Krabi Boats 8

Therefore confess you sins to each other, and pray for each other so that ye may be healed.The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful and affective. James 5,16

phon sehr klein. . . - especially the prayers of a mother.

Phon is a 10 years old boy, very imaginative, bold and a

gifted story teller. Unfortunately Phon follows instruc-

tions only very unwillingly and is extremely difficult to

motivate.


I am far away from being a gifted children’s worker, I’ve

never been one. Each Sunday school I had to spend lots

of energy to motivate Phon to take part. If he felt like eating

some snacks, he would just get up und buy some, regard-

less of the program. Needless to say that Phon didn’t go

alone but he took at least one more child with him.


bang_sala_christmas1Last month (December 2010) we had many opportunities to share about Jesus birth and what it means for us today. One of the areas that has opened up to our work is a sub-district called Bang Sala. One of the village leaders became a Christian recently and has been invaluable in opening doors for the gospel. A team of Chinese Christians from Australia spent around ten days with us, helping us as we ran Christmas programmes in schools, in the middle of town and at the local jail. One day was spent visiting three schools and a kindergarten in Bang Sala sub-district. Our final activity at Bang Sala was a special Christmas outreach party at the house of the Christian village leader. Over 100 people in the area attended the very first Christmas party, ever! All enjoyed the singing, the hilarious games and the Christmas items presented by some of the local children. Many listened as I shared how Jesus’ birth and death can bring us to peace with God and peace with each other. Afterwards, I asked one of the local men if he’d ever heard the real Christmas story before. He hadn’t. What a privilege to take the good news to places it has never been heard before!
bang_sala_christmas2

We have started to apply to focus on prayer walking in Thakua Pa, Phang-nga the place where we are looking to see God open a house hold to start a chronological bible study in.  We prayed before hand where to start prayer walking then we started in 3 areas and will add 2 more after another family arrives and another single lady arrives to join John Arcenas to see God open and move in hearts of the people here.  Prayer walking in these areas is part of a process we are in by applying some principals found in what Jesus did in Luke 10.  Here is a simple overview of what we are doing in months to come.  These are very general and we will be filling in many details under these general steps. Sometimes these steps don't always go in order.  We are open to what God would have us do with different people at different places.  Many  times things are not neat, but rather messy and we need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit as we go about being involved in peoples lives. At any rate here some steps we are taking to see Mathew 28:19-20 fulfilled.

Recently I got an email from a friend who is involved in seeing church planting movements started.  I was challenged by some of his thoughts.  Many mornings I wake up and I ponder the question, "am I really effective here as a westerner involved in church planting?"  When I don't have answers or clear direction in trying to process this question it can be confusing to see what is our role as  Western missionaries in Thailand.  There are many things I like to do, but I have to come to terms with not doing them if they do not lead to seeing more churches planted, but cause dependency on  the westerner.  There are many things I could do that would be helpful, but I often wonder if they are leading to what needs to be done.  In my thinking and in our vision here in this work we want to see multiplying simple churches established from the Andaman Coast to the Bay of Thailand led by Southern Thai people reaching out to neighboring provinces and beyond.  I love this vision that God has given us here in Southern Thailand and I feel very privileged to be able to spend my days trying to fulfill it.  But when I ask the question, what will it take to see Southern Thai people reaching out to their neighbors and going beyond that it feels over whelming and impossible.  It is a God sized vision, something we could not possibly do. So, that makes it dependant on God moving and working in the hearts of people here in Southern Thailand.  Prayer is so important to seeing people change and we have started to concentrate on praying for 3 specific neighborhoods.  We go prayer walking and we are prepared to meet the people God has arranged for us to meet.  Jesus loves the Buddhist people and we would love to see them come to Christ and lead their own communities of Christ in a Southern Thai way.