Getting Started with Rom Phra Khun

Welcome to the very first installment of this blog. My purpose is to share thoughts, ideas, and insights with you, the reader. This is a pastor’s blog, and I have named it Rom Phra Khun, which is one translation of “grace” in the Thai Bible. It means, literally, “the shade of grace.” Rom is shade (also umbrella) and can be used to mean protection. In the hot sub-tropical sun of Southeast Asia, shade is a blessing—a place of coolness, safety, escape, and relief.  Phra khun can mean kindness or benevolence, and it is a word that is associated with highly respected persons such as royalty, religious figures, and divine beings. Thai Christians use rom phra khun to mean the grace of God.

The term rom phra khun is a beautiful metaphor for understanding the Christian faith.  God’s grace is cool shade, protection from the hot sun of the world. My hope is that this blog itself will be rom phra khun for its readers—that it will give you an opportunity, however, brief, to walk out of the hot sun of the daily grind into the shade of God’s grace in Christ.


I am pastor of First Presbyterian Church (FPC), Lowville, NY.  I started with the church in September 2011, and my wife Runee and I quickly came to love both the church and the community.  I grew up in a small town out on the prairie of southwest Minnesota (Luverne, MN, to be specific) so moving to Lowville has felt something like coming home.  And while I hope that members of the FPC family will visit Rom Phra Khun from time to time, it is a personal blog.  The church is not responsible for its contents.  It is meant to be shade from the sun for you and a playground for me.  Peace & blessings, Herb

Rom phra khun, by the way, is pronounced “rome prá kun (or koon as in Daniel Boone).