TMM missionaries Allie and David Houle arrive this week

God is Good!  All the Time!

We give praise to God for answered prayers.  New TMM missionaries David and Allie Houle will be arriving in Thailand in two days from now.  They will be serving at Blessing Home in Pattaya and the first year they will be doing intensive Thai language study, which is difficult and can be discouraging, so keep them in your prayers.  We have prayed for a long time for God to fill the need to have missionaries serving long term at Blessing Home in Pattaya, and God has answered those prayers.  It is necessary to have full-time, long-term missionaries on site at Blessing Home Pattaya in order to provide the after-school services and regular home visits needed to do this ministry effectively.  As the children and teens get older, it is more and more difficult to keep them in school, especially in Pattaya, where there are fast-life easy-money distractions and temptations.  We have to "up our game" to meet the challenges.  

This quarter, we had our first drop-out from high school at Blessing Home Pattaya.  We are trying to convince this Blessing Home teen to go to classes for a high-school equivalency diploma (like a GED in the States).  But as of now, this teen has not made the move to go to class.  We know we cannot win with every one of the kids but we want to do better.  

This past week we had training with the Pastor Banya and Teacher Amporn at Blessing Home Pattaya to use a new electronic curriculum to teach English and Bible with the Blessing Home kids after school and on Sundays.  2 new televisions have been mounted on the walls to the smaller classrooms and a new computer was purchased so they can use the new curriculum.  This next week will be the first week using the new curriculum, which we believe will be more helpful to the kids and fun too.

God answered prayers for the David and Allie Houle as well.  God has provided the prayer and financial support they need to serve in Thailand as career missionaries.  But in the final month before their arrival in Thailand, they had two answers to prayer.

First, David and Allie needed to sell their tiny house (yes, like the ones you see on TV shows), but they were having problems selling it.  Many people wanted to buy it, but a tiny home is considered to be an Recreational Vehicle (RV) so they could not get a standard home mortgage, and did not qualify for an RV loan.  Well, on the last week before coming to Thailand, their tiny home sold, and it sold for the price they bought it for a few years ago.  Now they are debt-free (very important for missionaries who will see a great decrease in salary).

Also, their paperwork for student visas arrived very late, but they were able to get student visas and the process went smoothly.

Thank you for your faithful daily prayers.  We see God at work through the power of prayer.

The goal has been reached! Thank you, Jesus!

All of the prayer warriors prayed that when we arrived back in Thailand we would have all of the funds on hand needed for the Fire of Glory Church land and building. We are pleased to let you know that we are back in Thailand now and ALL of the funds have been donated and received! Thank you, Jesus!  Hallelujah!

All of the land has been purchased and the land was filled by over 6 feet of dirt.  Retainer walls and security walls are now being built (about 70% complete now).  Next, a building will be designed and blueprints made to be approved by the provincial government office (interesting, in Thailand they call them greenprints not blueprints).  Then after all of the building permits have been issued, we will begin construction. 

Please pray for us because our next 4 weeks involve long stretches of hard travel.  We will be preaching, teaching, and training in Southern Thailand over these next four weeks and it is a long distance from where we live.  But it is essential because this is a highly unreached area of Thailand.

Your prayers are the engine room of the ship called Thailand Methodist Mission.  Please keep the powerful prayers coming our way.

Almost There! Just two bricks away from completion!

We are so very close.   So close!

Sherri and I have been praying that we will have the full $150,000 needed to complete construction of the Fire of Glory Church building when we head back to Thailand on July 5.  It was just a month ago that we had only $98,000.  And now we need only $2,000 more to be complete with this project.  Praise God!  Below are two pictures of the construction happening at Fire of Glory Church in Nonthaburi.

Pipes burst at our home in Thailand

Two weeks ago we were contacted by our landlord in Thailand.  She said our water pump has been very loud and working continuously for 2 full days and the neighbors were concerned.  It was a Sunday evening when she contacted us.  We immediately contacted our staff and told them to please go and check.  It took them awhile to get there because they were working about an hour's drive away.  When they arrived they found that a pipe burst in our downstairs bathroom (Praise God it was not upstairs!).  The water flowed from the bathroom through our office and then to the kitchen and then out the door.  We will have to replace quite a bit of furniture in the office and kitchen now.  But it could have been a lot worse.


The Abundant Life Savings Group Program lifts up families out of poverty and debt.

May Kuntisa is Sherri's assistant serving in the Abundant Life Savings Group Program.  She not only translates curriculum and materials but is being trained by Sherri so that she will lead this program in the future (our goal is to always train Thai leaders to do the ministries). 

May and her husband Boy have been faithfully doing the program, saving her money to build up an Emergency Fund equal to 3 months of income as well as paying down debts.  Back in March, May stood up in the morning worship service at her home church, Life Center UMC of Pattaya, and celebrated that they were able to meet the goal of having a fully funded Emergency Fund.  This was a great encouragement and inspiration to the others in the group and helped others to become motivated.

Two weeks ago, May stood up at her church again, this time to celebrate their debts are paid and they finally paid off the last credit card.  Part of the celebration that we do in these groups is cancelling the credit card account and then coming to church on Sunday morning to cut the credit cards up in front of the church.  Sherri receives pictures of people cutting up their credit cards at church and we were delighted to see May doing this.  Below are some pictures.  May said the Abundant Life Savings Group at Life Center UMC was very happy for their success and that the members of the group are seeing progress in their lives as they move towards Financial Peace that comes from doing finances God's way.