Dear Friends & Partners
In Ministry,
I am in the final planning
stages of traveling to the Annual Global Impact Conference (GIC) that I have
the opportunity to participate in at our home church in Birmingham, AL at
Shades Mountain Baptist Church every February. I am very grateful that my home
church provides the resources needed for me to make this trip each year. Thank
you Jeremy and Pastor Danny and all those who make this happen. It is a
great time to celebrate with others what God is doing all over the world. It is
a great time to share with others about what our awesome God is doing in and
around Northern Thailand. And it is a necessary time to be recharged and refreshed
in our heart to serve the Lord in this needy part of God’s world.
Over the last several
years, we have taken some additional time to travel around to various churches
and host a few “Taste of Thailand” events and we have been able to bring at
least one of our Thai staff with us. This has been a very good thing. It gives
our key Thai partners a chance to be exposed to “church life” in America, to
speak specifically on what they see God doing in Thailand, to learn new ways of
doing things, and to help them work more effectively with our partner teams and
volunteers that come out to Thailand to help the ministry.
This year as we prayed
about whom the Lord would have us consider taking, the Lord made it clear to us
that it should be our newest Staff Member – Garn.
We are very grateful that God sent us a very
talented and godly young man to serve along side of us and help fill several
leadership roles related to working with our young people and leading our whole
worship ministry. This is a picture of Garn. He is not originally from Northern
Thailand at all but is what we would call a “Bangkokian.” He is from the
Central Thai people group. He has been serving with us for
a little over a year now and is a great blessing to the work of NTIM, Baan
Athitaan Church, and Grace Language School.
Like all of the other full time Thai staff folks,
Garn is a first generation believer. In his “former” life, he was the
singer/leader of a rock band and grew to love music and enjoy singing. Now God
has taken this love for music and given Garn the opportunity to use his gifts
and talents for the expansion of the kingdom of God and for the building up of
His body.
We have written this update
to give you a chance to be a special part of supporting and sending Garn to
several mission events with me in America. Even as I write this email Garn is
putting her paperwork together to request a tourist visa from the U.S.
Consulate in Chiang Mai. He will be traveling to Chiang Mai tomorrow because he
is scheduled for an interview at the U.S. Consulate on January 15 to request a
visa to travel to the USA with me. Please remember to pray for God’s open door
to with me. It will be a great blessing in Garn’s life and help him to know, to
understand, and to serve our Lord better with internationals and international
teams that come out to Thailand. We are anticipating that total costs
associated with Garn for this trip to be approximately $3,000. Would you like
to express your love and affirmation of sending Garn to America by sending a
donation to NTIM with the note “Send Garn.” It would really mean a lot to us
and to Garn if we were able to raise all of this in the next 3 weeks.
Looking forward to hearing
from you soon.
Your Servant to Nations in
and Around Northern Thailand for Jesus,
Michael Johnson
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Donations can be sent to: Northern Thailand
Impact Ministry (NTIM),
P.O. Box 26115, Birmingham, AL 35260 USA or given online at our 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, darkness is everywhere, and the love and message of Jesus is needed to
transform lives.
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