State to wrap up Thailand project two months early

When Alabama Baptists stepped up to oversee rebuilding efforts in tsunami-hit Thailand in June 2005, they were commissioned by the International Mission Board to carry the baton “as far and wide and long” as possible.
   
They carried it far and wide — and did it well, according to Tommy Puckett, director of disaster relief for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions. It just turned out it didn’t take them as long as originally projected. “We’re going to be wrapping up our two-year commitment to the rebuilding project in Khao Lak two months early,” Puckett said. “Our teams have been so thorough, so good and so fast that they have moved the time clock way up as far as completion goes.”
   
Although much is still left to be done on a broad scale in Thailand, the areas allotted for Baptist-led teams will be completed by the end of April, he said. Between now and then, 12 more teams are slated to go, three of which are from Alabama.
   
“The only negative about finishing up early is that it knocks a lot of groups out that still wanted to go,” Puckett said. But as construction teams pack up, a new effort will begin as a result of the completed one — workers there will start planting churches.
  
“Since July, more than 200 professions of faith have happened as a result of the work there by our teams,” Puckett said. “According to Baptist workers in the area, the work (done by Alabama Baptist teams) has not only been impressionable to the people there because of the good job they have done but also for the relationships developed with the local people.”
  
Bill Lane, a member of NorthPark Baptist Church, Trussville, in Birmingham Baptist Association, recently returned from a trip there in which he and others earned the trust of community members by working in a less-than-ideal situation. Some of the team members “set a new world’s record for painting the most houses in a cesspool in one day,” he said. 
   
Now that his team and others have built these relationships, Thai Christians can begin to build congregations, Puckett explained. “This is what it’s all about. It’s been a life-changing experience for us and for them.”