The Boys' First Flight

A chickenpox outbreak swept half the Moken children just before the year-end exams, forcing the teacher to postpone them a week so everyone could sit together. Philip's home-schooled children did excellently — all passed the Thai reading and writing exam and scored in the nineties for maths, and for their cooking exam they read a recipe off the internet and produced something delicious.

Then, with the help of friends, Philip did something new: he took Wud and Tine on their first-ever flight, to the annual COC missions conference in Chiang Mai. They were terrified — several bathroom trips before boarding, faces gripped with fear as the plane began to move — and then, once airborne, delighted, wanting to see and open everything. At the conference they understood the message, glimpsed something of the Father's heart for the world, and said they wanted to be part of it. Afterwards they rode elephants and visited Karen hill people by bamboo raft, learning that many of them also lack citizenship. It moved the boys deeply; they told Philip the Moken are better off than these people, and that they felt like going to help them.

Back on the island, the school-holiday weeks filled with work: pouring a cement floor under Ieang's house (a future room where girls could stay while their parents are at sea, and a space for small-group Bible study), replacing termite-eaten roof beams over the preschool, braais on the beach, surfing the small waves, and a two-night trip to Ranong for the cinema and a water slide — outings Philip uses as much to teach the children how to carry themselves in Thai society as for the fun.