Maintaining your faith in a corporate environment is no easy task. However, those who remain faithful are not only rewarded by God but can be a huge blessing to many others. Such is the case of Kevin Pang, Grace International School’s Special Project Manager who has taken over in heading the building projects on campus. He has been striving and thriving in his career as an architect for 28 years. Before coming to Grace, he was the deputy general manager in a public company in Hong Kong but worked in China on big projects such as offices and malls. Yet, he left his job and ended up at Grace in October 2020. How did he end up at Grace and how has his year been?
Kevin and his family first heard about Grace from international Christian workers in Kunming. His two daughters were homeschooled at the time and he was looking to put them back in school. In 2019, Kevin and his family came to visit Grace and prayed at the incomplete new campus site. He wrote to Superintendent Steve Anderson about opportunities to serve at Grace. Little did he know, Steve had been praying for a person to help manage construction on the new campus. Quitting his job, Kevin moved to Chiang Mai in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic in October 2020 to start work at Grace as a full-time staff, which also allows his daughters to enroll as full-time students. He says, “Serving at Grace has been a wonderful year of rest for me—a year of Jubilee. Grace, to me, is a place of comfort and being part of this Christian community has healed my soul after so many years in a high-pressure work environment. I am able to spend more time with my family and be more involved in my daughters’ lives. I even got to be a chaperone on my daughter’s 6th grade field trip! My girls are so happy to enjoy regular school life and have fun in school band, sport teams, and anchor groups.”
Grace has also been immensely blessed by Kevin’s involvement. Kevin has been an answer to prayer, coming at just the right time to finish the security wall project, the marquee sign, start work on the fitness center and clear up 95% of the defects in existing buildings. He has been a much needed addition to the facilities team. “I have zero regret that I decided to take a step of faith and dedicate this past year to serving God,” he says. “What I learned from working in the corporate world is that you need to take root in the Bible and maintain a sense of integrity in order to set a good example even if it’s hard. Here, I enjoy working with the local Thai people and being a good testimony for them as a Christian by humbling myself, serving as a servant and giving as a king.”
Kevin’s amazing story is a reflection of how, through prayer, Grace is able to cultivate a Christian community of those who are called by God to serve in Chiang Mai during the right season in order to be a blessing to the community of international Christian workers in Southeast Asia.
