An inner-west church is reaching Sydney's Thai community with a tailor-made Christian event.
St Luke's, Enmore has held its inaugural five-day Thai Christian retreat this week, ending Tuesday.
The retreat was designed to raise awareness within the local Thai community of the group of Thai Christians currently involved with St Luke's lone 9:30am congregation, and to help them to reach their fellow Thais in Sydney.
The rector of St Luke's,the Rev Gwilym Henry-Edwards says the inspiration behind the retreat came from parishioner Wit Takham.
"Through his business, Eden Education and Migration, Mr Takham has contacted Thai students coming to Australia to study and has encouraged them to be part of the worshipping community at St Luke's," Mr Henry-Edwards says.
Mr Takham is very pleased with how the retreat went.
"We had 50 people attend the final evening of the retreat on Tuesday from all over the inner-west," he says.
The leader of the retreat was Dr Boonratna Boayen, who has recently retired from the post of Moderator of the Churches of Christ in Thailand.
Dr Boonratna led those present each day and evening in Bible study, prayer and hymns.
"The doctor spoke about how important it is for us to believe in God and trust him to give us faith," Mr Takham says.
On the Sunday morning Dr Boonratna preached in English to more than 100 people, more than double the usual church attendance.
Mr Takham says there are plans for another retreat next year as well as plans for a new twice-monthly mid-week Thai language service.
"In the future we want the Thai community to worship at St Luke's church. We want to have preaching, prayers, hymns and Bible reading in Thai," he says.
"It would be the first Thai Anglican service in Sydney. We already have lots of interest from members of the Thai community."
Totally embracing Thailand
While the St Luke's liturgy is currently conducted in English, Mr Henry-Edwards says the church has worked to make those from the 16 different national and language backgrounds in the congregation feel welcome.
"It has been our practice occasionally to read the Bible in languages other than English, Thai being one of the more frequent languages used," Mr Henry-Edwards says.
"At the moment the prayer book is in the hands of a translator who is to provide us with a bilingual book in Thai and English."
Mr Henry-Edwards says there is a great need to have the gospel preached in the Thai language to Thai people, especially to those who are not Christian or whose English is still developing.
"It is hoped that from this initiative the Christian Thai community at St Luke's will grow in faith and in numbers," he says.
Mr Henry-Edwards also hopes to enlist the help of two theological graduates from the Hill Tribes Bible College in Thailand who are coming to Australia to study English for the next six months.
"We hope to be able to employ them at least part-time to pastor and nurture the Thai Christians," he says.
