25 Years of Witnessing to the Word in Thailand 123 to meet, have fellowship, and even pool our resources to cook meals together. Early days of connection I still remember my first encounter with the Divine Word community in Thailand. When I first arrived in Thailand, I lived isolated from the Vietnamese community in a distant suburb of Bangkok. On Sundays, I participated in services with the Filipino community. We were among the first Vietnamese families in a group of Filipino teachers teaching at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT). During Lent, they often invited priests to conduct retreats and hear confessions. Since we were Vietnamese, they invited a Vietnamese priest from Bangkok to hear our family’s confession. Father John Hung Le, SVD, was invited to grant reconciliation to my wife and me. That was the first time we learned that there was a Vietnamese community about 50 km from where we lived. With some uncertainties, that Lunar New Year, we took a taxi to attend Mass at the Divine Word community house, which had not yet moved to the present location on Ngamwongwan Road. My son got sick after the long trip and attended the crowded Mass in a small house filled with immigrant brothers and sisters. Despite the distance, the Lunar New Year was a time when expatriates like us longed to meet fellow countrymen. When the SVD community moved to Ngamwongwan, pastoral work
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