Discipleship
is what the Kingdom of God is all about. Disciples of Jesus helping others
become disciples of Jesus. Sometimes discipleship is done in a one-on-one type
setting. Sometimes discipleship is done in a small group setting. Sometimes
discipleship is done in a larger group setting like on Sunday mornings. But we
want to talk about a different type of discipleship that is through an intense intentional
program that has a designated time frame but will deeply transform you life.
Here
at Baan Athitaan Church in Chiangrai, Thailand, we are passionate about
creating spaces and opportunities for authentic, Word of God driven,
discipleship opportunities.
In
September of 2017 God brought the Crave International team from Canada to
Chiang Rai, Thailand with a passion for discipleship and the local church. It
was through God’s leading and through serving alongside each other at Grace
Language School and at Baan Athitaan Church that we have gained a confidence in
serving alongside each other for the glory of God and the expansion of His kingdom.
The Crave team serves within and alongside Baan Athitaan church (BAC) in many
capacities and we serve the Lord together very well.
We
are excited to announce that this fall we will be partnering together for an
intensive discipleship Crave program! We are inviting young adults all over the
world to join and become a small group of interns that will come and serve
alongside our team at BAC, where each intern will go through an overview of the
entire Bible, be fully immersed into language and culture, serve the local
church and community, have short-term missions experiences in Thailand, go on
retreats, evangelize, and learn better how to walk with God and see Him
transform not only your life, but the lives of some of the least reached people
in our world today.
Please
take a moment and look at this short video clip:
We
believe that the holistic approach of this program leaves young adults with a
deepened faith, with real life changing, cross-cultural experiences and with an
increased love and understanding for the local church and its impact on our
world today.
At
the same time, we will be also opening this experience up to English speaking
Thai nationals to also participate in various service opportunities and of
course journeying through the Word of God.
As
our team grows and as we journey deeper down this path, we look forward to also
providing this experience in the Thai language in the not too distant future.
The
dates for this special internship are from September 5 to December 20, 2019.
If
you feel that God is tugging on your heart, or maybe you know someone who you
might think is a good fit to come and journey through the Crave program in
Northern Thailand, please check out www.craveinternational.org for more information.
Please
continue to keep us in your prayers as we continue to seek to make disciples
and expand the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus here in and around Northern Thailand.
Until
All the People Living In and Around Northern Thailand have a chance to know
Him,
The Bible encourages us to live with an acute awareness that one day -
probably soon - Jesus will come again to this earth and will usher in the
beginning of the countdown of the earth as we know it. The beginning of the end
of the time when men, women, and children all over the world and from every
unreached part of God’s World will no longer have a chance to believe in Jesus
and become a citizen of heaven. Now, we still have the opportunity to go into
all the world and share the greatest message of all time -that Jesus has paid
the penalty for sin and invites everyone to accept this payment as their own
and trust Jesus as Savior and Lord. One day – soon - the time will come when
that invitation will no longer be made available.
Since this is true, I want to plead with all of our Christian friends
all over the world to do 4 things: 1) Consider praying more intentionally, 2) Consider
giving more regularly, 3) Consider going on a short term mission trip more
often, and 4) Consider going on a longer term mission assignment joining others
who have committed their lives to seeing the UPGs of this world have access to
the gospel message and discipleship transformation.
Even in the midst of millions who still have never heard the message,
God is at work drawing people to himself and transforming their lives.
Most of you reading this know Phet because Phet has served on our staff
at Baan Athitaan Church, Grace Language School, and Northern Thailand Impact
Ministry for over 10 years now. Hope and I have lived in Thailand for over 20 years now and almost 18
of those years we have lived the city of Chiangrai. Before moving to Chiangrai,
we spent our first 2 years in Thailand in full time language study in the capital
city of Bangkok. While in Bangkok we received what we believe was a vision from
God to move to Chiangrai in Northern Thailand and begin working among some of
the least reached people groups in our world today. We felt God’s leadership to
establish a legal and legitimate English language school as a platform for
reaching some of these least reached peoples with the gospel of our Savior
through the relationships that we established through our school. We believed this
would be the starting point for a church plant that has now become what we call
Baan Athitaan Church.
In those early days, we began forming relationships with several
high schools in our city as well as with the two universities in our city. We
began reaching out to many, many students whom we would call “seekers of truth.”
Phet was one of those seekers of truth that we met almost 18 years ago. When
many of us from the language school would go onto the university campuses, we would
have great conversations and shared the love and message of Christ quite openly
and freely. One of those people that we began to get close to was Phet. She was
not interested in becoming a Christian at first and we had many discussions
about that, but soon after she began to come to Baan Athitaan Church and see
how we all related to each other, her heart began to soften. I remember the day
that Phet finally surrendered her heart to Jesus and became the first follower
of Jesus in her entire family. That was 17 years ago.
One of the things that I want you to understand about Phet and about this part
of God’s world is that Phet is a Thai citizen. Her nationality is Thai but make
no mistake she is not from the ethnic majority of the Central Thai people. Phet
is from one of those least unreached people groups in our world todayknown as the Mien or Yao. From the time Phet
gave her heart to Jesus some 17 years ago as a university student, I have been
the only Pastor Phet has ever known. She has been a part of Baan Athitaan
Church from almost the very beginning and has served as one of my key staff
members and mentors/disciplers for new believers for the last 10 years.
God is truly transforming the lives of some of the least reached people
in our world today. God has given us a unique role in joining God in this great
work amongst the unreached people groups living in and around Northern Thailand.
Out of the 67 million people living in Thailand, 20 - 32 million of
them (if you include the "Thai-Chinese" from Joshua Project into the
group) are from the Central Thai UPG. The second largest unreached people group
(UPG) in Thailand is the Isaan people group and they make up about 18 million
people. The third largest unreached people group (UPG) in Thailand is the
Northern Thai (Muang) people group and they have about 7 million people here in
Thailand mostly living in Northern Thailand. Phet is from one of the smaller
unreached people groups in Thailand with about 45,000 people living in Thailand
but with over 272,000 living in Vietnam and over 1 million living in China.
There are over 80 different unreached people groups living here in
Thailand. God has given NTIM and its awesome partners the opportunity to be
involved in seeing hundreds of Thai people, Laotian people, and Chinese people
from these various unreached people groups come to know Jesus over the last 20
years. Most of those who have come to Christ during our tenure have been either
high school or university students and have been the first or second persons in
their entire families to become followers of Jesus.
Even though we have seen God do some amazing things over the years, we
feel very much like we are on the precipice of something new. There is so much
more work to be done and the focus of our work is moving more in the direction
of training and equipping and putting down a solid foundation for future growth
with a permanent presence through our current building project (which I will
give an update on soon).
Last Saturday – May 18, 2019 – Pii Phet married a man from England
named Jonathan Coombes. Most of you reading this update from the other side of
the world who know and love Phet, were not able to be here so I have included a
video clip link for you to be able to see part of this ceremony. Pii Gahn did a
very good job in putting this together and capturing what a joy it was for us
to celebrate their marriage together.
Please remember to pray for Jonathan and for Phet and their adjustments
to life together and for all of the paperwork for Phet to be able to get a visa
to be able to go and live with Jonathan in England in the days ahead.
Please remember to pray
for these unreached peoples and for the work of NTIM, Grace Language School, and
Baan Athitaan Church which are the ministries that I have the honor to lead. Please
also pray for our partners in ministry as well of which we currently are
partnering with Crave International and Send International.
Remember these words from
our Lord Jesus who said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
Therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His
harvest.” Matthew 9:37-38
For more information on the
work that God has allowed me to lead through NTIM, please write me at
pray4ntim@gmail.com or go to our website at www.gontim.org
Thanking you in advance for your prayers and for your support. "The
prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." James 5:16
Please ask others to pray and forward this email to them.
Grateful and
Happy to be Serving Our Awesome God in Northern Thailand for such a time as
this.
Michael
Johnson
“For we do
not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your
bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.” 2 Corinthians 4:5
P.S. AN
UPDATE ON THE BUILDING PROJECT COMING SOON….
AN UPDATE ON
A SPECIAL INTERNSHIP WITH CRAVE INTERNAIONAL & BAAN ATHITAAN CHURCH COMING
SOON as well….
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 reaching some of the least reached people groups in our world
today and are focused in the heart of Southeast Asia where poverty is high,
educational needs are great, unreached people groups (UPGs) are all around us,
and the love and message of Jesus is needed to transform lives.
