are interested in joining Send Relief for similar projects at Serve Tour stops here at home and across the globe, click here to learn more or register today.
Published August 22, 2023