March, 2012 Newsletter
by Admin on Mar.09, 2012, under Newsletters
When we first decided to come to Thailand I was determined to write to you each month to update you on our status and happenings. After the first couple of newsletters, I soon remembered why I disliked my English Comp class so much. Simply put, I don’t have the gift of writing. My husband, who has been writing most of the letters, has recently been overwhelmed with editing projects and felt I should take a turn this month. Here’s what he had started so beautifully….
“We have just experienced what was probably the most wonderful week in our two-year experience in Thailand. We were called by the Buddhist Study Center to video a four-day series of seminars on how to reach the non-Christian people of Asia. We were thrilled to hear stories from missionaries who virtually have sacrificed everything to minister to the unreached people groups of the world. We were not allowed to film many of the presentations, as the security of the speakers might be jeopardized, and their lives put in grave danger. We even learned of a person who was executed because he was identified in one of our Church’s periodicals. We came away with a new appreciation for those who have made the Gospel commission the priority of their lives, and for the evidence that God is taking the final work into His own hands and soon we will be going Home.”
See how beautifully he writes. He truly has a gift. I will now share some of the other happenings of recent days.
Ian Adams, an Australian, who is married to the director of I.C.C., (International Children’s Care) has recently lent us a DVD/CD duplicator. It is capable of duplicating 15 copies at a time. We are thrilled with his offer to use his machine. We have able to duplicate over one thousand DVD sermons by Pastor Phamor about our 3 Angels Message, for the Karen group. Right away, these DVD’s were distributed at a Karen gathering near the refugee camp along the border of Myanmar.
Because we are not ready for television production yet, having the ability to duplicate on site programming is a tool that has blessed many so far. It’s hard to imagine, because we American’s take our literature and Christian television programming for granted. There are very few EGW books that have been translated, and those that have been, have not recently been re-printed, so they are not available to buy at the Adventist Mission. Needless to say, there is zero SDA Thai TV programming available.
I wanted to tell you a story of how the first studio set build was put in motion. Ian Adams, as mentioned above, has experience in welding and likes to work with metal. He had offered to build some tables for us, strong durable tables, to use here in the studio to hold equipment. We got to discussing the grid that was needed for our first set build from which to hang the lighting. This conversation was just what God had in mind. Ian does fund-raising in Australia and sometimes people want to give of their time as well as their means. He had such a family willing to come for 2 weeks to help where they could instead of going on their usual family vacation. Ian put the husband and two strong teenage boys to work building a lighting frame for the first studio set. They worked hard, sanding, painting, welding and hoisting this frame up in the air inside the studio. You cannot image how excited Bill and I were over this event.
Soon after that Steve Rawlings and others gave of their time and talent to building the rest of this first set. Here’s a slideshow of the activity:
Our focus at the All Asia Media Center for the next year will be on our beautiful health message. Dr. A, who lives in Bangkok, is a good lecturer on anatomy and physiology broken down to laymen terms. She has agreed to come and film at the studio. We would like to be able to distribute this series to all of the northern SDA churches. So many of the Seventh-day Adventist in Thailand, have never even heard this message. We believe that it truly is the right arm of the gospel, and as members get excited about a new life style, they will be eager to share this with others in their community.
The next step will be to follow up with a series of vegetarian cooking classes so that those who are accepting the Health Message will have encouragement and know how to practice this new life style. (We have to build the kitchen set next in order to do this.)
And then of course, we will be bringing in speakers from the first eight language groups on which we are focusing: English, Thai, Karen, Hmong, Akha, Yao, Burmese and Mien. These individuals will be able to reach their people groups in their own language and from their own cultural perspective. We believe God is moving to quickly assure that the Gospel truly will go to every “nation, kindred, tongue and people.”
This next week we will be filming a weeklong series of training sessions for Thai Bible workers. An Australian evangelist will present them. We will barely have time to catch our breath, and then it will be off to the Karen camp meeting, April 2-7. We are sorry that we have not been able to meet all of the requests that have come to us. There have been scheduling conflicts and a lack of funds. We trust God will provide in both areas.
Many visitors coming through the All Asia Media Center over the past month have blessed us. One individual by the name of David Fam, has especially given us encouragement. He would like to see us duplicate his efforts of producing short 10-minute segments that portray the pillars of our faith through real life experiences. His ministry, Aenon, in Malaysia has been successfully doing this for a while. It is sort of the same concept as digma.com that the Ty Gibson’s group has been producing. Of course our productions will need to be in the Thai language, or one of the many other people group languages.
So in order to get started with these types of programs we have started a team. We will be adding to this team as God sees fit. You have probably discerned that this team will have to consist of those who can speak the various languages that will comprise our focal points.
All of these efforts require funds to operate, if you’d care to share with your means in these efforts click the “Donate” button at the top of the page.
A line or two from home is always appreciated and lifts our Spirits like little else can do. And most important of all, please pray for us every day. We are so unqualified to do what we are doing, but claim our favorite promise that His strength is made perfect in our weakness.
