Welcome 2012: A Prayer Update

Greetings in Christ name! Happy 2012!  Although many people welcome the new year with apprehension, we on the other hand, welcome it with  joyful anticipation for what God will do around us, with us, for us and through us this year.

All the nations you have made will come and worship before your, Lord they will bring glory to your name. For you are great and do marvelous deeds, you alone are God. - Ps. 86:9-10

With your prayers and support you are so much a part of everything that God is doing in this part of Thailand. Thank you very much.  We want to share with you some of the activity highlights this month.

Ministry to the children of Tachilek (Burma)

Few days before Christmas, we received a call from Angela telling us that Samrung, Tilek's brother was sick. She assumed that he was sick because he was missing his brother. Sam rung was staying in a children's home in Tachilek.  So she brought Sam Rung to be with his brother hoping he would get better. But when we saw him, we were certain that he was very sick. We took him to the clinic and the doctor said that we should bring him to the hospital at once. There he was found to be suffering from chronic TB.

Sam Rung is in the isolation room in the hospital
with his room mates being tested for TB three weeks later.

This caused deep concerns for health officers, to prevent a breakout they asked us to bring the other children that share the room with Sam Rung. We brought a total of 16 children to the hospital to be tested and if found positive, and thankfully all of them are found out to be negative. It was in God's timing that a team from Displaced Orphans International (DOI) was in town doing medical mission. They kindly extended financial assistance for the children's TB test. We thanks the Lord for his provision and the opportunity to minister to these children.

Ministry with Teams

The year started with us working with two teams. The other is the 11-person YWAM team from Maddison and medical professionals from Displaced Orphans International (DOI).

The YWAM team wanted to minister to the hilltribe children so we brought them to the village that is close to our heart, Ban Kok Noi. We drove them to the mountain. Narlin and I have the chance to be reacquainted with people we befriended two years ago when we held our English camp there. We also gave gifts to them. We took the opportunity to visit the village leader. They also minister with children home in Tachilek and to our children.

The kids with the YWAM team from Maddison.

We were giving a small gift to Ban Kok Noi village leader when he requested to
be photographed. He invited us to come back and teach English.

Moreover, the Displaced Orphans International (DOI) Foundation was able to connect with us through a friend of a friend. They told us about their medical mission in Tachilek and their desire to come in our home to bless us and our children. They did medical and dental exams to the children. Narlin and I were treated with the best dental care in the hotel. We experienced the best missionary care in a while. We felt so special. Our hearts are full of gratitude to the teams that truly blessed our lives.

Teaching Ministry

We praise the Lord for what He is doing with Narlin's teaching ministry. Although, our Bible teaching and discipleship training may take another year to kick off, Narlin's teaching ministry is getting momentum. She is now teaching conversational English to the municipal employees and teachers at Wat Pohweehan Municipal school. It is a big blessing to be part of the municipal school family.

The school wants to employ Narlin as fulltime English teacher but we believe that being a volunteer give her better opportunity to share the gospel in the school and to have more time with the ministry. Moreover, the school is looking for more English teachers and our prayers is that the Lord will use our relationship with the school in acommodating kingdom workers in the future.

Rainbow Children

The children are busy with the school and with learning music. But we took advantage of the New Year holiday to camped out at Ban Than Luam Forest Park. They enjoyed the camp that we decided to continue it to our backyard. Playing and eating out were so much fun.

By theway, the children are really enjoying learning to play violin, guitar and piano. We are short of musical instruments to use for practice, if you have old violin or guitar, you may consider donating it to us. =)

Narlin with the kids after hiking to the mountain

Prayer Concerns

We thank the Lord for the opportunity to network and work with other mission organizations and ministries.  We pray that this networking would bring more people to a relationship with our Lord Jesus.

We praise and thank the Lord for his promised provisions that makes us not to worry about our financial needs. Thank you for your love, prayers and support.

Please continue to pray for our plan to have a English language/Discipleship/ Leadership Training and Resource Center. This will also serve as home stay for coming missions teams and Angela's place (most of the time she is in Burma) in Mae Sai.

Please continue to pray for our children's education. Not only for the financial matter but the difficulties and technicalities of home schooling.

Pray for our "adopted" children's national identity. The school recommends them for Thai ID llast year but it is taking unusually long time for the approval.

We are expecting a very busy summer with organizing camps, trainings and teaching. We are also expecting several mission teams to come at about the same time to help us with these activities. Pray that God will use the teams to share the gospel. Pray for wisdom and strength.

Please pray for another year extension of our visa and house stay. Pray that just like the previous years, the process will go on smoothly again. There is so much development in our neighborhood that the owner of our house might be tempted to sell the property.

Once again, we thank you for your untiring support and prayers. We always feel your love for us.