Friday, December 15, 2023

URGENT PRAYER NEEDED - Christmas In Thailand - Dec 16, 2023

I love this time of year. It is a time when Christians all over Thailand will be given numerous natural ways to share the love and message of Jesus with many who have never heard. Every year NTIM, Grace Language School, and Baan Athitaan Church make intentional efforts to care to reach out to make the most of the time and financial resources that God has given us to share the love and message of Jesus in Northern Thailand. Believe it or not, our first Christmas Outreach event began several weeks ago when we had an awesome team from a Partner church in Australia with us for a week. We did several English Fun Day outreaches where we shared about Christmas and we were able to put on a Chrismtas Program in an area where they had never ever had anyone do a presentation of Christmas. This was a good partnership with some of the IMB folks that live in this part of God’s world as well.

Many of you know that we live in a part of the world where less than 1 out of every 100 people know Jesus as their personal Savior. Put another way, 99 out of every 100 Thai people are without a personal relationship with Jesus and many have never even heart the message of Jesus. Lost without Jesus? Yes, 99% of almost 70 million people.

There are also over 70 different ethnic unreached people groups that live in this country…some of these UPGs are some of the last reached peoples in our world today. We believe God wants many of these precious people to come to know Jesus this Christmas season, but we need your help to do that. Many of the events that we have been planning require your help and we are asking that each of you help in one or all of 3 ways:

 

1) Please Help By Praying . . .

Pray for our planning process that God would guide us to do what He wants us to do and say what He wants us to say and “love on” the people He wants us to “love on.” Pray that we would "seize the day" as the Christmas season is the most natural time of the year for us to talk about the message of our great Savior. Pray for our awesome staff and team. Pray for those who we partner with in ministry. Pray for the thousands of people who will hear the message through our very words this year. Here are some of our planned events.

December 13 & December 14 – Awesome Volunteer Teams Arrive – A team of 8 people from Crosspoint Church of Gulfport, MS arrived on December 13 along with a team of 3 people from FBC Florence, MS arrived on December 14 to help us with our Christmas outreaches. Praise God that the covid pandemic it now behind us and God has opened up the doors for partner churches to come and help us reach Thailand again. Please pray that all of us would be the light that lights up the darkness with the love of our great Savior.

December 15 - Baan Athitaan Church's Main Christmas Outreach Program - In my almost 25 years of living and serving in Thailand, I have found that the most natural time to share the message of Jesus is the Christmas season. It has also been my experience that many people open their hearts to Jesus during this season and become the first follower of Christ in their entire family. Let that sink in for a moment. Last night we had over 500 people at this event and some were hearing the message of Christmas for the first time and several of then it was the first time they had even been to a church. We hqe skits, dramas, music, food, fun and a time to share the message of Christmas, and an evangelism booth. During the message time I shared about “Christmas is for All People.” Thank you for praying for us. Please continue to pray for those who heard the message of Jesus for the first time to continue to be drawn to wanting to know more about Jesus.

December 16 – Children’s ESL Christmas Outreach (Grades 1-6) - God has given us great access into our community through teaching English.  We teach English to not only young people and adults but also to children. We teach children grades 1-6 every Saturday morning and we will have an awesome time helping these precious ones celebrate Christmas. Pray that God would draw these little hearts to Him as we have a special program for these children this Saturday morning.


December 17 – Christmas Outreach to Akha Village where Boom’s mom lives. God has given us great access to many different people groups. One of those people groups is the Akha people group of which one of our Thai staff is from. Please pray for us as we do this outreach this coming Sunday night. Pray that God would draw the heart of the Akha people group to Jesus.


December 18 & 19 – English Fun Days with Christmas theme in two Different Government Schools. We have an English language platform called Grace Language School that gives us great access to millions of people who live in and around Northern Thailand from many different unreached people groups. On December 18 & December 19, we will be going into two different schools and putting on an English Fun Day with Christmas as our main theme. Pray for the hundreds of students that we will be around these two days.

December 19 – Coffee House Christmas - Teaching English at Grace Language School is one of the natural ways that we build relationships with our students with an intentional commitment to sharing the message of Jesus. We love to do these Coffee Houses in the context of fun activities. We are so thankful to have the Volunteer Teams from the US with us to help us in our outreaches. This will be a natural time for us to share the good news in the context of warm relationships with our students. We want our students to understand that the one who created them loves them deeply and has a wonderful plan for their life. Pray for God’s working through this coffee house to draw some of the least reached peoples in our world today into a relationship with their Savior.

 1) Please Help By Praying . . .

 

2) Please Help By Giving . . .

We are wanting to provide good quality evangelistic programs that touch the heart. We do not consider these "expenses" per se but rather "investments" into the lives of people for the Kingdom and glory of God. We are asking God to sell a few cows and send $6,000 to $10,000 to NTIM. Please prayerfully consider giving a donation to NTIM to help us cover our Christmas evangelism outreaches. Your financial investments allow us to be your hands and feet 24-7 here in the heart of the 10-40 Window.

 

3) Please Help By Asking Others To Pray. 

Many people want to give in a special way at Christmas to a good cause that will really make a difference in people's lives. However, they just don't know where there is a need. This may be an opportunity for you to help your family and your friends know where their donation can make a huge difference for Jesus among some of the least reached people in our world today.

We are excited about all that God is doing on this side of the world and thanking God for each of you and your partnership with us for the sake of the gospel.  

Your Servants to the Nations in and around Northern Thailand for Jesus sake,

Michael for the team  

"...Behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." Luke 2:10-11

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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

NTIM is a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization based in the USA. We are committed to connecting people in need with people who care and are focused in the heart of Southeast Asia where poverty is high, education is low, needs are great, unreached people groups (UPGs) are all around us, and the love and message of Jesus is needed to transform lives.

You can send donations to support God’s work to NTIM. All donations made to NTIM are tax deductible and can be made either online at www.gontim.org or mailed to NTIM, P.O. Box 26115, Birmingham, AL  35260

If you would like to get on our email update listing, please send me an email at pray4ntim@gmail.com