Yesterday after my Thai language class I had a meeting with one of the ywam Chiang Mai leadership team members. The reason for the meeting was that I wanted to get to know him personally & his focus is something that I want to be part of. His focus is specifically on reaching, discipling, mentoring, building up & many years from now releasing local Thai's in Chiang Mai.
We had an awesome meeting, with him sharing his heart, history as a missionary & his vision for reaching/discipling Chiang Mai Thai's. I also shared my history, missions in Mongolia, about Mongolian Christians & my heart for reaching local Thai's in Chiang Mai. Our meeting ended up being 4 hours long & we both left feeling really encouraged. We have decided that we will meeting once a week for sharing & time to pray together for many things including creating a mission centre made for Thai's to grow & be released to serve their own people in Chiang Mai.
Many of you may not know that most of the world's mission organizations are here or have offices in Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai has many missionaries, however, many Thai's & missionaries have told me that more than 75% of these organizations & missionaries are focused on people groups that live in other countries, not Thailand. The other small percentage of missionaries that live in Chiang Mai are focused on the Thai & Burmese hill tribe people groups in the northern mountains. There is an even smaller percentage of missionaries working to reach, disciple, mentor & release Chiang Mai Thai's to reach & serve their own people. This is something that I feel I want to be part of.
Chiang Mai city used to be the nations capital many, many years ago (Siam was the nations name & Thai people used to be called Siamese) & has more Buddhist monasteries/temples than all of Thailand combined. We need to reach the people of Chiang Mai.
Next weekend I will pick up friends who are working in another country to stay for an evening & then take them to their temporary home as they prepare to have their first child here in Chiang Mai. We are so looking forward to seeing them again. Once their first born has safely arrived & is a few months old they will return to the country they are working.
Teresa will be returning to Phuket for a couple of days to visit Mark again to see how he is doing next month if things workout. It will be good for Teresa to now be able to see mark's wife & parents. Please continue to pray for his condition as he is still in critical condition in the local Thai hospital. This is going to be a very, very long road of recovery for him, his wife & family.
Teresa will also be visiting the ywam DTS directors in Phuket (2 ladies, Thai & Burmese). They were an amazing support to Teresa while she was with Mark in hospital the last time. They also were able to help Mark's wife & parent's when they first arrived.
