Mission Team visits Blessing Home

Pastor Banya of Life Center UMC of Pattaya together with his wife Ampon and two children.
Life Center UMC is the sponsoring church of Blessing Home

This past Thursday, we had the privilege of working together with Pastor Banya and the staff of Blessing Home to host a luncheon for a mission team from Faith UMC of Temple City, California.  The leader of the team, Ann Cheng, is the sister-in-law of Pastor Sarah of Pradumri First UMC in Chonburi, the mother church of the UMC in Thailand.  It was wonderful to be able to see Ann again and to meet the team members.  The mission team brought gifts for the children who sang to them.  When the children of Blessing Home sing, they do it with gusto.  They sing at full tilt, almost more like shouting cadences rather than singing.  So when you are inside a concrete building with them and they are singing, it almost hurts the ears.  However, their singing always makes us happy, because they have smiles on their faces and joy in their hearts.

One more bit of news.  Pastor Banya will be coming with me (Mike) to the Kentucky Annual Conference in June 8-11 in Covington, KY.  If you can come to annual conference to visit with Pastor Banya, you will receive a great blessing.  Again, we will be selling Thai silk and crafts and will also have clergy stoles as well (a great gift for your pastor).

See you there.

Our heroes - Thai Pastors

One of the greatest pleasures of our ministry is being able to visit with the pastors of the churches we have helped to plant.  Each pastor is precious to us.  They are our friends and co-workers.  They are courageous hard-working servants of the Lord.  One of these is Pastor Nampon, of Almighty God UMC in Nonsomboon, in Northeast Thailand.  Pastor Nampon pioneered Almighty God UMC in November 2008, amidst persecution and much spiritual battle.  She has triumphed and persevered, and God has blessed her faithfulness.  Now her church has grown to the point where the sanctuary cannot hold everyone, and many of the members must stand for the whole worship service because of lack of room.

Pastor Nampon of Almighty God UMC

This week, Mike met with Pastor Nampon to make preparations for a Mission Team that will come in March to expand the church building.  While there, we found out that the church’s Christmas outreach was a great success, and 24 people gave their lives to the Lord.  Now Pastor Nampon and the members of the church are visiting the new believers, and many of these are now coming to church.  This is a miracle of God, because just two years earlier Pastor Nampon faced great opposition. 

Please pray for these new believers, that they will grow in Christ and not fall away.   New believers face opposition from family and friends, especially when they grow to the point of wanting to get rid of their idols and amulets.  When a new believer is ready to give up idolatry, there is a special service and the whole community of Christians will pray for that new believer, because family and friends will be very upset with them.  For Thai Buddhists, giving up idols and amulets is like allowing the insurance on your house to elapse.  The idols and amulets are what they trust in to protect them from harm.  To give them up is foolishness to them.  But to Christians, it is a required step in trusting in the Lord.  After a new believers gives up their idols, if anything bad happens to the family, it will be blamed on giving up the idols.  The pressure to return to their old life and old beliefs is tremendous.  Only with prayer can these people stand firm in the faith of Christ.

This happened in the first year of Pastor Nampon’s ministry, a new believer who was in her 70’s died within 2 weeks of giving up her idols and amulets.  All of the community was very angry at Pastor Nampon and she was in danger.  But she persevered, and continued to pray with people.  God has given Pastor Nampon a ministry of healing, and many who she prays with receive healing from the Lord.  Now Pastor Nampon is well-known for her prayers for healing and many people come to her.

Spirit Houses where Thai Buddhists offer sacrifices to ward off evil spirits.

Thai pastors need your prayers.  They work in difficult and sometimes dangerous circumstances.  Please keep them in your prayers.

Opportunities to serve the Lord in Thailand

We know that where there is a need for a servant of God, that there also a person that God is calling to meet that need.  We believe this and we are praying that God will use His wonderful and mysterious ways to match the right people with the right ministries.

There are three opportunities to serve in Thailand that we are praying for at this time.  One is short-term and the other are long-term.

First, the short-term opportunity.  If you would like to come and serve the orphans and street children at Blessing Home for one week or longer (as long as you are willing to stay).  We need dedicated Christians who will help care for the children during the daytime Monday through Friday, and do visitation with the families or guardians who take care of the children on Saturday afternoons.  The cost of service is minimal.  You will need about $750 per month for living expenses plus your plane ticket (you could actually live on less if you would live as a typical Thai person).  We need many people to do this.  If this sounds like you, please contact us at thailandumc@gmail.com

The second opportunity is long-term (at least one year).  We are working together with Rev. John Kim of the Korean Methodist Church to start a new international school in Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat) in Northeast Thailand called Wesley International School.  It is our hope that we will be able to reach those for Christ who will become the future leaders in Thailand.  We need committed Christians who are certified teachers for teaching Pre-school or Kindergarten.  The position pays salary and free housing is provided as well.  If you or someone you know is interested, please contact Rev. John Kim at kery89@hotmail.com 

The final opportunity is for career missionaries (three years or longer).  We need spiritually mature Christians who can serve in the following ways:
1.  We need entrepreneurs who are gifted at starting new businesses, who would do economic development projects at churches and ministries to help make them self-sufficient.
2.  We need seminary graduates (M.Div or higher) who are called to teach at a Bible college in Thailand.
3.  We need humble servants willing to do urban ministry at Blessing Home, doing visitation in the poor communities where children are at risk of the child sex trade.
All of the above career missionaries must raise your own support (we will help to guide your in this process) and will need to go to language school in Thailand for 6 months prior to going to your place of ministry.  There is no ministry as exciting and fulfilling as serving the Lord on the front lines of the gospel.   If this sounds like you, please contact us at thailandumc@gmail.com.

If you know of someone who may be interested in any of these opportunities, please forward this article to them.

A miraculous opportunity

We need your prayers because the Lord has miraculously opened up an opportunity for Mike to lead a Bible Study for Buddhist monks at a temple in Chonburi province.  We cannot give names and locations at this time, because the matter is very sensitive and we do not want to jeopardize the opportunity to teach about the Lord Jesus Christ at the Buddhist temple.

A series of events that were designed by God led to this opportunity.  Sherri gave my name card to an acquaintance who was interesting in helping in some way at Blessing Home.  This acquaintance has a friend who is a Buddhist monk and they began to talk about Blessing Home.  The monk then took Mike's name card and called him several times.  Finally, last week, they had the opportunity to meet at the Buddhist temple where the monk lives.  Before the meeting, the monk had asked if we could give him a complete Bible (not just a New Testament).  We were totally out of full Bibles, and only had New Testaments, so Sherri had to give the monk one of her own Bibles.  Upon receiving the Bible, the monk was very happy.  We also gave him Bible Study materials to guide him in his study.

While there, Mike discovered that the monk (sorry, I cannot share his name at this time) had attended a Christian school as a child, and there he had learned many Christian songs.  There at the Buddhist temple, the monk and Mike sang Christian songs like "Amazing Grace" and "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee", and then we prayed together for the Lord to reveal Himself.

Later that evening, the monk called Mike to say that the Abbot of the Buddhist temple has given permission for us to hold a weekly Bible study there.  This week will be the first week of the Bible Study.  We need your prayers that God will open hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Please pray each day.