2025-12-24 – Merry Christmas and Special Prayer Request – Expanding to Next Province of Payao

Dear Family, Friends, and Partners in Ministry,

First, let us say Merry Christmas from the other side of the world in Northern Thailand. Hope and I are enjoying all of the festive outreach activities of Christmas and wanted to wish all of our family, friends, and partners a very, Merry Christmas and to ask you to join us in a very special prayer request today on the Christmas Eve.

Here is a picture that was taken two days ago as me and our NTIM Thai Staff and partners in ministry celebrated our Staff Christmas time together like we do each year. These are some of the best Thai Christian leaders in the country that I get a chance to work with every single day. When we had our “outing,” we played some games and sang some Christmas/worship songs. I then shared a devotional with them on what it means “to be a servant of God.” We then reflected on the year and each one shared what God has been teaching them over 2025. After a great time of sharing, we ate some delicious food and exchanged gifts and just had a really good time together with the joy of the Lord in our hearts at the season of Joy.

Today, we are writing this update to ask for your help.

We have a very special prayer request. God has been using our English language school platform in mighty ways to bless the 1.5 million people that live in the province of Chiang Rai. This next month on January 13, 2026 will be our 26^th anniversary of beginning our journey with God in Thailand as we landed in Bangkok on January 13, 1999. We studied Central Thai in Bangkok the first two years before we moved up to Northern Thailand in July 2001 with a sense that God wanted us to use the platform of teaching English to begin the process of being salt and light in our community and letting our relationships, not the classroom, be the way to build a bridge to the hearts of Thai people and begin a new church plant out of those relationships which has now become known as “Baan Athitaan Church.”  God has used our school, our Teachers and Staff, our church, and lots of volunteers from all over the world to open doors of opportunity to see hundreds of people from some of the least reached people groups in our world today, come to know our Lord Jesus as personal Savior and Lord of All. Many of these former students have become the first person in their entire family history to be a follower of Jesus. Our church today is filled with dozens and dozens of genuine 1^st Generation followers of Jesus from many different people groups.

We want to say Thank you for your partnership with us through NTIM in this journey of joining God in what He is doing and wants to do in the days ahead in this part of God’s world.

For a little over 3 years, we have sensed God’s leadership to take a step of faith and reach out into the province of Payao just South of Chiang Rai to do two things: 1) establish an English education extension of our language school and 2) to initiate the planting of a new church connected and seen as a church plant of Baan Athitaan Church from Chiang Rai. After sharing this vision with a NTIM partner church from Gulfport, where Israel Cox serves as Pastor, God began working in the hearts of Doug and Paulette Piper, drawing their hearts to except this invitation through to be the “champion” of this new NTIM project we are calling “Project Payao.” As a partnership between Crosspoint church and NTIM, Crosspoint sent the Pipers here a little over 2 years ago. They are in the final phases of their “full-time” language study, and we are beginning to plan to “commission them” and send them into new territory sometime in 2026, Lord willing. Doug has recently signed a rental agreement on a building that we hope will be approved by the ministry of Education of Payao for use as “Grace Language School – Payao” sometime in this next year of 2026, as our Lord leads us.

After sensing the time was right to begin the formal administrative process of opening an extension of our language school in another province, 5 of our Grace Language School (GLS) leaders (Michael, Doug, Ja, Jay, and Ball) made our first trip last Friday, December 19^th, down to meet with the Ministry of Education of Payao to introduce ourselves and tell them of our desire to open an extension of GLS in Payao and asked them for their guidance and support in this process. Today, we are writing to ask you to pray for grace and favor from the government in Payao province and to pray for all of us who are working as a team to do all of the necessary paperwork needed to complete our English language platform in this new province. These are exciting days for us as we seek to expand the work that God has already started here in Thailand. We just want to follow His leadership and do all that God wants us to do for such a time as this and for the advancement of His kingdom. Please keep us in your prayers.

I am also asking all of our supporters to consider giving a “one time Christmas gift” to help us continue reaching and discipling true 1^st generation believers and share with all Thai people that “there is salvation in no other name than Jesus.”

Many of you already 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 (of which there are 70 million) are without a personal relationship with Jesus and many have never even heard the message of Jesus. Lost without Jesus? Yes, 99% of almost 70 million people. There are also over 70 different ethnic unreached people/language groups that live in this country…some of these UPGs are some of the least reached peoples in our world today. That is why your giving matters, your praying matters, your going matters. It matters to God, it matters to us at NTIM, it matters to the Thai people, it matters to the great commission, and it matters to all of those people whose names will one day be written in the Lamb’s book of life in the days ahead, in part, because of your partnership with us and with NTIM.

We are excited about all that God is doing on this side of the world and we are thanking God for each of you and your partnership with us for the sake of the gospel. Here is a video clip of another baptism that we just had a few weeks ago on December 7, 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzmMuNbCLRg

Thank you for sending us and supporting us as we join God in this great work of reaching what I call the “Last Frontier” of unreached people groups living in and around Northern Thailand right in the very heart of Southeast Asia.

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 for online giving: 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.

Reaching, Teaching, Discipling, Equipping, Training, and Serving some of the least reached people groups in God’s World, through education, through acts of love and compassionate as the light of Christ. This is what NTIM and our ministry team is all about.