This summer, Pedrito Maynard-Reid, professor of biblical studies and missiology, led a group of 17 Walla Walla University students, faculty, and alumni on the annual Thailand Outreach and Cultural Trip.
Every year, Maynard-Reid returns to Thailand with a group like this one—made up of students and alumni from nursing, technology, education, and more. At its core, this annual mission opportunity is focused on building and strengthening relationships: “We return again and again to keep those relationships going and growing,” said Maynard-Reid.
Through their service—teaching conversational English to elementary students, offering community nursing aid, providing farm assistance to a disabled Thai farmer, and working at the Bamboo School—students perform a type of evangelism that isn’t preaching doctrines. It’s living like Christ so people can see God through them.
Each year, Maynard-Reid said, “Everyone there always looks forward to us coming and are sad to see us go.” University students and alumni have been especially fond of the Bamboo School, an orphanage near the border of Myanmar. Many fly up early or stay late to help out there, just as Kezziah Perez chose to stay two months late.
Sarahi Leicher, junior elementary education major, even said her favorite memory from the trip comes from a Sabbath afternoon at the Bamboo School. After church, the group would gather with the children out by the lake. While she sat there with them all, singing together, she felt “an overwhelming sense of unity and love. I know that feeling will stay with me for a long time.”
Leicher decided to get involved this summer because she felt a deep pull from God to step outside of her comfort zone. She saw this mission trip as the perfect opportunity to serve and see how God is moving around the world. “I wanted to listen, to build relationships, and to see how the love of Christ goes beyond culture and language,” said Leicher.
Outside of service, participants get to visit the rainforest, various Buddhist temples, the Grand Palace in Bangkok, and spend a few days on Koh Samui. There is so much beauty to see in Thailand and such a vast, rich history to experience. For more trip photos, visit the group’s Thailand 2025 album. To sign up for the next Thailand Outreach and Cultural Trip or learn about more international and local mission opportunities, visit wallawalla.edu/student-missions.
Posted Nov. 19, 2025.
