Greetings Family, Friends,
and Partners in Ministry,
Today we come to you with a
little different kind of update.
I know some of you are wanting to know about
what is going on with the building ….. and I will give you an update on that
this week.
Some of you are wanting to know about what is going on with Grace
Language School and Baan Athitaan Church ….. and yes, I will give you an update
on that too, this week…
but today, I want to do something different. I want to
ask you the question: WHAT ARE YOU
WORRIED ABOUT?
I get a chance to serve and
teach and share God’s Word here in Northern Thailand almost every day but I don’t
get the opportunity to serve you very often in this matter and I want to do
that in this update. This is not really an update per se but is more of an
encouragement to you.
Would you please take the
time and listen to this message I shared with our people just this last Sunday
on the subject of worry?
I believe God was moving very clearly as I prepared
this message and as I delivered it just yesterday to our flock here in Northern
Thailand. It was also translated by a young lady who gave her heart to Jesus
this last Christmas and who has gotten plugged into our church. She is a
university student at Mae Fah Luang University and is the first person in her
entire family to become a follower of Jesus. She did a tremendous job
translating this past Sunday and I would ask all of you to keep “June” in your
prayers as she continues to grow in her walk with her Lord Jesus Christ and as
we seek to be intentional about discipleship and training our young followers of
Christ like June.
I really want to share God’s Word with you
about this critical topic of worry. Would you please give me the opportunity to
serve you in this way by clicking on the video and let me speak to you about
some practical ways we can combat this horrible tendency we have to worry. Here
is the link on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79MyqM18jnQ
We will be doing a few more
updates this week to help you be informed about a few things but wanted to let
me serve you in this way first.
If you would like more
information on the awesome work God is doing in Northern Thailand and how you
can be involved, please write me, Michael Johnson at pray4ntim@gmail.com
Until the People in and
around Northern Thailand know Him,
Brother Michael for the team
“For we do not preach ourselves
but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.”
2 Corinthians 4:5
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.
Reaching, Teaching, Caring,
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.
I continue to be amazed at the Lord’s
Lovingkindness and declare along with one of the writers of the Psalms that “The
Lord is good and His Lovingkindness never ceases” Psalm 100:5a. Even during one
of the most horrific pandemics our world has ever seen, God continues His work
of transformation and preparing for the future. God is moving mightily changing
lives here in Northern Thailand and preparing a building that will give us a
long-term foundation for joining God in expanding His kingdom for many generations
to come.
As we shared with you in our last update in
June, for well over 20 years, we have seen God reaching deep into families in
this part of God’s world where there has never even been one person who was a
follower of Jesus and then through the context of relationships and teaching
English and sharing our lives with people, God begins to draw that young person
– normally a senior high school or university student – to our Lord Jesus. What
a great joy it has been for us to continue to see God working like this and
allowing ordinary people like you and me to join God and see an amazing God do
extra ordinary things. I could go on and on telling of the great things our God
has done but today I really simply just want to give you an update on our
Building progress.
UPDATE ON LIGHTHOUSE BUILDING PROGRESS
It doesn’t really seem like it but, in May we passed
the 2-year mark of construction. Even in this horrible pandemic, God has
continued to provide us with the funding and workers to bring our main building
project closer to being finished. As I shared with you last month our target
move in date was in July and that date is here. We are preparing our first move
of things this Saturday July 17 and will begin the next week in our new
building.
As we shared with you last month, we will still have
a few “projects” to work on after this building (A and building B) have been
completed. We will soon be working on a few projects like “Thai style Outside
Kitchen,” “a Sala and eating area,” “an extra restroom and shower facility,” “an
extra guest Housing quarters,” “Landscaping” and a children’s playground.
This week we have also been working on planting
trees and today they will begin laying grass in a few areas where we can put it
down. Here are a few pictures of the building taken yesterday.
Here is a short video clip of the crane lowering
one of our trees that we thought you might want to see. Here is the link on Youtube:
We are
planting 4 different kinds of trees that will bloom at different times of the
year and below is what they will look when in full bloom. However, the most
significant tree is called a "White Meranti" and in Thai is "พะยอม" and has the word "ยอม" in it. Since
the flower is white, for many Christians, it carries the idea of purity and
holiness when we surrender "yom" to God. It will be a beautiful tree
and for us represents the purity of God’s Light reaching out into the darkness
with the love of Jesus. We also have several other trees. We also have 2
"Flame Trees" which are a beautiful burnt orange color, 1
"Indian Oak" tree which has a beautiful reddish flower, and 1
"Milettia Brandisiana" tree which has a beautiful purple flower. The
Lord sent us "Pii Wii" who is part of the church family to help us
both with helping Travis design our "Nursing Mother's Room" on the
second floor, as well as helping us with our landscaping and keeping our costs
low. God has been good and it will be beautiful when these trees begin to
blossom.
We are still working on the stage and sound
system, working on the fencing around the property, working on the landscaping,
and many other areas.
Here is
our Facebook link if you want to look at all the pictures that we took a couple
of days ago:
Here is a picture of our
sign we are looking at putting on the building to the left.
Please
keep us in your prayers. These are very busy days and things in Thailand are getting
back to normal so to speak. We still are not vaccinated yet and do not have
access to any of the vaccines but they will be here soon as I understand it.
May God
richly bless you. Thank you for your generosity and for sending us to Thailand.
Until the
People in and around Northern Thailand know Him,
Michael for the team
“For we
do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants
for Jesus’ sake.” 2 Corinthians 4:5
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.
This is not technically an NTIM Prayer Newsletter
or Update but we see this as a wide-open door for Christian Educators to come
to Thailand and at the same time join us in our work to reach Northern Thailand
with the greatest message we could ever tell.
Most of you know that God opened a door for Hope
to lead one of the international schools here in Chiangrai as Head of School. She
had previously served in other capacities but last August she assumed this new
role. Chiang Rai International School has completed their school year and Hope and
the rest of the administration at CRIS are busy recruiting and preparing for
the upcoming school year that begins in August 2021. They have almost all of
their positions filled at this time but are still in need of hiring 2 secondary
science teachers.
If you know someone who has science teaching
degrees and experience or even someone fresh out of college and has an interest
in teaching science here in Northern Thailand, please have them contact Human Resources at crishr@cris.ac.th
Let me
begin by saying that even though our world may seem to be falling apart, BUT God’s
work of redemption, reconciliation and restoration is continuing to flourish
here in Northern Thailand. Even during one of the most horrific pandemics our
world has ever seen, God continues His work of transformation. God is actively
at work transforming the lives of people all over the world. I cannot attest
very clearly about what God is doing in other parts of the world but what I can
tell you today is that God is moving mightily changing lives here in Northern
Thailand.
For well over 20 years, we have seen God
reaching deep into families in this part of God’s world where there has never
even been one person who was a follower of Jesus and then through the context
of relationships and teaching English and sharing our lives with people, God begins
to draw that young person – normally a senior high school or university student
– to our Lord Jesus. What a great joy it has been for us to continue to see God
working like this and allowing ordinary people like you and me to join God and see
an amazing God do extra ordinary things. I could go on and on telling of the
great things our God has done but today I really simply just want to give you
an update on things and ask for a fresh commitment to keep us in your hearts
and in your prayers.
UPDATE ON GRACE LANGUAGE SCHOOL & VOLUNTEER
TEAMS
As most of you know, because of the pandemic we
have had to stop all one-on-one teaching at Grace Language School for many,
many months now but things are getting back to a “new normal” and we are now
allowed to resume teaching English again next week. This is our main GLS English program aimed at
reaching the youth, college age, and young adults. We are pleased to say that
we will resume teaching in this program beginning June 15 and will have 3 more
classes to teach after that to finish out our term and the next new term will
begin in July.
Our second
ESL program is a partnership between GLS and Baan Athitaan Church where we
target children grades 1-6 and teach them for a couple of hours every Saturday
morning. We are now planning to restart this program on June 19.
Please also pray for us as we begin to plan and
map out when we would like to request teams from the USA and really from all over
the world to come out and help us again. We still are under some pretty strict
guidelines with the pandemic and as of today, most people coming in still have
to undergo a 14-day quarantine once they arrive in Thailand before they can
travel on to their next destination so it still does not make sense for us to
plan any teams to come out until this restriction is removed. Please join us in
prayer about that.
UPDATE ON CHRISTMAS OUTREACHES
YES it is JUNE but Christmas will be here soon.
Please pray for us and for the possibility to have teams during the Christmas
Season. Last year we were able to do some very small Christmas outreaches but
we are hoping that the doors will be open much wider for us this year and maybe
even have some teams come out and help us with the outreach time.
UPDATE ON BAAN ATHITAAN CHURCH
As most of you know, we have not been able to
meet in person as a church for many, many, months as well. This have been so
very hard for all of us because we need our church family and the fellowship
that only a local church family can provide. We have been having Sunday morning
services online and we have learned to have greater quality with them but it
still is not the same as our being able to meet together. We are still under a
less than “50” rule where we cannot have meetings in larger numbers than 50. So,
we have a small group of singers, musicians, and technicians, as well as, the Preacher
and Translator who come together on Sunday mornings for the online service.
As a way of helping stay connected with our
flock, I have started to do short daily devotional talks both in English and in
Thai that I send to anyone who wants to hear them. We just finished up a couple
of weeks of talks on what it means to walk in the Spirit and be led by the Spirit.
We have now started to look at some of the “words of Jesus” that are pretty important
for us to consider. Here is an example of one of these devotions. If you would
like to receive these each day, please send me an email and say “yes I want to
receive the English version” or “I would like to receive the Thai version.”
UPDATE ON LIGHTHOUSE BUILDING PROGRESS
It doesn’t really seem like it but, in May we passed
the 2-year mark of construction. Even in this horrible pandemic, God has
continued to provide us with the funding and workers to bring our main building
project closer to being finished. Some of you have already begun to write me
and ask:
When are you moving in?
We are targeting the middle to the end of July.
We hope to have our first service in the new building the last Sunday of July but
still not sure if it will be in the form of “online” or not. We still have to wait
for the approvals on that. However, we are on the last phase of construction
for the main two buildings. We will still have a few “projects” to work on
after this but building A and building B have to be completed first. After the
rainy season and the land settles, we will be working on a few projects like “Thai
style Outside Kitchen,” “a Sala and eating area,” “an extra restroom and shower
facility,” “an extra guest Housing quarters,” “Landscaping” and some small
projects that can be done after our initial move in time frame.
Here are a few pictures taken recently.
Here is
our Facebook link to all the pictures taken just today:
Please
keep us in your prayers. These are very busy days and things in Thailand are getting
back to normal so to speak. We still are not vaccinated yet and do not have
access to any of the vaccines but they will be here soon as I understand it.
Please
also pray for us and our normal operating expenses. We are doing fine with all
the building expenses but we have gotten really tight with our everyday operating
expenses and would just ask for you to keep us in your prayers.
May God
richly bless you. Thank you for your generosity and for sending us to Thailand.
Any gift you would like to make to our normal, everyday ministry, no matter how
small or how large, helps us reach people who are the first persons in their
entire families to know Jesus.
Until the
People in and around Northern Thailand know Him,
Michael for the team
“For we
do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants
for Jesus’ sake.” 2 Corinthians 4:5
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.
PROVIDING
HOPE IN NORTHERN THAILAND -An Update on the Building and Capital Campaign–
Update Apr 23, 2021
So many
of you have written and asked about our “Capital Campaign called “Building Hope
in Northern Thailand” and our multi-purpose building progress. We sent out a
rather detailed update on February 6, and this update will be similar to that
one but with some updated progress on the building.
As I
shared with you in February, we must first confess that we are totally blown
away by both the mighty hand of God to provide resources and we are also blown
away by the generosity of the people whom God has surrounded us with who have
generously given more than we could ever ask or think. We are overwhelmed with
gratitude and humbled when we think of the generosity of our friends and
partners in ministry through NTIM even in the midst of a horrible world-wide health
pandemic that our world has not seen since World War 2.
As we shared with you in our update in February, “As of an email I received on January
29, 2021 from NTIM’s Treasurer and good friend Donald Wood, we have not only
reached the $300K goal but have exceeded that goal and have received $320,350
designated for this building. Wow. Words cannot express the gratefulness in our
hearts to each and every contributor and to the God who not only gives us
vision and His direction for advancing His kingdom, but who also moves in the
hearts of His people to give toward that vision that will advance the message
of Jesus in some of the darkest corners of God’s World today.”
Our God, who
is rich in love and mercy and in lovingkindness, has not forgotten some of the
least reached people groups in our world today and we believe that this mighty
show of provision affirms that the Lord is clearly leading and guiding us forward
to finish this strategic building project.
The building
progress is coming along well. We are in the final stages of designing the
stage and internal props. We are very busy with paining and finishing touches. We
have finished the huge concrete handicapped access ramp. We have put up a
retaining wall in a portion of our land that was more like a “ditch” and today finished
filling in 41 truckloads of new dirt giving us a much larger area of usable
land. After the rainy season and the land settles, we will be working on a few projects
like “Thai style Outside Kitchen,” “a Sala and eating area,” “an extra restroom
and shower facility,” “an extra guest Housing quarters,” “Landscaping” and some
small projects that can be done after our initial move in time frame.
Many have
asked about our “move in date” and we are planning on moving everything in July
and that looks like a very probable date.
Here are
a few recent pictures taken today – April 23, 2021.
Here is
our Facebook link to all the pictures taken on Apr 23, 2021 –
Please
keep us in your prayers. These are very busy days and things in Thailand were getting
back to normal so to speak but recently we have been hit with our 3rd
wave of Covid 19 infections and all educational institutions in Chiangrai, including
Grace Language School and Chiangrai International School (CRIS) where Hope serves as
the Head of School, have been closed to person to person teaching at least
until April 30. We have now gone back to online services on Sunday and hope
that this does not last very long but we here in Chiangrai still do not have
access to any of the vaccines but they will be here soon as I understand it.
Please
also pray for us and our normal operating expenses. We are doing fine with all
the building expenses but we have gotten really tight with our everyday
operating expenses and would just ask for you to keep us in your prayers.
Also, as
we shared with you last time, please also remember to pray for our multi-purpose
facility. We believe that through this facility, we will establish permanent
roots that will continue to allow us to share God's Word with some of the
world’s least-reached people groups for years and years to come and to continue
to see people become the first persons in their entire families to become followers
of Jesus. Just over the last 6 or so weeks we have seen two more Thai people become
the first persons in their entire families to become followers of Jesus. One is
a nurse at a local hospital and the other of a professor at one of the local
universities. Praise the Lord that these two new followers of Jesus now have
their names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Additionally, it will allow us to take training
and the expansion of God's Kingdom through evangelism, discipleship, and theological
education to the next level of impact. We are even praying about the possibility
of partnering with a possible Seminary in the USA (maybe one of our 7 SBC ones)
that would like to partner with us and open an extension of their seminary here
in Northern Thailand in order to provide some solid bi-lingual (English/Thai) theological
education. We don’t have any seminary in mind but maybe some of you might know
of one that might be a good fit for partnership. Keep us in your prayers as we seek
to be the salt and light of Jesus here in Northern Thailand.
May God
richly bless you. Thank you for your generosity and for sending us to Thailand.
Any gift you would like to make to our normal, everyday ministry, no matter how
small or how large, helps us reach people who are the first persons in their
entire families to know Jesus.
Until the
People in and around Northern Thailand know Him,
Michael for the team
“For we
do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your
bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.” 2 Corinthians 4:5
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.
SHARING HOPE IN NORTHERN THAILAND -A Message from My Heart to Your Heart – Update Apr 20, 2021
Greetings Friends, Family, Partners, and Followers of Jesus, We have been very busy these last two months in many areas of ministry and we are pleased to say that over the last 6 weeks we have seen two more Thai people become the first person in their entire family to become a follower of Jesus Christ.
God is truly at work in amazing ways. This update is not really an update per see but God has just impressed on my heart to share with all of you the a message of Hope that I just shared with our church family here this last Sunday.
Please allow me the chance to serve and encourage your heart by asking you to give me 40 minutes of your time and let me inspire you from an amazing story from the Old Testament that is tucked away over in 2 Kings and speaks to circumstance that you and I are facing during this time. Please let me have the chance to speak Spiritual truth into your life as I was given the chance here in Northern Thailand this last Sunday.
You will be blessed. Here is the link to this message: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzhqlNZeFVY
Until the
People in and around Northern Thailand know Him,
Michael for the team
“For we
do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your
bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.” 2 Corinthians 4:5
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.
Reaching, Teaching, Caring,
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.
