Yesterday, January 13, 2019, was a very special and
significant day for Hope, Jessica, Liz, Joshua, Caleb and myself because it was
on this 13th day of January that we all landed for the first time as
a family in Thailand 20 years ago. For all practical purposes yesterday was
Hope and I’s 20th year anniversary of living and serving God in Thailand. When
we got off that plane 20 years ago in Bangkok, we had never heard of this
awesome city called Chiangrai in the Northern most part of Thailand filled with
enormous natural beauty and filled with dozens of unreached people groups, each
with a rich cultural heritage and language but some of the least reached people
groups in the world today. Below is a picture of our family 2 months after we
arrived in Thailand 20 years ago as Caleb made his appearance on the day of his
birth in Bangkok on March 10, 1999. When we landed in Bangkok Jessica was 9, Liz
was 6, Joshua was 1&1/2 and Caleb had been in mommy’s tummy 7 months.
We had yet to discover that after we would spend 2 years in
language and culture learning in Bangkok, that we would sense God’s leadership
to move our family of 6 at that time to Chiangrai and begin what we then called
“OPERATION CHAINGRAI.” “Operation Chiangrai” was a “vision” a “dream put in our
hearts” to join God in establishing an English language platform that God might
be pleased to use as a tool to reach hundreds and possibly thousands of Thai
young people and be the starting point for planting this church that we now
call Baan Athitaan Church, and a tool in the future that could be used to
facilitate church planting not only in Thailand but in neighboring “closed
countries” as well and still be “under the radar” of a legitimate legally registered English language
school.
20 years ago we did not see the future very clearly at all but
we loved, trusted, and knew God well enough to trust Him with all of our heart
and not to lean on our own understanding and to acknowledge Him in all of our
ways and we believed that God would guide and direct our steps just as His Word
promises us in Proverbs 3:5-6.
Today, we want to honor God and give
thanks to Him for His mercy and His goodness these past 20 years. We also want to
take this opportunity to encourage each of you to walk with God, to trust God, to
give you lives to God, to seek after His kingdom and His righteousness first
and foremost in your life, and then…. enjoy the adventure of following Him and
seeing How He allows you to be a part of as He is doing in His world as He seeks
to save that which has been lost.
Let me be perfectly clear: Your life does matter. What
you do and what you do not do has an effect on other people and on eternity.
May God help each of us better sanctify Christ as Lord in our lives and to
learn better what it means to seek God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness in our
lives first above all other people and things. Let us resist the temptation to
be driven by those things that drive the rest of the world but instead be
driven by the love and purposes of God and the desire to honor him with all of
our lives and to joyfully do our part in assuring that the message of Jesus
Christ gets to every person in the world, even to those is some of the least
reached people groups living here in and around Northern Thailand.
For more on the idea of “sanctifying Christ as Lord in our hearts,” please listen to a message I shared with our church here in Thailand just over a week ago. The link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xXarEzrOa4&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3xgMYv9Rawxqq6zyaQzBLSUk1epeF5iZ2-avBxq9poD-OAMyM3oq3yq38
It has been our honor to serve God and to serve Thai people
in a special way these last 20 years…. We have tried to do it all for His glory
and for the advancement of His Kingdom. One of our life verses is 2 Corinthians
4:5, which says, "For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus' sake."
We thank God and we thank you for letting us be your
representatives to the Thai people these last 20 years. I pray that God has
been pleased with our service and that He will be pleased to allow us to serve Him
here many more years to come for His glory and for the advancement of His
kingdom in and around Northern Thailand.
There is still so much work to be done. The fields are ripe,
ready for the harvest but the workers are truly few. This is not work for the
fainthearted! Let us be faithful to find the course God has for us and then to stay
on that course regardless of the difficulties and hardships that come into our
lives.
Our lives do matter and as we truly
reflect on the meaning of Galatians 2:20, we realize that God desires to live
in and through us to reach the lost, to help the broken and the distressed much
like we see our Lord Jesus doing in Matthew 9:36. The various unreached Thai
people groups, the various unreached Burmese people groups, the various unreached
Laotian people groups, and the various unreached
Chinese people groups, simply to name a few, are some of the least reached
people groups in our world today living in darkness without the light of
Christ.
These precious people have been in darkness far too long
now and it is time for God’s people to take the light and message of Jesus into
every village and to every people group living in this part of God’s world….
and may it begin…. with us. “Here we are Lord, send us” is our prayer.
Here is one very practical and urgent way you can help. Most
of you know that we sensed God’s leadership around 3 years ago to move in the
direction of saying to the darkness in Thailand that God’s work of redemption
is here to stay. We shared our vision for what we have called “Project: Lighting
Up The Darkness.” We have been in “rented facilities” for the last 17+ years we
have lived in Chiangrai and we believe it is God’s time to establish a more
permanent platform for NTIM to reach the nations for Jesus with the home base
being here in Chiangrai.
God has blessed us greatly and we are somewhere between
Phase 2 and Phase 3 of our project. Phase 1 was completed when we purchased
land in a very good location just 2 minutes from our current rented location.
Phase 2 started the day we began raising support for the building process. God’s
people and several of His churches have been generous but we are still in need
of about $190,000 so that we can begin this building project with all the funds
needed to complete the building phase of the project.
We are looking at doing a “running/walking fund raiser”
here in Thailand, in the USA, and in Canada (and in any other countries where
someone is willing to coordinate this effort) in the days ahead and will
provide more information on that soon.
But for now, in honor of our 2O
YEARS OF SERVING GOD IN THAILAND, we want to ask each of you reading this
to consider giving $20, or $200, or $2,000, or $20,000, or even $200,000 (as
the Lord prompts your heart) and send it to NTIM designated to go to the
completion of our building project of “Lighting Up The Darkness.” Please
remember that this is not for our sakes…but for the sake of the millions of
people living here in and around Northern Thailand who have yet to hear the “good
news which shall be for all people” much like the Angel said to the Shepherds
in the fields watching over their flocks when our great Savior was born. Believe
it or not, after 2,000 years of the great commission, there are still areas
like where we live where 99 out of 100 people do not yet have their names
written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. In Thailand alone there are 66 million of those
people! For the last 20 years we have had to honor of joined God in seeing that
alarming number change for the glory of God.
We have “in faith” submitted our paperwork to
the government for the approval of our building project and according to our
Architect as of yesterday, we expect to gain the approval to begin the building
process this week. Please PRAY. If we can begin soon, we will be at a stage in
the process where by June 1, we will need volunteers. We hope to have some of
you come out this Summer on a mission team and help us put up walls for our
classrooms and finish the painting. Derek & Jodie May are here from
Mississippi serving as NTIM’s volunteer team coordinators for our building
project and would love to hear from you. Again, let me say thank you in advance
for any financial donation you feel that you are able to make toward this
project at this time. We want each of you to be “invested” in God’s work here
in Thailand because as Jesus said, “Where your treasure is there you heart will
be also.” We want your heart to be in Thailand. Please open your heart along
with us to love these precious people enough to join God in His work of
redemption here.
Until the People in and around Northern Thailand know Him,
Michael for the NTIM, GLS, and BAC teams,
-----------------------------------------------------------
Financial support can be given through NTIM....
Northern Thailand Impact Ministry (NTIM), P.O. Box 26115, Birmingham, AL 35260 USA Main
Website: www.gontim.org
No comments:
Post a Comment