Bereans + Thailand
Enjoy these updates from George Cheek, on of our missionary apostles to the nations!
——-
Thursday and Friday we spent with Charlie and Deb Shimmin. They are long time friends serving with New Tribes Mission with roots in North Platte.
Our team of 12 people plus country coordinators, translators and national church people are pressing forward on several fronts:
- 3 are out living in a northern village showing films and following up
- 3 women are with the Priceless Cube team intervening with a city neighborhood of at-risk households associated with the red light district
- 4 are doing outreach and follow-up with the same local church that Joel & Ellen Barber, Jeff Kautz and others worked with in past trips
- Dean and I (along with a translator and Kelly) are assigned to go share with monks in nearby B temples
What a variety of strong holds! We all need and appreciate your prayers!
Yesterday I was invited to tour the monk living quarters at one of the temples. Today we have two return appointments with monks that have agreed to read assigned chapters of the Bibles we gave them.
In addition to the excitements of being in new surroundings and religion base doing evangelism, follow-up and church planting in partnership with local believers, the following comes to mind:
- English practice is a good door opener in the monk schools
- Not all among the young monks plan to make it a career. For some it is just a chapter of school and university
- The younger monks are more open to hear about Christ than the older ones
- ABC, our team of ladies, has been reaching out to the girls and women (some with children) who work the red light district of this city. They also have spent some afternoons on a university campus having one-on-one conversations regarding Christ and how to avoid being pulled in to the sex tourism industry
- One older man did pray to receive Christ. His wife has cancer. Dean Dye was able to minister to them in a special way since two of his family dealt with cancer. (Son Mike recovered whereas wife Caroline died) . We felt it was a divine appointment
- Also sometimes ministry involves looking up a friend’s son who has been back packing around the world letting him spend time with a friendly person from “back home” in the states
- We have felt the power of your prayers
We had two important hand offs: new friends, persons of peace, to introduce to the local believers in Chiang Mai that we partnered with during the time we were there.
Our young friend the Buddhist monk whom we met with four times including over brunch. He continues to be interested in the claims of Christ and agreed to meet weekly to study the book of John in English.
Our older friend who we met with three times is an elected council man and past mayor of his village. His wife has cancer. After hearing Dean’s testimony and the gospel of Christ, he prayed with us. On our last visit he agreed to meet and study the book of John.
Of course our team had many other conversations and left names and phone numbers with the local believers for follow up.
After many years of Christian outreach, Thailand is still 95.5% non Christian. Culturally and spiritually, most do not even consider the concept of God. As long time workers Charlie and Deb Shimmin said, “you have to be here for a while to even begin to understand the darkness here spiritually.”
Saturday we were tourists. We even rode an elephant across the river and through a bit of jungle. Most of the team began their flights back to the USA that night.
A big thanks to our team leaders, members and all who followed us in prayer.
——-
Feel free to e-mail George with words of encouragement and blessing: gcheek@maranathacamp.org
bfcglobal 