Raising Up Church Leaders

Several months back, as we were all leaving Chaiyo Church for the day, a Thai man pulled into the lot on his motorcycle. He stopped right in front of me and asked me in Thai if it was a church. I confirmed, and we continued to speak in Thai. It turned out that he—Khun Wan (“wahn” means “day”)—was a Christian and lived nearby. He had seen the building and was wondering if it was a church that he and his family could attend. We invited them to join us the following week, and Wan, his wife, Joy, and their daughter, Kongkwan (“gi"” in Thai), have been attending ever since.

It has been such a joy to hear from Wan and see his love for the gospel and hear his knowledge of Scripture. He has stepped right in with the church and has even taught some of the adult Sunday School lessons. More recently, Wan gave the message during the main service—he said it was the first time in many years that he had done so, and though he was nervous, he shared from his heart and brought the truth of the Word to our group. It has been very eye-opening to learn from him—he and his family lead very humble lives, but his faith in Christ is incredible. He also shared that before becoming a Christian, he was a practicing Buddhist—he was actively involved in practicing sorcery for many years, and it continued as a stronghold in his first few years as a Christ-follower. But with patience and grace for himself and continued pursuit of Jesus and His redemption in Wan’s life, Wan was able to break free from that stronghold, and has not returned to it. We are so proud to have Wan as a part of Chaiyo Church. He is bold in his faith, and a great encouragement to others, and we are thrilled to see him rising into leadership.

Team Transition and Summer “Break”

The last few months have been quite full with preparations for summer and team transitions—we crafted and hosted an off-site debrief for our intern team, helped welcome the Montgomerys to Chiang Mai (and our team), and curated a lovely final dinner celebration with the whole team; we have one of our interns leaving this month, one gone for the summer to support-raise for her second year, two new interns joining, one (previous) staff returning, and several other senior staff (under our leadership) all going different directions over the summer. We have also been in the process of securing a new intern house for the three single intern women (all teaching at GIS) that will be on our team this fall. With all of that in motion, before we knew it, the summer was upon us!

For the month of July we have a high school, US-based summer project team coming to serve here, and our own schedule is already quite full with meetings, admin prep for next year, and keeping our own kiddos on an intentional summer break (rather than a free-for-all). And last, but certainly not least, Nick has officially been given the Director of Communications role at GIS, which means he is still very involved there over the summer, as most of his team are Thai staff that work year-round. All of this has kept us very busy and will throughout the summer, but we are grateful for this time of preparation for the coming school year and ministry term. Thank you for your prayerful support!

Additional Highlights