Big Plans

The slums ministry team has been doing a lot of praying and discussing future direction and there are some exciting things coming. One immediate thing is a new outreach to the community. Tony works for a school in town as a maintenance man. Most schools were closed part of last week, due to the political uprisings. Tony was still called in to work. One of the things he was asked to do was to fix some broken fans. As he was working on that, he had an idea. He decided he would like to invite people in the community around the slums at Soi 107 where we teach English to the children every Sunday, to bring any broken fans they might have for free repair. While they waited, team members could engage them in conversation and share the love of Christ with them. We'd be serving the community and sharing the gospel at the same time.

Today, we went out into the community with fliers announcing this new program. Folks were very pleased with the idea of getting anything at all for free. I'll be interested to see the response next week. Below, Tony, Vee, Greg and a local man who loves to hang out with us, hand out fliers to neighbors.

In addition to this new ministry, Vee is planning on opening a 'coffee corner' near where we teach, offering folks in the community a free cup of coffee and perhaps getting the chance to visit with them.

The biggest news, though, is that the team is beginning to lay plans for planting a church in the community. As one team member put it, even if the interest level of parents is not real high right now, when the kids were are reaching grow up, they'll need a church to attend. Tony and Vee will be scouting for the best location and begin negotiating for the land. The hope is to have a building and be open and going sometime in 2009! What an exciting thing to be part of and I hope you'll genuinely pray for this effort.

Incidentally, the American in the photo is Greg Brown. Greg is a native of Chattanooga Tennessee and a recent graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary. He has felt called to full time missionary service in Thailand and is serving with a misisons organization called Pioneers. Greg will be working with the slums ministry as well as other ministry work in the area. He's a great guy. I have posted his blog web site on the front page of this blog, in case you want to check it out.