Your prayers are ETERNAL. Your prayers have no expiration date.

Every VIM team needs your prayers, because when you pray for them, great things happen. We remember this VIM team from 2015 led by Dr. John Kalz.  They were a team of ordinary Christians (like us) with extraordinary faith.  They visited and prayed for seniors and children who lived in desperate poverty in TaPhraya and helped to put on a fun day camp for the children of that community.  And they prayed and were moved by a vision to build a new Blessing Home center and church in TaPhraya.  When they went home, John and this team raised funds to purchase land and build this third Blessing Home center.

The next year, John and the 2016 Kentucky VIM came and dedicated the new Blessing Home TaPhraya building, initiating a new ministry to this unreached county.  (See the picture below of Dr. John Kalz and the 2016 Kentucky VIM team cutting the ribbon to open the new building.)  Remember that our prayers are eternal.  The power of our prayers continue into eternity and do not stop.  Everyone who prayed for the 2015 VIM team still have their prayers in effect.  Every child and adult who gives their life to Christ is eternally changed because of those prayers from five years ago.  Every child who can go to school and is not trafficked is receiving blessings from the prayers of God's people that were lifted up to the Heavenly Father five years ago.  There is no expiration date to our prayers! 

The same 2015 Kentucky VIM team visited Fire of Glory Church in Nonthaburi province.  They experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in this group of Christ followers led by Pastor Somsri.  They saw how over-crowded the church was, as everyone met in the home of Pastor Somsri.  After the worship service, that team went out into a rice field that the church had purchased (with the heavy burden of a loan) and they prayed that Jehovah Jireh, the "God Who Provides", would provide the resources to pay off the land and build a large church building. 

Now this year's Kentucky VIM team will be dedicating the new Fire of Glory Church building on October 20.  The prayers of God's people from 5 years ago still continue to do miracles.  And God provided for everything needed for this building.  God is good!  Below is a picture of Sunday worship at the new Fire of Glory building.

This year's team will need your prayers because they are doing hard traveling while they are here through these dates: October 11-21.  They will be serving at Blessing Home Pattaya, Blessing Home Isan, and Pioneer Pastor churches in several locations.  They will be Prayer Walking, doing training with adults, day camps with children, and visiting shut-ins.  This team will participate in the 2019 Commencement Ceremony of Global Theological Institute.  They will be traveling and serving in the Eastern, Isan, Northern, Western, and Bangkok regions.  Please pray for endurance and strength and the power of the Holy Spirit to serve with love and gentleness.  Your prayers make great things happen, this year and forever.  Your prayers don't have an expiration date.

Finally, we would like to give a reminder and update of our need for special donations for Phase 1 of our Abundant Life Training Center.  We need to raise $80,000 by Christmas-time to purchase land, fill it with soil to raise it so it will not flood, and to build retainer walls.  At this time, we have received a little over $8,000.

We hope all supporting churches, groups, and individuals will pray about this.  And if the Lord leads you to help, please be sure to designate your gift to the Building Fund.

You can give online at https://thailandmethodist.org/donate/

OR

Send a check to:

TMM
Box 56
Mannsville, KY 42758

A request for Christmas time

Please read and pray and then do what the Lord leads you to do.

We have a challenging situation, and we are asking you to help. The demand for leader training in the Abundant Life Program, and the training pastors and church leaders through the Pioneer Pastor Program far exceeds our capabilities.

Currently, we must travel long distances and many hours to get to churches to provide training. It is not uncommon for us to drive over 12 hours to get to a church location before the training event even starts. Even with careful scheduling, this eats up too much time and money, and severely limits the number of groups we can train. 

Establishing a training center, where groups can stay for several days to receive a complete module of training at a time, would help us to train more people and do it within our budget. It will also be the best use of God's resources that God’s people provide through gifts and donations.

This year, we are asking all the churches and individuals that support the Thailand Methodist Mission to help by taking up special Christmas offerings, so we can purchase land and build a training center.   

This is a huge undertaking, and we must do it in phases. 

The first phase will be purchasing land, bringing in soil to raise the level of the land by about 5 feet (so there are no problems with flooding), and building a retainer wall.  This phase will cost $80,000.  

Here are some of the next phases:

Phase 2: Construction of staff housing (needed on-site), and a Seminar Room with connecting missionary apartment;

Phase 3: Construction of large meeting room with restrooms;

Phase 4: Construction of simple barracks style buildings with bunk beds;

Phase 5: Construction of Office 

Land will be purchased in Buriram province at Lam Plai Mat.  This is located in the Isan region of Thailand.  This is a strategic location for many reasons.  Our ministries focus on the Isan and South regions.  These two regions of Thailand are "deserts of the Gospel", being the regions where there are the least churches.   One can travel for many hours and never pass a single church.

Buriram province is highlighted in red on this map.  It is strategic because:

1.  Blessing Home Isan, Blessing Home Ta Phraya, and Special Blessings Korat are located within an easy two-hour drive, so going to these locations will become day-trips.

2.  Many of our most recent Pioneer Pastor church starts are in this region.

3.  Buriram airport is nearby.  This is significant, as it will allow us to easily fly to the Southern region where we also concentrate effort through the Abundant Life Savings Group Program and the Pioneer Pastor Program.  A round-trip flight costs only $60, and saves us money on hotels, gas, and several days on the road driving back and forth between regions. We will be better able to serve the churches in the South, while spending less time and money traveling lost distances.

This is the time of the year that most churches start to make decisions concerning Christmas time.  So please pray, and if the Lord leads you, please ask to have a special Christmas offering for the Abundant Life Training Center.  We are praying that we have all of the funds needed by the end of 2019 to complete this phase.

In times past, I (Mike) have made a simple chart to display where we are on reaching the goal.  Since I lack all artistic ability, it is back to doing another simple chart.

This chart is in green, because the place that is being purchased is currently a vibrant green rice paddy.  We are already $6,000 into progress on this goal, because of the generosity of Madisonville First UMC taking a special offering at Easter time.  Thank you, brothers and sisters of Madisonville FUMC, for starting us out.

Please be sure to designate offerings as ‘Building Fund’.

Donations can be sent directly to Thailand Methodist Mission by check or online.  

Checks can be mailed to our treasurer at:

TMM

P.O. Box 56

Mannsville, KY 42758

Online donations can be done through our website at https://thailandmethodist.org/donate/

A wonderful month for Pioneer Pastors

We want to share with you some great news and thank you for your faithful service as prayer warriors.  We hope you are encouraged by the good news and it will spur you on to continue praying for this mission.

5 year anniversary celebration of Grace Church 

5 years ago, we worked with Pastor Peak and his wife Nam to plant a new church in Fai Kwang county, an unreached sub-district in Phayao Province..  This church is about a 14 hour drive north of where we live.

Phayao Province

Pastor Peak is a retired medic who served in the Thai Royal Army and is also a graduate of our Bible college, Global Theological Institute.  When Pastor Peak and Teacher Nam began to plant this church and visit families in the area, they experienced much resistance from the Buddhist monks from a nearby temple.  When a Thai mission team came from Bangkok to do a prayer walk through the community, the Buddhist monks followed up the next day doing a prayer walk of their own, following the same path the Christians took the day before.  (Here is a link to the blog post from 5 years ago > http://msmorrissey.blogspot.com/2015/05/pioneer-pastor-couple-facing-difficult.html)

Pastor Peak and Teacher Nam humbly persevered and served by bringing the Good News of Jesus to the students at the vocational school across the street from them, and they also led a program to train Christian pastors in Laos who were unable to go to Bible college because of their restrictive governement.  Pastor Peak has trained scores of Laotian pastors in courses such as Old Testament Survey, New Testament Survey, Christian Doctrine, and other basic courses.

Teacher Nam and Pastor Peak at the
5 Year Anniversary Celebration

When we received a call inviting us to the 5 year anniversary celebration of Grace Church, we rejoiced and were excited to participate in this event on August 3.

While at the celebration, we met two missionaries who serve at a training center in Phayao province and have been serving as missionaries in Thailand for 30 years now.  They have been encouragers for Pastor Peak and Teacher Nam.  Mike and Naomi talked about the huge "deserts" of unreached areas in Thailand, and wished most missionaries would spread out over the country to help serve these unreached areas.  They were an encouragement to us to meet missionaries with the same vision as God has given to us, to bring the gospel to unreached places in Thailand and plant churches in places where there are none in the county.

We praise the Lord, He has blessed the Pioneer Pastor Program, and now there have been 38 churches planted in counties that never had a church before.  God is good!

That 38th church was just planted last week in Buriram Province at Lahan Sai with Pastor Nampon and her husband Joy.   This church is a 5 hour drive northeast of us in the Isan region.

Pastor Nampon is a veteran Pioneer Pastor.  12 years ago, she planted the Almighty God Church in Nonsomboon, where Blessing Home Isan is now located.

Now she and her family moved out to Lahan Sai, and unreached county, 4 months ago.  Pastor Nampon and Joy are Christian foster parents of Maria (formerly called Naet), who is one of our Blessing Home children who was saved from being trafficked.  Maria has been in their care since she was 5 years old, and she is now 12 years old and in 7th grade.   Most of our foster parents of Blessing Home children are Pioneer Pastors.

Below are picture of Maria when she began with Blessing Home at 2 years old and a picture of her now.  Please pray for Maria, because she is struggling with math at school.  We have hired a tutor for her to study in the afternoon three days per week to help her with her math skills.

Maria (Naet) at two years of age

Maria today at 12 years of age

It amazes us that God is now using this Blessing Home child to be a helper to her parents as they plant a new church.  Maria loves the Lord and she invites all of her friends to come to church.

Every Pioneer Pastor Church is self-sufficient.  We help to provide Bible college education, training, and equipment, but we do not provide salaries for the pastors.  Self-sufficient churches are permanent churches because they do not depend upon outside support to survive.  Pastor Nampon's husband, Joy, will be supporting the family and ministry by selling BBQ Pork sticks and sticky rice.  Your donations helped to purchase a cart, so Joy can sell his BBQ and sticky rice in several locations (morning time at the school, afternoons at two different markets).

The Pioneer Pastor Program also purchased tables, chairs, a pulpit, curtains for the walls to dampen the sound, musical instruments, a sound system, and a sign.

Pastor Somsri, who serves as our Thai Coaching Pastor, will be bringing Thai mission teams from Fire of Glory Church for evangelism events during this next year and will do visits every 6 weeks.

Joy, Pastor Namporn, Pastor Somsri, and Pastor Warin

First service at Lahan Sai Church

On August 11, Lahan Sai church had their first worship service.  Please pray for this new Pioneer Pastor Church, that many people in Lahan Sai will receive Jesus as their Savior and Lord and will grow to be strong disciples of Christ at Lahan Sai Church.

It was especially meaningful to us that this church was planted on August 11, because it is our 35th anniversary.  I (Mike) belong to the "Married Up" club.  I am married to the most Christ-like woman that I have ever met, and I am blessed WAY BEYOND what I deserve.  And we are blessed to be called by God to serve together in Thailand.  God is good!