“We’re selling home furnishings, appliances, some of my paintings and really just everything we can’t take.”

Callahans selling out and starting new life as missionaries in Thailand

Ledger Staff Writer

When David and Shirley Callahan told their friends they were selling their possessions and moving to Thailand, some people had a good laugh.

The auction is this Saturday.

“For the most part we’re just sorting out everything we own and deciding what we can keep,” David Callahan said as he packed boxes Tuesday afternoon. “We only get to take a few suitcases, we can’t keep anything that won’t fit in them.”

David and Shirley will leave Gaffney on Feb. 3 to start their new life in Thailand as missionaries who will focus on running an orphanage. The more than 8,000-mile journey cleared legal hurdles last Thursday when the couple received their visas and passports.

“It is something to see the papers get here,” David said. “It just feels like the date is flying towards us and we aren’t ready to go yet. But with the passports and all taken care of, it looks like things are coming together here at the last minute.”

Selling all the possessions they aren’t keeping is coming together as well, with a special auction scheduled for this Saturday, Jan. 15 at 8 a.m. at their 600 S. Petty Street home in Gaffney.

“We’re selling home furnishings, appliances, some of my paintings and really just everything we can’t take,” David added.

A former purchasing agent for Timken, David is also an avid artist and has several paintings on display and for sale at home. He plans to teach art to the children in Thailand and hopes that some of his students will be able to work as professionals.

“I worked in purchasing at Timken for a number of years, and then last April they came to me and told me that there was a good chance the company was going to be phasing out purchasing at the plant to do it all at a corporate level,” David recalled. “This was soon after our friend Ladda Tipkunta had come to Gaffney to visit and update us on the orphanage she runs in her homeland. Timken told me that if I would help them phase out the purchasing job, that I could have early retirement. I looked at the situation and it just really felt as though God had lined everything up for us to move to Thailand and help Ladda. So, I talked it over with my wife and we agreed that it felt like the right thing to do.”

The Callahans also sought spiritual advice from their pastor, Rev. Joel Sellers at First Baptist Church of Gaffney.

“FBC is definitely a mission-minded church,” David said. “We had wanted to go with the Southern Baptist Convention, but they couldn’t guarantee that we would be able to go to that particular orphanage. So, our church has kind of adopted this orphanage as our own mission project. Shirley and I had been on several mission trips before and always joked about making it a more permanent thing. I guess God was planning that for us all along.”

At the moment, Tipkunta’s orphanage holds about 53 displaced children, all of whom have had parents die from the AIDS epidemic in Thailand. All of the children are HIV negative, but Tipkunta has expressed concern that she may need to build an entirely new orphanage following last months catastrophic tsunami which nearly destroyed Phuket, Thailand.

“There are so many orphans in the part of the country that was hit by the wave that Shirley and I already feel that we are meeting an immediate need of the children there,” David said. “If we need to start a new orphanage, I believe that we can. Ladda started the one she runs with only $40, so I know that God can work it out for Shirley and I to get one if there is sufficient need. And I think there will be.”

Married for 37 years, David and Shirley Callahan have two children who live in Gaffney, David Jr. and his wife, Rebecca, and daughter Mindy Beheler and her husband, Tommy.

“I think what we really want to do is make an impact on these childrens’ lives,” David said as he took another of his paintings down off the wall. “The country is predominantly Buddhist, and it is very difficult to change the hearts and minds of adults who have been a part of that religion their whole lives. But if we can reach out to these children, then they can grow up and illustrate to those around them what it means to follow Christ.”

David closed another box and looked at his painting, waiting to add the next picture to the canvas of his life.