Jonathan Training/Church Multiplication

Jonathan Training at a Bible School.

Tanom & Chan

These 2 are brothers-in-law, by the way. Here they are during a break in in the training day. There were many ideas presented in this workshop that were a real challenge for the traditional church model most Thai pastors follow.

Jonathan Training

Kennedy, Tanom, Chan and Khrua all went up to Chiang Rai, Thailand's border city with Burma, to do Jonathan Training, a Church Multiplication week-long workshop for church planters. They really enjoyed the other attendees from all over Thailand. They said the weather was freezing cold. (For them, maybe, but comfortable for us westerners!)

There was lots of homework and everyone learned alot. Chan found it exciting that he was a tent-maker kind of church-planter.

Darts

• One of the new believing families has been feeling jealous of the attention that another new believing family is receiving and has stopped coming to church or cell groups.
• The owner of the center is giving us trouble; his relatives are putting pressure on him to break the 20-year contract on the center he has with us and make it into a motel to make more money. (He is doing fine financially.)
• Kennedy is in the hospital, tonight will be the third night, and the doctors have been unable to make a diagnosis. Sometime in-between hospital trips we had $130 dollars stolen from us.
• The missionaries who have been coming to learn Thai from our partners are leaving, meaning 3 of our Thai partners have a drastic income loss.

We sure appreciate your prayers!

Chan's House & Shop

Jonathan Training/Church Multiplication

"Church Planting Movements" is the main text for the OMF Jonathan training that Kennedy, Tanom, Khrua and Chan are attending this week in the Northern Thai area of Chiang Rai (near the Burmese border.) They will be there all week, learning about teaching the Bible chronologically, house churches, lay leaders, principles of rapid church multiplication...all in Thai. This is the same training Kennedy and I went to last year for 2 1/2 weeks. This one is for Thais and will be shorter. It is very exciting that we will be able to talk about these church multiplication principles with greater understanding as a team now.

Chan Moves Into Thap Thawaan

Black piglets run all around the roads where Chan has moved into a bamboo/cement 2-story house in the Sea-Gypsy village. He arrived back here 2 days ago from going to his home in Eastern Thailand to get his motorcycle and household goods. At the next term break his wife and children will take the bus here. The next step is for Kennedy to take him to buy the supplies he will need for his electrical repair shop. He will open it right at Dean's Center, a great location for business. His house will be in the village, though, and that is where he will open a cell group Bible study.
So here we go, embarking on the first step of seeing self-sufficient, bi-vocational Thai church planters.
What is needed the most?
Prayer.