As it happens, however, a plush air-conditioned bus is about to leave for the same destination. It's been hired to take the college's school of nursing faculty from their hospital location to Mission College's main campus at Muak Lek, in Thailand's Saraburi province, north of Bangkok. I ensconce myself in a back seat, secluded behind a large coatrack loaded with academic regalia and other weekend fineries-for a little shut-eye, a little sightseeing on the way, and some last-minute work on the baccalaureate message I'll present tomorrow. It's a two-and-a-half-hour ride, and there'll be time for all three pursuits-or so I think.
I wake up for the umpteenth time and see a sign with an arrow pointing the direction of the college. Up that stretch, I fall asleep again, numerous times. And at each waking I think to myself, There it is-there's the college, mistaking the buildings of some farm or other large establishment for the place. With no idea of what to expect, I'd formed a mental picture, nevertheless-of the typical Adventist educational facility in a developing area, complete with unpaved roads, aging or dilapidated buildings, and a not-up-to-scratch infrastructure.
As I wake up for the last time, we're actually at the gate. And I'm floored-completely. An absolutely spectacular spread of a campus, set on high ground, nestled amid light forest, and surrounded by nearby hills, the encircling range of distant mountains completing the magnificent view.
How could this be? Why hadn't I known before that such a place existed?
How It Came to Be
The institution began as a School of Nursing at Bangkok Adventist Hospital in 1947, and over the years has had an extremely successful run, becoming known and respected throughout the country. In 1986 the school upgraded its curriculum into a baccalaureate degree program and received government permission to become Mission College. In 1990 the institution received permission to establish a campus at its present location in the heart of the country, with a purpose to extend the opportunity for higher education to young people living in the nation's provinces. Thus it proceeded to expand its offerings to include the baccalaureate degree in a variety of disciplines.
But the change that would catapult the college onto the stage as a first-rate international institution came in 1997. It was in that year that Southeast Asia Union College (SAUC) in Singapore (closing down because its campus had been expropriated by the Singapore government to extend that country's transportation system) began the process of moving to and merging with Mission College. Thus the college that had upgraded from municipal (Bangkok-based) to national (in respect to its new location and offerings) was now ready (with the merger) to go international. And two years later, in 1999, it began offering international programs of study for the first time (see sidebar).
One critical ingredient of the merger was the availability of needed cash from the proceeds of SAUC's settlement with the Singapore government. It was this reality that allowed Southeast Asia Union Mission (SEAU) president Bill Townend to make the following remarks during the grand opening ceremony for the college late Sabbath afternoon, March 8. "We're here today," he said at the beginning of the two-and-a-half-hour program, "to open a totally new [institution]. Virtually every building here has been constructed in the past four years."
That was the critical statement that brought home to me what I was seeing. Unlike many Adventist educational institutions that begin (sometimes with no master plan) one painstaking building at a time-as funds allow-the Mission College campus was planned virtually from the ground up. Most Adventists of long standing can cite instance after instance of a high school or college developing around a few makeshift buildings and an all-purpose auditorium. And in almost every such case the church would be one of the last buildings to see the light of day. The Mission College experience was different. As several speakers noted, the church was actually one of the first buildings to go up, intentionally to emphasize from the start the centrality of worship and fellowship for campus life and mission.
The opening ceremony was planned as an outdoor event, and normally the afternoon would have been very hot around the time it was scheduled to begin. But there had been a huge tropical downpour during lunch, which left things cool and fresh. By the time the ceremonies got under way in late afternoon, a cloud cover was in place, the sun barely peeking out through the western skies-as if wanting to rest, but curious to see what all the activity was about. The breeze, light and cool because of the cloud cover and the recent rain, made for an extraordinarily pleasant setting, bringing a million tiny frogs onto the leaves of the water lilies. As I walked about the area before the program, reflecting on the total scene-the temperature, the downright beauty of the campus, the people in all their finery and rich variety, and the joyous, festive mood of it all-I remarked to someone that it felt like what our first Sabbath in heaven will be like.
I did not go to Thailand to do a story on Mission College-we don't cover graduations in the Review; nor do we do college openings, as such. But the longer I stayed on campus, the deeper the conviction grew that there was something here worth sharing. As I came to write it up, however, two (mutually exclusive) options faced me: I can (1) multiply words to tell about it or (2) accept the wisdom that a picture's worth a thousand words. I chose the latter option. Only problem was that I had a thousand pictures!* I can only hope that the few selected will tell a little of the story of that magnificent place.
*Unless otherwise indicated, all photos in this story are from Mission College communication.
_________________________
Roy Adams is an associate editor of the Adventist Review.
T'S FRIDAY, MY SECOND DAY IN THAILAND, the day I'll be heading to 
Exclude PDF Files