Bible School Seminar

At the current time, I am overseeing two different Bible schools, one located in a remote village, one located in the city of Chiang Mai. Because of these responsibilities I was really excited about Joe Morell and Ed Brown coming to Chiang Mai to give a Bible School Workshop. Joe Morrell (in the green shirt and glasses) is a missionary to Lithuania/Latvia/Finland and God has really used him there and the Bible School that he started in Lithuania has been instrumental in what God has done there. The thing that encouraged me the most was that the churches in that part of the world are self supporting and not relying on money from foreign countries (even though the average income is only a couple hundred dollars a month). Joe said that when he went there, the Lithuanians thought it would be impossible to be self-supporting but Joe always asked, "Are you going to trust God or trust America".
Since then, the work there has grown alot whereas many other ministries that are financed from the "West" are struggling.

I have always believed that indigineous, self supporting, self propogating, self governing churches was God's model and it is great to see that God's model has worked there and I believe it will work here too even though it is so contrary to the way most missions/missionaries do work here in Thailand. ain patient and know that this is the way that God really wants us to do missions. Even though it is slow going and we wonder if we should abandon God's model, I know that this is the most beneficial way for the Thai people for us to do mission work. Foreign funded programs may make our reports look good but they hinder what God wants to do through the Thai people. We hope and pray that we will see these things come into fruition in the coming months and years ahead.

Ed Brown (white shirt on the right) who is an itinerant preacher also encouraged us from God's Word. It was great to hear some good preaching because we don't have that many opportunities to hear it live and in person. Both men were a real blessing to us and the work God is doing here in Thailand.