John's Newsletter

August 2008

Printable Version [8.5x11] (.pdf)

June - Printable Version [8.5x11] (.pdf)

March-May 'Catch Up' [8.5x11] (.pdf)

 

Christian Mission Ban Naratchakwai

131 Mu 11,
T. Na Ratchakwai, A. Muang,
Nakhon Phanom 48000
Thailand
Phone: 042-515-531
Email John

 

 

July 14, 2008 (click images to enlarge)

 

Praise God! Christian Mission is on the air! We have been praying for the last 3 or 4 months to be able to get on a local radio station and God has answered our prayers. Using materials supplied from Voice of Peace, and our own materials we have an hour program now on the air. We prayed for a good time one day a week – afraid of getting midnight or something like that – and God answered our prayers double. We are on the air Saturday and Sunday from 12.00 noon to 1.00 pm. Our children listen to the program during lunch here on Saturday, and they are home from church in time to listen to the program on Sunday.

 

Maeo and I travelled to Khon Kaen regional hospital on July 7-9, 2008 for medical checkups in the Sleep Study program for those with sleep apnea. I have been diagnosed and using a machine for about 12 years now and had not had a check up since leaving the United States and Maeo has been having trouble sleeping. We will return to see the physician on July 29 – a specialist that comes up from Bangkok once a month. Maeo has been diagnosed as having mild sleep apnea also, so we don’t know yet if she will need a machine like mine or not. We ask for your prayers for the doctor who we will be talking with on the 29th; pray for wisdom for her. The good news is that all of the other tests that go along with this – blood, urine, x-rays, EKG and on and on, all came back negative or within normal limits for both Maeo and myself. Praise God and continue to pray for all of us here.

 

A word of advice to anyone receiving this newsletter; if you snore loudly in your sleep, are tired during the day, and fall asleep easily, find a doctor that knows about Sleep Apnea and talk to him or her immediately. This disease is a silent killer in that you just stop breathing during your sleep and never wake up. It took me over 5 years to find a doctor that knew what I was talking about and it is just now becoming known here in Thailand. Only God knows how many people have died from this disease without ever knowing they had a medical problem.

 

Pray also for our witnessing program. Two more families were visited on July 12. Kim and Kip did the witnessing and Maeo and Mu were backups for them. We are in the middle of a spirit controlled area in our witnessing now; all of the families we are visiting have members heavily into spirit worship and participating in spirit festivals every year, some of them being possessed for short periods of time. We need all the prayer power and support that we can give.

 

The two families we visited this week were Jame and he grandmother and little brother. Jame lives with her grandparents while her parents work in Bangkok. This is very prevalent in our community. One teacher at the local school told me this morning that 70 percent of the children in our village school live with grandparents while parents are off working someplace else, or there are no parents around at all. Above right is Kim in the background witnessing to Jame’s grandmother.

 

Oy is another boy we have coming. His mother used to come to the mission but stopped coming – probably because of the need to make some choices she did not want to make. Mother stays at home, helping in the rice fields at times, father is a day laborer and they have three children. Above left is Kip witnessing to Tavee, Oy’s mother. His feet are at the far left of the picture. The right picture is the kitchen at Oy’s home.

 

August 8, 2008

 

I guess the best news is that we are getting closer and closer to our goal of 65 on Sunday mornings in church. Please keep your prayers coming; we have many, many people say they will be coming because they think that is what we want to hear, but they never show up on Sunday and have more excuses than you and I together could come up with for not coming.

 

We also need lots of prayers for our teens. We now have 12-13 coming regularly, but only 3 have said they accept Christ and have been baptized; two of those three are facing great temptations from Satan right now and are struggling very, very hard to do what they think is right, but the pressure on them from the other side is tremendous. The others in this group have been brainwashed since birth that any religion is good, so it doesn’t make an difference and it is okay to participate in as many as you want at one time. The accountability that Christ expects is extremely difficult for these kids to understand, and the choice of only one road is even more difficult for them to understand.. They need all the prayers they can get. The English program they are participating in is doing very well and they are gaining confidence as they go along, so please continue to pray for that also.

 

We are half way through our Walk thru The Bible, New Testament and have 16 adults and 5 children attending. Pray that God will truly open the hearts, eyes and minds of these people so they will see their need for Christ in their lives too.

 

We continue to visit the homes of parents of our children, and have now visited 8 families. Much prayer is needed here also; it is a true battlefield and the dangers and fears are real here. Satan and his demons have a strong, strong hold on these people and in combination with not wanting to lose face, not wanting to have relatives turn against them, there is a genuine fear of the spirit world that will attack them if they chose to accept God. They have spent their entire lives appeasing the spirits and it is difficult to change.

 

Please pray for Yai Ban Ja (green skirt on the bench) she is a woman who has been diagnosed with cancer and ahs asked us to pray for her a couple of times. The doctors have said her cancer is terminal, but since we have been praying for her she has gained back strength and the ability to eat real food and is getting around quite well. This past Sunday she stood up in church and praised God for his healing power in her life so we are praying that this woman may be a key to opening the hearts of others also in this village. The woman in blue on the floor is Yai Brasong. She has diabetes and has had one foot amputated. She is trying to get used to an artificial foot and is having problems. Her grandson, a 5th grade student, brought her to church for the first time.

 

July 26 was the day for another English Camp at Na Moon Hin Elementary School and we praise God that it went well. There were 13 out of 17 teachers there – we only expected the 4 or 5 that taught English; and there were about 60 grade 4-6 students receiving instruction from our high school volunteers. They are really doing a great job these days; again please pray for them.

 

There will be more in the next letter, but please pray for Jiraporn. She is one of our heat patients and has been in the hospital at Khon Kaen now for over 2 weeks awaiting heart surgery. Doctors have given her a 50/50 chance. Please pray for her.

 

The other one is for Thaipope. Some of you may remember he went over as an emergency patient a while back and came back home; doctors said they could do nothing more for him. As I understand it, he was on either a bicycle or a motorcycle August 1 and had an accident – rushed to the emergency room at the local hospital. He spent the night there and then was transported by ambulance to Khon Kaen also. In addition to his accident injuries, it triggered some heart problems and he now also has pneumonia. Please pray for him also.

 

God Bless from the Christian Mission…

John and Maeo and Alex and all of the rest

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