Dear Friends, Family, and Partners,
We are writing to follow up with our friends, family, and partners
in ministry on some of what God is doing here in Thailand and to bring you into the loop as
to what we envision for the days ahead regarding our project of “Lighting up
the Darkness.”
God has already provided us with an awesome piece of land that is
now officially registered and owned by Channel of Blessing Foundation, which,
for all practical purposes, is the Field Foundation of NTIM. Many of you have
given specifically for the purchase of land over the past two years and because
of your generosity, we were able to complete phase 1 of our project which was
the purchase of land.
We are now beginning Phase II and want to ask for your
help as we begin this new phase of preparing to put up a useful multi-purpose
facility that can be used to expand the Kingdom of God and enhance our ability
to reach some of the least reached people groups in our world today. Below is a
picture of piece of land God has given us.
Short Background Summary
We have been sensing
from God that it is time for the work here in Thailand to establish a more
permanent presence and say to “the darkness” that God’s work of transforming
the Thai people in Northern Thailand is here to stay! Hope and I have been in
Thailand for almost 19 years now (Jan 13, 2018 will be our 19 year anniversary),
including the first two years in language school in Bangkok when our children
were young. We moved to the city of Chiangrai in Northern Thailand in July 2001,
16 years ago. Chiangrai is considered the heart of the Khon Muang unreached
people group (also known as the Northern Thai people). This is the third
largest people group in Thailand, with somewhere between 6-7 million people. It
is not only one of the largest unreached people groups in Thailand but it is
also a part of what many call “World A” with less than ½ of even 1% claiming to
be followers of Jesus. Not only is Chiangrai the heart of this very needy
unreached people group, it is also where dozens of other unreached people
groups live that have connections not only in Thailand but also in Myanmar,
Laos, Vietnam, and China.
It was July 2001 that our family moved up North from Bangkok with
a sense of a very clear calling from God to establish an English language
school and to utilize this platform not only to bless the community but to
utilize the relationships developed through the platform as a means to plant
what we envisioned as a “mother church.” Our desire was to start as a house
church but then to grow and establish a strong purpose driven “mother church”
that had the DNA capable of truly impacting Northern Thailand for Jesus and
beginning a discipleship movement that would ultimately be used of God to
facilitate additional church planting and the sending out of national Thai missionaries
from this “mother church.” This church is now officially called Baan Athitaan
Church and this month of October we celebrate 16 years of existence of seeing
hundreds of Thai people give their hearts to Jesus and begin to learn to walk
with Him as a deeply committed follower of Jesus.
We can affirm and have had several partners affirm that God has had His hand of blessing on this work since its very beginning, not because of who we are or how smart we are, but simply because we received and embraced with joy the vision God had for this work and have tried to honor God and to be faithful to this calling and vision now for 16 years in Chiang Rai. What started in our home as a house church on our first Sunday in October 2001 with 8 people, our family of 6 and 2 other people, has blossomed into a very warm, vibrant, and active church family representing as best we can identify at least 23 different language/people groups that all come together to worship our great God at Baan Athitaan Church every Sunday morning.
We are not saying any of this to boast at all because we are very
much aware that “apart from Jesus we can do nothing,” but we have been blessed
by God in part simply because we have tried to abide in Christ and let His Word
abide in us and we have intentionally tried to honor God by joining Him in what
He has been doing and in what He wants to get done. Where many missionaries in
Thailand claim that the work is hard and the Thai people do not want to follow
Jesus, we want to proclaim a very different message and one we consider
consistent with the teachings of God and that message is this: that God is at
work all around us. Over the last 16 years in Northern Thailand, we have experienced
seeing and being involved in hundreds of Thai people giving their hearts to
Jesus and many of them becoming the first persons in their entire family to become
followers of Jesus. This is not the work of man but is the work of God, and to
Him belongs all the glory and honor. Not only have many of you donated
money to NTIM for this work in the past, but also many of you have come on
mission trips to help in this work and you too have shared deeply in this
blessing.
As we have shared many times before, we have been very careful to
build the flock and work of God before ever purchasing a piece of land, and we
are now very happy to say that we have purchased a piece of land but without a
building, we are still having to rent our current building until we can put up
our own building. We believe it is God’s timing to say to the darkness
that we are here to stay and to establish a permanent beach head for God’s work
through putting up a multi-purpose facility where we can also keep the costs of
English language learning at a level where anyone from any socio economic
background can study with us. We have now begun phase 2 of the project and that
is raising funds for the building materials and mobilizing volunteer teams to
come and help us put up this multi-purpose facility. This facility will house
the Field office for NTIM. It will also house Grace Language School, and
offices for Baan Athitaan Church. This building will be used to bring glory to
God every single day. Every single day this building will be used for the
purposes of teaching, evangelism, discipleship, leadership training, church
planting and the expansion of the kingdom of God.
We are in the process of working with a key partner in the US that
will help us coordinate volunteer
construction teams to come out and help us put this facility up for the glory
of God and the advancement of His kingdom. We are also in the process of
planning to work with another key partner who represents an Australian
organization that will help us supervise the construction process. We are
estimating that the building materials, and required permits, will cost
somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000 for the totality of Phase 2. That
total cost of $300,000 is based upon an assumption that we are able to utilize
volunteers teams to do the bulk of the work which we believe is not only
possible, but will bring Honor to God as Christians all over the world work together
for the sake of the Great Commission and reaching some of the least reached
people groups in our world today.
We can envision beginning the construction process as early as
January 2018, but more likely closer to March, depending upon how quickly we
are able to raise the funding needed. We currently do not have anything in the
bank for our building project having recently spent it for the purchase of land
but we believe God is able to do more than we ask or think, and we really
believe that God is going to begin providing those funds soon through the
generosity of His people.
We Invite You To Join God in What He is
Doing in Northern Thailand by Buying Some Bricks
We want to implement
an idea of “buying bricks” in order to raise this $300,000 dollars needed. In
order to make it easy to understand and easy for everyone or every family to be
able to “donate” and buy at least one brick we are setting the cost of each
“brick” at $25. If we take the total cost of $300,000 needed and divide it by
the cost of 1 brick ($25) then we need donations for 12,000 bricks. 12,000 X 25
= 300,000. What we are asking each of you to do is to pray about donating or
“buying” as many bricks as you feel the Lord would have you purchase. For some
of you who are on very tight budgets, that may mean buying only 1 brick and
sending in to NTIM as a donation
Please also consider advocating for us and sharing this need with
some of your friends or with your Sunday School class or with churches that may
have a heart for reaching the unreached and want to join God in making a huge
difference for the advancement of God’s kingdom in very needy places. Remember also
that NTIM is a registered 501c non-profit organization in the USA allowing all
of your donations to be considered tax deductible. These donations can be sent
to our mailing address in Birmingham, AL or made online at our website at www.gontim.org
If you are from a country outside the USA and would like to make a
donation directly to our foundation here in Thailand, you may do that by
sending a wire transfer to Channel of Blessing Foundation. Bank Name: Bangkok
Bank, Swift Code: BKKBTHBK, Bank Account Name:
Channel of Blessing Foundation, Bank Account Number: 537-040-7594. If you do
that, please follow that up with an email to pray4ntim@gmail.com so that we will be
able to allocate those funds according to your designation.
Thank you for your prayers, your partnership, and your commitment
to the great commission of our Lord Jesus. Thank you for joining God in this
project and for buying some “bricks.” May our God bless you for your generosity
for the sake of His Kingdom.
Your Servants To The Unreached In And Around Northern Thailand,
Michael for the team
VP and Director of Field Operations for NTIM
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Financial support can be given through NTIM....
Northern Thailand Impact Ministry
(NTIM), P.O. Box 26115, Birmingham, AL 35260
USA
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.
Reaching, Teaching, Discipling,
Equipping, Training, and Serving People in God’s World through acts of love and
compassionate is what NTIM and our ministry team is all about.
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