From Vision to Reality: Khao Phanom Baptist Church

During the week, Oh and Meow have a restaurant in their home, serving kanom jin and other noodles. However on Sunday’s, one room in their house becomes a worship center. Expectantly, five Thais from Khao Phanom, began meeting on Sunday afternoons. A. Dusit and 12 other members of Krabi Baptist came in support of the new church start. We met in a cleared room at Oh and Meow’s house. During the first service,there was a warm atmosphere of love. A. Dusit told that his dream to see a church in Khao Phanom was becoming real. He said that driving through Khao Phanom recently, God assured him that a church would be started there.
A sign was made to go on Meow and Oh’s house. The sign says Khao Phanom Baptist Church. Another sign by the street corner tells the times and invites others to come worship. We are thankful for this faithful group of 5 believers, who will soon be baptized. Pray for more Thais to soon join them in worship.

god shelf comes down

Bird and Branee made professions of faith 2 months ago, but their Buddha shelf remained. (A Buddha shelf is a shelf on the wall that supports a Buddha image, or highly respected monk image, amulets and or other household gods.) This is a sure sign that he was not yet ready to relinquish the old even though they wanted Jesus too.
Recently on a wet and rainy day, we went to teach Bird and Branee. After teaching the lesson, Bird said that he had something for us to help him with. To our surprise and joy, he said that he wanted to take down the Buddha shelf. Because Bird was a little afraid of taking the shelf down himself, he enlisted Richard to take the things down. Branee said I feel so happy that the shelf was coming down. Bird said my heart feels lighter already because I confidently believe in Jesus Christ alone. Pray for the heart of Branee’s husband, (who will retire and move into the house with his wife and son in October) to quickly accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Prayer and Praise

1. Praise God Bird and Branee took down their idol shelf.
2. Pray for more Thais to join the worship in Khao Phanom on Sunday afternoons.
3. Pray that Branee’s husband, who will retire and join his wife in October, will quickly believe in Jesus Christ.
4. Pray that Oh and Meow’s restaurant business will not be hurt because of the church signs.
5. Pray for Linda’s health to improve after problems with obstructed veins and shingles.
6. Pray for El to soon become a Christian.
7. Pray that Tip and Chuan, two non-Christians, will come to worship on Sundays.

On the Brink of Choosing

In the community of Ta-lay Hoi, we drove up to the only intersection. We were returning to the town of Blai Pra-ya to eat lunch. A man with long curly hair flagged us down. This man, his mother and a small child wanted a ride into the bigger town to catch a bus. While in the car we talked about God with the man and gave them tracts to read on his long bus ride. Within the week we received a response card back saying that a man named Montri wanted to study with us. To our surprise it was the man who we had given the ride to the week before.
Weekly we teach Montri and his mother Raynu. Montri has attention deficit and must be continually brought back to the subject at hand. At times he really understands what is being taught and he answers our questions well. However, other times his exuberant spirit and the old ideas about Buddhist life, making merit, international mythology, and pop music still have a grasp on his life.
Just last week, someone in the village passed out posters about a Buddist ceremony to be held soon. When he came to Montri’s home, he put them up on the front side of Montri’s house. Montri says he believes in Jesus and wants to go to heaven. But like many Thais he is afraid to be cut off from society for being different. We have finished teaching Montri foundational beliefs. Now we must make a decision about whether to continue teaching Montri. Pray for Montri to truly understand the Gospel and fully accept God’s grace for his life. Pray for Raynu to make some wise decisions about her life, her young grandson living with her, and her husband, who lives in another province.

Disrupting a Spirit Ceremony

Praise God for the different volunteer teams that come to help in south Thailand each summer. One volunteer group from North Carolina was taken to pass out tracts and witness in the country side (Picture on right). Other groups are taken into schools to do English programs.

We went into a school of 300 students to do one such English program with some American volunteers from Texas. In the session for singing songs, a student became disruptive, saying the volunteers could not use their drum. Trying to find out why, we questioned the students. They said our program was in conflict with a special ceremony to the spirit gods going on at the same time near the front of the school. To get more details, we went and asked a couple of teachers.
They explained that while the volunteers were doing the 2 hour program, the principal and 4 of the teachers were doing a ceremony around the spirit of the land’s shrine. The teachers wanted the students to have good behavior. So they held a ceremony asking the spirit of the land to make the students good. In Chinese religious ceremonies, drums are used to call the gods down form heaven to listen to you. This student had apparently gotten the different religious traditions mixed up and was afraid that we would call the spirit of the land away from the ceremonies that the teachers were doing to listen to what the volunteers were doing.

Annual Meeting

We drove 2 days to arrive ahead of the other m’s attending our annual meeting. We helped set up the office and got ready for the daily schedule. This years meeting saw our fellow m’s doing the music and leadership preaching. Daily seminars trained us in more methods of getting our work done. Breakout groups helped us make the training more relevant to our work. It was great to see other friend’s from throughout the country, but it was also good to return home to our own bed. Pray that we will see much kingdom fruit from the information learned.

Prayer and Praise

1. Praise God for a continuing joint worship for our groups on Sunday afternoons in Khao Phanom.
2. Pray for more Thais to join us in the Sunday afternoon Worship.
3. Pray for Thai leadership to emerge in the Khao Phanom group
4. Pray that members of our Sunday School classes at Krabi BC will begin to be more evangelistic.
5. Pray that we will see more results from evangelistic opportunities.
6. Pray that we will soon see more Baptist churches begun in Krabi Province.
7. Pray for more Thais to be interested in God in Blai PraYa district.