We can tell you are praying for Thailand NOW. March was a month of rejoicing!

Sherri and I are always aware that you are praying for us and the Thailand NOW mission. We feel it every day. And we see it too, because the Lord is working through your prayers to do great things. God is good! Every year in the month of March, we give praise to God to be able to send a large amount of support to all of the Blessing Home Centers so that the directors can purchase school uniforms and supplies and pay other school fees for the Blessing Home kids. It gives us great joy to see our kids in their school uniforms, because a child in school is being developed and protected from traffickers. It would not be possible without people like you. Most of our children receive three types of uniforms so they can go to school: a regular uniform, a scouting uniform (all Thai students are scouts), and a physical education uniform. You can see the pictures below to see the three types. The new school year begins in May, and Thailand NOW missionaries Allie and David Houle are busy traveling to all of the Blessing Home Centers to do interviews and home visits with prospective new Blessing Home scholarship kids. We try to choose those who are at greatest need and at greatest risk for being trafficked. Your prayers for the Houle's as they prayerfully select children to receive Blessing Home scholarships.

March was also the month that five of our Pioneer Pastors graduated with their Doctor of Ministry degrees. Pastors Banya, Wassana, Peter, Warin, and Somsri all worked hard to earn their doctorate degrees. We give praise to the Lord, because the abilities and resources to train Thai pastors and Christian leaders has increased. When you pray, give praise to the Lord for these five Pioneer Pastors!

Finally, we give praise to God that Phase One of construction of the Abundant Life Training Center has begun, and the retainer wall is being built. This is an answer to our prayers. Below are some pictures of the construction. Please pray for two of our Thai staff, May and Teddy, as they and their four children move with us to Buriram, where the Abundant Life Training Center will be located. Moving children from one school to another is very difficult in Thailand. Public schools in Thailand are not obligated to enroll children who live in their geographical area. When they applied to schools in the town where the AL Training Center will be, they were told that the school was filled and would not receive their children. They found another school down the road, but they will not know until the first week of May if their children are actually accepted or not. This is a critical situation for them, so please keep them in your prayers.

Developing Leaders and Constructing Campuses

The other day, I was shopping online at a Christian bookstore website and it was overwhelming the amount of Christian education resources available. There was no need to "re-invent the wheel". You could choose any age group and any topic or book of the Bible, and there would be hundreds of books available for teaching Sunday School and Bible studies. In fact, there are so many choices, it seems a bit overwhelming to try to sift through them all to make a choice. But in Thailand, it is a very different story. There is a real paucity of Christian education materials, especially for Sunday School for children and teens. For many years now, we and our fellow missionaries serving with Thailand NOW have been creating Sunday School material and providing it to churches throughout Thailand for free. Each year, Sherri and I have provided trainings for Sunday School teachers, so they can receive curriculum and know how to use if effectively. This past month, Thailand NOW missionaries (Carol Fare, Vicki Brown, David Houle, Allie Houle) as well as our Thai team (Dr. Prai and Miss Supaporn) provided a seminar and workshop for Sunday School teachers in the Korat area. The event was held at Special Blessings Korat, the Thailand NOW ministry for families of special needs children. The Thai Sunday School teachers received curriculum and training on teaching catechism as well as training on how to develop their own curriculum. Carol and Vicki will be following up with the teachers through social media to continue to provide resources and helpful tips. Five churches participated in this training, and we ask for your prayers that word gets out and many more churches will participate in the next seminar. Below are some pictures from the training event.

Last week, we began construction of the retainer wall around the campus of the future Abundant Life Training Center. Pictured below are trucks that delivered some of the construction materials. There is a crew coming with pile-driving equipment to hammer in all of the support columns. Each support column is 24 feet long and there are over 200 columns to hammer into the ground. After the wall is complete, we will have a few hundred truckloads of dirt brought in to raise the land by over 6 feet, so the buildings will be far above flood level. Our prayers are for construction of the retainer wall to be completed before rain season begins at the end of May.

We had a few more people contact us asking about how to donate. You can donate by mailing a check to: Thailand NOW P.O. Box 56 Mannsville, KY 42758 OR give online at : https://thailandnow.org/donate/

God has provided all that we needed! Praise the Lord!!!

First, we want to announce a HUGE jubilant word of PRAISE. We have received all of the donations needed for construction of Phase 1 of the Abundant Life Training Center! God is good!!!

Now we have all of the funds needed to build the retainer wall around the property that was purchased for the Training Center and fill it with 6 feet of dirt to bring it above flood level. Thank you, everyone who prayed and donated towards this important project. We and our staff have not been able to keep up with the demand for training leaders and members in the Abundant Life Savings Group program. When the Abundant Life Training Center is complete, it will help us to increase our training capacity ten-fold. We were all set to start construction on the wall this week, but a second wave of COVID has hit Thailand, and most of the nation is under hardcore shutdown. No one can travel between provinces without special permission and documentation from the police. So we and our team will make the most use of the time to continue producing resources for the Abundant Life Savings Group program and the Pioneer Pastor program. Second, we want to give a shout out to all who generously gave to Operation Christmas Child, the ministry of Samaritan's Purse that most churches participate in each year. Every year, our Thai churches have Christmas outreaches and these shoe boxes filled with Christmas gifts that you have prepared are given to the children. The gospel of Jesus is preached at these events and many people come to Christ, both children and adults. This Christmas, our pastors reported that over 600 people gave their lives to Christ! What most people do not know, is that Operation Christmas Child does not end when the gifts are given to the children. There is also a high quality 8 week children's Bible study that the churches use to start a Children's Bible Club. The children learn about Jesus and are discipled and the Thai Christians reach out to the families of the children too. Many of their parents and grandparents come to the Lord too.

Above our pictures of school children at one of the outreaches, and you can see the Bible study books that they received with their gifts. It is very common to see other family members borrowing the Bible study books so they can read it too. We praise the Lord that we get to work cooperatively together with many organizations like Samaritan's Purse and the Gideons. Finally, Sherri and I wish you a Blessed New Year. We are grateful for your prayers and support which make this mission fruitful and possible. Praise the Lord!