2012 THAILAND MISSION

Pastor Paul teaches Chapel at VBCI

The Victory Bible College International Building in Sriracha

 

Our friends Ron Miller, Ronnie, and Chaloom (last week at Chiang Rai)

It's 6:30am on Thursday here and we're getting ready for the longest day we'll ever have. We'll be teaching 1 Timothy chapter 4 at Victory Bible College this morning, then after we have lunch with them, we'll say good bye to the students and staff there. At about 3:00pm we'll drive back up to Bangkok for our 7:30pm flight home. After about 15 hours, we'll arrive at LAX at about 9:30pm local time, but it will still be THURSDAY evening! Then we drive home to arrive around 4:00am in Phoenix.

What a wonderful experience: exhausting and challenging, but wonderful to meet and bless all these brothers and sisters here in the "outer reaches". Again, THANK YOU for joining with us in prayer and allowing us to go! See you this weekend at Calvary and Grace Community Churches!

SRIRACHA

Sriracha is a fairly large city on the gulf

Victory Bible College International

Pastor Paul in a classic pose with what.. a tie?

We joined them for lunch in the open air roof-top patio

Today we made some friends in the city of Sriracha; about 25 students are enrolled at Victory Bible College there. They are from all over the world: Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Burma, Canada, Africa and the U.K. We are teaching 1 Timothy in their Bible class this week and sharing from our ministry experience. All the students expect to go to various countries and serve the Lord in a variety of ministry outreaches.

We've changed our travel plans and will get back home a day earlier (yay!). We'll be arriving at LAX on Thursday night and drive home by early Friday morning. We are really excited about all the Lord has done and can't wait to share with you in the coming weeks.

THANK YOU ALL FOR HOLDING US UP IN PRAYER AND FOR GIVING SO THAT WE CAN REACH OUT TO THESE BROTHERS AND SISTERS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD.

RESTING & RECHARGING

Pastor Paul strikes a contemplative pose

After all our teaching on Grace, we couldn't resist being a little naughty

This is the view from our hotel in Bangkok

Between teaching the Hmong Pastors up in Chiang Khong last week and the students at Victory Bible College outside Bangkok next week, we have a few days to rest and regroup. We visited some magnificent gardens at Doi Tung (Flag Mountain) and now have the weekend in Bangkok before we start teaching again.

Even here we're doing a little work. We visited with Molly Evans, a missionary here in Bangkok from Grace Community Church. Molly is enduring a very rough life for her 6-month internship reaching out to needy immigrants and exploited children. We're also doing some preparation for the classes and messages we'll teach next week.

THANKS FOR PRAYING! We're all doing well and God is blessing our ministry so far.

IDOLS

As we travel in Thailand, we're constantly seeing reminders of the idolatry and demon worship that dominate the thought and practice of the whole region. We in the west tend to dismiss idolatry as ignorant tradition and we don't understand the reality of the spiritual oppression here.

This particular city is very dark and a Christian missionary eventually had to move her Children's Home to another town because the spiritual opposition and oppression was so intense. However, even as the darkness is so real here, so also is the reality of the Gospel. People who have experienced the bondage of Satan are very aware of the power of the new life in Christ when God saves them.

HMONG VILLAGE

On the last day of the conference, our friend Ajarn Ling (Ajarn means pastor or teacher) took us to his village and showed us the two churches he pastors there. To say their living conditions are "humble" is hardly a true picture. We saw some girls taking a bucket shower outside in the middle of the village at the water tank. The upside is that the clothes they were wearing got washed too!

However, one of the two church buildings they get to use is really nice. It was built on the top of a little hill by Korean Christians who have built hundreds of them in various villages and then just leave them.  (The little cross to the right is neon - very cool!)

MAKING FRIENDS

We are here in Thailand to teach, but that's not all. Calvary and Grace Community Church provided for meals, lodging and travel expenses for most of the Hmong Christians who attended the conference. The Hmong are usually exploited or persecuted by outsiders so this is a great encouragement to them that fellow Christians they've never met have been so generous to them.

As we ate and talked and worshiped with them, we formed bonds of friendship and trust. We noticed this 2nd conference was much more warm and friendly than the 1st. They were really happy to see us again and hear what we had to teach them.

PASTORS CONFERENCE

We completed our Pastor's Conference Thursday night after 16 sessions and 12 meals. We met some amazing Hmong Christian leaders and worked hard to equip them to build up their churches. A couple of the new leaders we met this year are in charge of 224 Hmong churches with over 50,000 believers! What an awesome privilege to open their eyes to God's Word on Grace, the Holy Spirit and how to study the Bible.

CHIANG KHONG

We've been in Chiang Khong Monday and Tuesday. The guest center where we're holding the conference is on the Makhong River, directly across is the country of Laos. We taught 3 sessions on Monday and we'll have done 5 more by tonight. Thank the Lord! The meeting room has A/C! We had over 60 Hmong leaders with us today, please pray for the ministry.

These are long days, we hit the bed dead tired at night. Last night we were at a rather "rustic" hotel which featured box springs to sleep on (guess you had to pay extra for a mattress). But it was OK since we were so tired and the roosters got us up at 4:00am anyway.

SUNDAY MORNING

This morning we awoke to the sun obscured by a sky filled with smoke and pollution. Chiang Rai is a largely agricultural area and most of the farmers are burning their fields this month to get ready for the next crop. We are also aware that the Gospel is just as obscured over here by tradition, demon worship and false religion. It would be easy to be overwhelmed by the opposition we're facing, but this morning the Lord directed me to Ephesians 4:9
Now this expression, "He ascended," what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.

Jesus has ascended! He has risen in triumph over sin and death and every earthly power! That's our confidence and our standing. Apart from this, we have little hope to accomplish anything, but since we are "seated with Him in the heavenly places" (Eph 2:6) we know that nothing can stand against His plan and purpose for us. What are you facing today? Jesus has ascended FAR ABOVE it all: far above all fear, temptation, personal inability or evil opposition. Thank you Jesus!
- Pastor Dan

BACK IN THAILAND

We're in Chiang Rai! The 17 hour flight into Bangkok was actually OK - Thai Airways is a great way to go. Got in about 5:30am local time and then caught a flight to Chiang Rai (way up north) at about 9:15. We have a couple of days here to recover before we drive up to Chiang Khong on Monday for the conference. Already we've eaten some pretty good food and some very strange "greens" (I'd call them weeds at home). Trying to stay awake now to get on the right sleep schedule (it's 6:24pm here).
- Thanks for praying for us! Pastor Dan

T MINUS 2 DAYS

Wow. Just 2 days and we'll be on a plane to Thailand! No - I'm not ready, not packed, and not over the cold I've been fighting. (Really Jesus - a cold? Now?) Maybe the Hmong will be super impressed with my "basso profundo" radio voice. Well, it will be another week before we're teaching up in Chiang Khong, so I should be OK by then.
THANK YOU so much for praying for us! - Pastor Dan