Rocky Bayou mission trip

Rocky Bayou Baptist Church in Niceville sent two mission teams to Thailand from March 24 to April 7 for an American Summer Camp. The groups’ goal was to help the Rev. Thasanapong “Tosh” L. and Dawn L. Suwaratana’s ministry at Thailand National Institute for Christ near Pak Chong.
Tosh founded TNIC more than 20 years ago. He is the younger brother of Rocky Bayou member Tewee “Terry” Lee of Niceville. Tosh and his American wife, Dawn, have been missionaries in Thailand for more than 25 years.
Nineteen people participated in the trip, which was organized by Terry Lee and her husband, Dr. Ken Lee, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel. The two met more than 35 years ago when Ken was stationed in Thailand as a USAF dentist. Both cur-rently serve on Rocky Bayou’s missions committee.
A 14-member team con-ducted an evangelistic English Camp at Camp Moriah, the TNIC Campus near Pak Chong, Thailand. Most of the 26 Thai campers who attended were age 7 to 18. Two attendees were young adults, one of them a third-year medical student.
The children heard the Gos-pel twice a day in their own language. Because all Thai children study English in public school, they were happy to practice their skills during small group activities con-ducted in English.
Although Rocky Bayou spon-sored the trip, four other churches sent missionaries. They were Cinco Bayou Baptist Church, Village Baptist Church in Destin, Missionary Alliance Church in Clermont and First United Methodist Church of Jasper, Ala.
The second team consisted of three doctors and two nurses, who conducted free medical clinics in five Thai villages.
Dr. Paul Crawford, a family practice doctor at Eglin AFB and current chairman of Rocky Bayou’s missions committee, headed the medical team.
Other members were Dr. James Hansen, a cardiologist, and his wife, Suzanne, who is a nurse practioner. Both are retired USAF colonels and seasoned missionaries.
Dr. Joshua Latham, a family practice resident at Eglin, and Valarie Richardson, a nurse from Jasper, Ala., rounded out the medical team.
That group joined a medical team in Thailand headed by Dr. Doug Derbyshire, a Southern Baptist medical doctor who has served as a missionary in Thai-land for 14 years.
The medical team treated hundreds of rural patients during the trip. Local Thai pastors taught the Gospel during the medical visits.
Terry Lee and other team members prepared three meals a day for the campers and introduced them to numerous American foods, including beef stew, spaghetti and meat sauce, chicken fajitas, breakfast burri-tos, omelets, baked chicken, brownies, cherry cobbler, apple pie, jello and roasted marsh-mallows.
The missionaries enter-tained attendees with skits, puppet shows, balloon animals, hiking, juggling classes, square dancing and U.S. slow-pitch softball.
The missionaries also pur-chased food provisions from local markets.