Thailand United Methodist Churches Leadership Training

 We have been through a storm in the short life of our United Methodist churches, pastors, leaders and members of the Thailand. However, we thanks God that the “Eye of the Storm” has passed and we are not concentrate on our mission and ministry of the Church now.  We have now re-grouping after our split, and have our first leadership training for pastors and lay leaders of our church on April 25th to 27^th.

There are 18 pastors, pastor’s spouses and lay leaders from our eight congregations gathered in the Mission Center in Chiang Mai for this training. Thailand Methodist Church is very new and therefore with this training we have learned the basic structure of the United Methodist Church and the concept of the local church, the ministries of the local church and plans for growth in their churches. This is a good gathering for our Thailand Leaders, because besides the training we also have the opportunity to regroup and building a supporting community to support each other through prayer and ideas for ministries. We have committed ourselves to this kind or gather at least twice a years and possible an annual revival for all our United Methodists in Thailand.   We are also expecting our first annual meeting with our area Bishop this coming September, when we will have the opportunity to meet our bishop for the first time and for our pastor receive their appointment from the bishop to serve their local churches they are now serving. All of our local pastor who are now serving in our Thailand United Methodist church has finished their Bachelor from either a secular college or for most a bible college.  We are now working to get all of them to a Course of Study so that they can work their way to become ordain in the United Methodist Church.

Presenting Prasiri United Methodist Church

Phrasiri UMC Bangkok

Phrasiri United Methodist Church in Bangkok formally known as “Phradumri” UMC was started by Pastor Sila Janthanava and his wife Vassana Janthanava in 2008. In its infancy, the congregation started to gather for Bible study and Christian fellowship. Later, Sila saw the need and opportunity to bring this group of Christians into a formal gathering and opened the opportunity to grow in Faith and numbers for the Glory of God. Their first meeting was in the 430 square feet living room of the Janthanava’s family.  Their first meeting gathered eight people on November 16^th 2008. One year later the numbers grew from eight to 30 and the living room was too small for the gathering.  They decided to move to a four story store front.  With the limited resources they had, they helped to clean and rearranged the first floor to be their Sanctuary. There is a little outdoor kitchen on the second floor for the fellowship meals which they offer every Sunday.  The rent is 12,000 Baht ($400.00) per month for the first year, 14,000 Baht ($460.00) for the second year and 16,000 Baht ($530.00) for the third year.  They have yet to reach the end of the first anniversary in the space.  The average attendance is around 45, which is after a recent split about a month ago.  The congregation is counting that as a blessing to them because they see the need and are motivated to work harder to
bring the Gospel into their community. The goal for 2011 is to have 150 persons in attendances before the year end.

                The Thailand Initiative is supporting this congregation by paying the pastor’s salary and recently, is supporting 10,000 Baht ($330.00) towards the renting of their space of worship. We also are actively looking for programs and volunteers to help this congregation with their outreach. This is our first United Methodist Church in the Capital of Thailand.  I am currently preaching at this church twice a month and teaching Bible Study every Monday.  We are looking for funds to renovate the top three floors so that we can use them as meeting rooms and classrooms. We will also use this space for our Outreach program where we will have English Classes and tutoring sessions for children in the housing units that surround the Church.  The plan is to provide English classes and tutoring to the children, which provide a witness opportunity and allows us to follow up with their parents and family members.  Less than a mile from our Church is also a major University where we plan to extend our ministry in the future.

                We are currently looking for a Church in the US, who would see the potential fruit of this Ministry and be a partner in prayer and financial support.  The current need is $3,000.00 per year to ensure that this congregation can support their outreach programs and serve the church
and the local community by spreading the love of Christ to this predominantly
Buddhist city and country.

We are also looking for volunteer mission teams with the resources
to renovate the upstairs spaces to be used for ministry.  A onetime grant of $3,000.00 to $3,500.00
would help with the renovating and painting of the upper floor spaces and furnish
the rooms for Sunday School, group meetings and outreach projects.

New Ministry

Everything is alright in the world until you get to the rural areas of Northern Thailand. Especially, when you get to the hillsides in Northern of Thailand. There are a few villages we visited but this one catch our heart more than others.  We found ourselves in about six kilometers on a dirt road from the main Road. We have rent a van and because the van is pretty low at some portion of
the road we were almost not able to pass. But thanks the Lord we have good driver and he was certainly experienced driving in such condition too, so we made to the village. There we met with the
chief of the village who is a Christian too. We found out that the village has a little church building and a few Christian families, but they since has been abundant, some of the believers who have transportation are attending services about 25 kilometers away in other town. The rest were just really being “abundant”.  The commandment of Christ is for us to “go and make disciple of all nations”.  We felt the obligation to keep this commandment, and so we made commitment to send
a young couple whom the young man is graduating from Phayao Bible College in a month to the village to make disciples of these Christians and reach the rest of the village for Christ.

 The little old church building can be used for a couple three months, but I don’t think it will last
over the Raining Season which will begin in June and last till the end of September.  We are Pray that our sister church in the US would partner with this village and this young pastor to minister to this villagers.  A piece of land has been promised from the chief of the village to build a church building for them if we can find a partner church who can bear the cost for them. A simple building structure for them to have a place to worship would be around $5,000.00 to $7,000.00.  We will go back to the village again with our new pastor in the beginning of April to rebuild this community of faith for the Kingdom of God and His Glory.

Global Praise and Academy

The youngest to host the rest

As far as United Methodist Church in South East Asia,
Thailand would consider to be the Youngest of all. Yet this past January we
have the opportunity to host our brothers and sisters from Laos for the Praise
and Worship Training and later, from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam for the
Academy.

                A group of Pastors and Lay from Laos and Thailand gathered in Chiang Mai for the Global
Praise and Worship training. They spent two weeks to learn how teach Sunday school, Music and preaching. This is a first time ever that an international training like this has ever been introduced our New United Methodists in these two countries.  They have learned from the basic like leading the congregation to sing to officiating the Sacrament of Baptism and Communion.

                After the Global Praise there were six pastors for each of the Indochinese countries
Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand gather for the Academy where they were
also train in church growth and strategies to reach their people for Christ.

Connectional

Is the connectional really Works?

I’ve been sent here to Thailand to reach, teach and making
disciples with the Thai people, but who know I will have the opportunity to
serve a missionary colleague who is half a world away?  I am not sure how Rev. Alex Awad gets my
contact information from.  But not even a
month since wet got to Thailand, Rev. Awad call me and asked to see if I could officiate a wedding for his son and
future daughter in-Law.  He introduced
himself as GBGM missionary in Jerusalem. We have a few e-mail exchanged after that and on January 9^th
2011 I had the opportunity to officiate this beautiful wedding where a young
man and woman from two different worlds ,cultures and traditions joint their
hands and made their wows to be together in Bangkok. The wedding was as lovely
as both the bride and groom. Congratulation!

My Christmas Story

I am a four years old Hmong girl live in Northern Thailand near a tourist attraction in the second largest city in Thailand.  My mane is “NubCi” which mean in “Sunshine” in English for those of you who may not know what NubCi means.  My name may means Sunshine, but I seldom see the Sunshine in my short four years I have seen the World.  About six kilometer away from my home where people come and go in the hundreds of thousands a day and spent their money like picking leaves from a tree, I have to take a responsibility of an adult woman that is to make a living supporting my mom dad and a little brother. It is December and people are preparing to celebrate Christmas, lights are up and decoration spread the town and place where my mom could take me at times.  Plus December 5^th is the birth day of the King of Thailand and has become Father’s Day for all Thai. So the decoration telling me Christmas is near.

My Christmas story is this. Every day in the morning my mom will wake me up in the morning, just before the tourist get to the hill where they will climb up hundreds of step to the top where there is a Buddhist temple.  There they can pray to Buddha for blessing and look down to the beautiful city of Chiang Mai. My mom will dress me up with the best Hmong custom she can afford with my earning. We will position ourselves at the first few steps of the hundreds for steps to the top.  As people passes by they will pause to take picture with me and give me a five or ten Bath for my  minutes of friendship and love if your want to call it.  (Rate of exchange is one US$ is 30 Bath) I am not sure if the people want to call those moments, but I am surely worked hard and give all I have for them to earn my few Bath.  I wanted to be friend with all of them and cherish that moment of friendship for a longer time, but I guest a few seconds was what they want, because I never heard about them anymore. Most of the people will just hug, let me sit on the laps and smile to me for the picture but there are people who would demand for a kiss in the chick, and I have to do it. Most of the time with a sincere kiss, but what can a little girl do when there are hundreds of people want me to kiss them in a day? I am not sure what you would call my life and my story? I am not sure what the words “Child labor” and “exploitation” means, but would you please translate that to me so a little four years old Hmong girl can understand?

While little girl like me around the world are hearing about the Good News of Jesus Christ and expecting gifts at Christmas time, where is mine?  Does anybody know I am here?  Is “Santa” come To Thailand too?  Can someone please sent a letter on my behalf to Santa that I am a good girl too.  My home is in Doi Poui three kilometer away from one of the Palace of the King of Thailand.

Have a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Rev. CherLue Vang

Mang  Thao Vang 

GBGM Missionary to Thailand.

cherlue@gmail.com      

maabvaaj@gmail.com

Hapenning in Chonburi Thailad

“God Bless you” is a common Telephone greeting and ending among Christians here in Thailand.  The Lord has called us to bring the Good News and Blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ to the People of Thailand. Before we had a chance to do anything, we have already received the Lord’s blessings through our brothers and sisters here in Thailand.

                We chose to come to Thailand only two days after our Training and commissioning because we want to attend a Camp Revival with all the United Methodist Churches here in Thailand.  The annual Camp Revival this year was in one of the Military Camps in Chonburi, close to the former US Naval Base Utaphau.  Participants came from all of the Thai United Methodist Churches in the country (eleven churches and worshiping points).   Dr. Somsak Chusong was the preacher for the event.  Our first experience with Christians here was a little different from what we were used to in the US, yet it was a very up lifting event for us.

                “Akha” is a hill tribe from the Northern Part of Thailand.  Most of the time the Akha will make their living by farming and gathering from about the mountainside in Northern Thailand.  Some Akha are very close to the Myanmar and Chinese border, but circumstances have moved them away from family to Pathaya.  Pathaya is a tourist city about an hour and a half South East of Bangkok. The contrast between the simple and peaceful life of the Akha to the faster and aggressive lives of the city of Pathaya is unimaginable.  It is estimated that between three to five hundred Akha now make their living in the city.  Most of them sell their crafts they make from the village on the streets of Pathaya.   Some have a little tray about one foot by two feet hanging by a string around their neck.  The tray, which is rested on their waist, is the place the crafts are displayed for tourist who walk by.  There have been many incidences in which the Akha have been detained by the city police and/or fined for the wages they earn in a day because they conducted trade illegally while trying to make a living.

Praise the Lord, The Methodist Church in Chonburi has recently (less than a month) rented a two story condo in the city of Pathaya.  This place serves the Akha as a place of worship in their own language, away from their homes and churches of the North.  Mang and I have had the opportunity to see the condo before the church decided to rent it.  I had some reservations at first because I did not know how many Akha there really were in the city but once the room was rented and a young Akha pastor, who recently graduated from a local Bible College, was willing to serve, my thoughts changed. From there, the community jumped into action.  The official opening day is supposed to be first Sunday in December. There was an unofficial gathering to worship at the place on the Sunday of November (7^th), Mang and I were invited to attend and I preached the first unofficial sermon in Thai which was translated into Akha.

When we got to the place, I was thinking now what? It looks like we are going to have three or four of us. But when the time came around (10:30am), people started to show up.  At the start of the worship service there were thirty two gathered to worship in this little room of about nine feet by sixteen feet.  There were no chairs in the room so everyone just sat on the floor. There was nothing fancy or formal at all in the room, but the worship was very uplifting and moving.  The reservation I used to have in my mind now changed to believe and trust that God will really use this place and this young man to serve His children here in this city.