TCCC Staff Conference 2017

Last week was the Staff Conference for our TCCC staff throughout the country and it was held at our center in Chiang Mai. One of our staff made this recap of the week.  I absolutely love it and have watched it over and over. When we first moved to Thailand, there were just two full time staff and it has been our privilege to watch the ministry grow to this group of staff. What a joy it is for us to work with these brothers and sisters who are so passionate, fun,  lovable, and most of all seekers of all that God wants them to be.  Enjoy! 

TCCC Staff Women's Retreat- 2016

Our first ever TCCC staff women's retreat was a huge success.  Thank you to so many who prayed for us and  gave money for it. More than 80 women who are all full time staff,  came to a resort in Chiang Mai from the four regions of Thailand (Bangkok, the south, northeast, and north) where we have ministries.

It was so fun to watch God bring so many details together and to witness many peoples different strengths being used in order for it all to take place.  Marisa did a great job with the ambiance of the room with fresh flowers and beautiful decorations.  People donated small gifts so that each time they came to a meeting they received a different gift.

Three speakers came from Arkansas and taught us so much.  Sarah taught us how to study the Bible with a new method, Rene shared with us about "Grief and Loss", and Linda taught us about Jesus as our Shepherd and how to  follow Him.  They were all three such a blessing.

Quite a bit of the time was spent in small groups, discussing what we were learning from the speakers and each other.

Marisa's table must have been very interesting.  Ha ha

Our Thai staff also helped lead in several ways, ie;  testimonies from them at each session, leading the worship times,  a different MC each day, etc. I loved seeing the different parts of the body work together.

On Wednesday night they had a line dance party. It was so fun to watch Thai girls dress up as cowgirls.

I love the way our staff "get into" any theme we suggest.  These cowgirls were legit and so cute!

And they learned the line dancin' steps so quickly.  They certainly had a lot of  fun with a new and different activity. 

On their evaluation forms, the most common comments were "this was my first time at a women's retreat," "I would like us to do this again and more regularly,"  "we needed more time," "God taught me a lot". 

Thank you Linda- for spurring me on to do this together with you.  It was such a gift to each of these girls and so worth all the work and effort. Yee Haw till next time!

Yuttasak Sirikul- to live is Christ, to die is gain.

It has already been over two weeks since our good friend and director Enoch, left his earthly home and entered his eternal home- and yet some days, we still can't get over the shock. Sudden heart attacks give no time to prepare or process.

So here we are back and forth between our home in Chiang Mai on the weekends, and our office in Bangkok during the week.  Much has been shared on Facebook, but I want to share a few more photos here from so many years of memories with Nok.

This was 1981, the year that we met Nok.  He was Mikes trainee our first year at the Great Commission Training Center in Manila, Philippines.  That was also the year that we entered parenthood with our firstborn Marisa and we have pictures of him holding her as he hung out at our house.

Mike with his two trainees. These three were quite the attention-getters as they went on campus each day in Manila.  The white guy and  6ft.Paula from Fiji and Nok.

In 1986, after 7 years in the Philippines, we moved to Bangkok with 3 daughters.  There were two national staff in Thailand at that time.  The ministry grew quickly, Jen was born in 1988 and the girls were regular singers at student conferences.  Nok taught them to sing some Thai songs with him, too.

The girls were all in their wedding in 1992. (Oh, Judy, your 90's look is pathetic) 

This was our growing staff team together when Dr. Bright and Vonette came for a visit. Nok is beside Mike in the back right corner.

This was taken in Iowa on one of our furloughs when we lived on the Fike farm in Orange Township.  I can still hear his giggle as we pulled him around the farm behind the snowmobile.  No snow in Thailand, made it his first time to play in snow.

After Nok finished at DTS, God gave him a vision to reach Thailand and developed in him leadership skills that allowed him to help make a national plan with pastors all over this country.  We have watched God use him over and over in promoting unity across all denominations.

Below are just a few of some of our favorite photos of him, being used by God:

Laya (Oo to us) and Noel are feeling his absence the most.  Please continue to pray for them as they adjust to a new life without him and for all our Thai CCC staff as we strive to carry on the way he taught us. We thank God for all that we learned from his life and the impact that he had in advancing the kingdom of God.

Cru Global Missions

We are excited about all the Summer Mission  opportunities with Cru this summer. Our family will be spread out.  The Foltzs and Mike and I will be doing various projects here in Thailand. 

Ben and Jennifer will be helping staff a stateside project called the Ozark Lakes in Branson Missouri. You can read about their project here.

Lori is going on the Oasis project to the Middle East. You can read about her project here. 

Michael and Bethany have been asked to film an updated documentary of East Asia and help with the filming of the GPro Congress in Bangkok that we will also be helping to staff. We are thrilled that we will get to see them here in Asia in June.

Summer is not too far off and we anticipate each of these exciting opportunities for our family. It is pretty neat to think of all the ways that God will be building His Kingdom this summer. 

L.O.S.

The Life Objective Seminar is held every year on a Saturday close to the end of the school year.  The university juniors and seniors that have been involved with us on campus are invited to come and discover opportunities on how to invest their lives to help fulfill the Great Commission after graduation.

During the day they have speakers and activities to help them deal with questions like "How do I know what God is calling me to do?".  Mike gave the well known Cru talk, "How to Know the Will of God in your Life According the 'Sound -Mind Principle' of Scripture". We call it the Paul Brown letter. 

In the evening there was a dinner party to honor the seniors who are leaving.  This year the theme was "Step Up to Faith" and it was at our TCCC center.

Some of the seniors read a commitment that they made to walk with God wherever He leads them with their lives.

They also received a certificate of appreciation for their years of involvement with TCCC during university.

It was a great day of decision making and thought provoking discussions.  We pray that each of these students will walk with God every day of their life after graduation and influence people wherever they go to want to know Him more.

Foltz's House Cleansing

"All good things must come to and end" is ringing true around here.  The Foltz family have lived exactly 188 steps (yes, we counted) from our front door to theirs for the past two years.  Our grand-kids were literally back and forth daily, and we had even gotten to the point that 4 year old Nathan could come around the block on his own as I waited at the front door for him. We will always have so many great memories of these two years living next to each other, but  "there is a season for everything", and we understand why they wanted to move closer to the kids school.  They were making up to 4 trips each day back and forth to the other side of town for school pick ups and activities and it was wearing on them. The grand-kids are going to the same school, GIS, where our girls graduated from.  We know all about the trips, but traffic has increased a lot since those days.

We are happy for them to be closer to the school, but will miss them so much.  It is important in Thailand when moving into a new home to invite Christian friends to come pray over the home. We never know what kinds of activities went on in a home with the prior renters.  Most have been occupied by Buddhists, who had a spirit house outside and idols in the home. It is a time to cleanse the home of evil spirits and invite the Holy Spirit to fill the home.

Our Thai campus staff came to the new home, directly after leaving their afternoons on campus.  There were about 30 of us and we started the evening with pizza and desserts.

This group is truly like one big family and Meepor was the center of attention for awhile. 

Nuu, our northern director and Jon shared with us their desire for this home to be used for God's glory in ministry and then everyone walked around the home and yard at their own pace praying through each room.  As I prayed over my grand children's rooms, asking for no nightmares and a blessing on the places where they read their nightly Bible Stories, it made me teary thinking of all the potential, both positive and negative, in their futures. 

Their new rental home is very nice and  more spacious so will probably be used a lot for gatherings. Marisa loves hostessing so lets just call it the new "party house".  And as for us, I guess we will just have to be more intentional about inviting them over instead of the short walk back and forth. We are happy for you and your new home Foltz family, but miss you already! 

Tan, Poy, and Baby Risa

Tonight, we got to celebrate the coming birth of Poy and Tan's baby Risa.

Poy and Tan are on staff with TCCC and direct the ministry at CMU. Hayley got to join in with mama at the shower, too. 

The staff girls put together some cute decorations. 

We are so excited to meet you baby Risa and we are all praying for a safe arrival! 

Boy and War

We continue to think often about one of our staff families in Thailand and pray for them. War was Mike's secretary at GCTC in Chiang Mai- but now War and Boy live in southern Thailand. Just before we came back to the USA, we took a trip to visit them and our staff team in Hat Yai.  This "photo opp" was taken in a mall in their city.  They have three boys and at the time of the pix, they were:
Praise - 6 years old
Trust- 4 years old
Amen -8 months old

War has had advanced cancer for about one year.  She found out just after baby Amen was born, and has been on chemo treatments ever since. I was able to sit with her through one of her treatments, and with a room full of cancer patients in lazy boys getting their chemo- it was an all new experience for me. Continuing on in full time ministry, with three small children while she is so sick has been very difficult for them.  Boy's recent messages to us are always a mix of medical trials and  setbacks and yet encouraging because of their continued faith in God and thankfulness for prayers and love shown to them. Our hearts ache for them.

Please pray for their family as God brings them to mind.  It is so hard to see a young mom with her baby as she fights cancer.

ASEA Staff Conference

Last week in Thailand, Mike and I got to be part of a historical event.  It was the first time ever that all 10 of the countries in our area came together for a staff conference.  Thailand got to host it at the Cha-am Beach. We were celebrating the 50 year anniversary of Campus Crusade in southeast Asia.

It all started  in 1965 in the Philippines. It was an exciting time to celebrate together God's goodness and faithfulness over the past 50 years.

Looking back at what God has done in and through us- gave us courage and freshness as we move forward in pursuing our vision for the future. We broke up into discussion groups quite often.  This is a group of  the Thai staff men.

The opening night, everyone was asked to wear their countries native dress.  This is Thailand, but we had a hard time here trying to get a photo of all the staff.

It was especially encouraging for Mike and I to meet up again with our disciples, students, and trainees of ours during our time in the Philippines 1979 to 1986.  As some of them shared memories with us, even though we had lost contact,  it was so good to reflect and rejoice once again.

I enjoyed hearing testimonies of people from several different countries share what God is doing.  A guy from the Philippines, named Joey blew us away as he told us about all the people he has reached while working full time.  This is his spider chart of disciples.

Steve and Judy Douglass, our Cru president came in from the USA.  I enjoyed this women's time where Judy shared with some of the women leaders.

We had some other special visitors from the USA that just happened to come this same week. Rodney and Alisha worked here with us directing a team with Tsunami relief years ago, and have come back to pick up their adopted Thai boy.  It was so special for us to spend the first days together with this adorable and precious little guy.

Through all of the speakers, I was challenged again to just get back to the basics and make disciples. This is the ASEA leadership team with our staff from Thailand. What a privilege it is for us to work together with each of them.

CONGRESS 8

Congress #8 is now in the history books of missions in Thailand. 

June 3-5, we gathered for 3 days of worship, planning and prayer for the country of Thailand. 

After months of preparation and planning, they were not sure how many would actually come in from all corners of the country to the Rangsit Thammasat University campus.  The opening day 4200 registered. 

Our TCCC staff and volunteers did an amazing job of helping make a smooth flow with the  numbers of people coming through the doors. 

In the evening sessions, more of the working people were able to come so that around 5000 filled the TU arena with the heavenly sounds of  Thai worship. 

The staff and students were always 'on call' in their matching "iServe" t-shirts helping in so many ways.

Mike's and my specific assignment was to drive the guests and speakers who came in from other countries.  I lost track of how many trips we made to this airport, including the one where we waited for four hours and found out that the speaker got another ride. It was our chance to "iServe", too. Oh and the trip  that I let Mike take alone in the middle of the night.

What a privilege it was to hear Dr. Robert E Coleman speak.  His book "Master Plan of Evangelism" had a huge impact on my life as a college student and in our AIT training to move overseas. I was able to personally thank him for his influence in my life through the book. 

The year 2028, we will celebrate 200 years of Christian missions in Thailand.  And yet, 94% of all new believers who become church members are led there by Thai Christians.  Missionaries account for just 6%.  It is a huge achievement that Thai Christians are now realizing that their country will only be reached through them and their witness. The theme for the three days was Unity- Strategy- Victory. 

There are still 5,100 sub-districts without a church, so cards were made with the name of these sub-districts on them and passed out to one per person so the Thai people can pray for these unreached areas. One person dies every two minutes in these sub-districts with little or no opportunity to hear the gospel.  

At the end of each day the iServe volunteers would gather together for more training and prayer. They were a hardworking group.

Christians coming together from many different denominations and groups and unifying to reach Thailand together for Jesus is the biggest stride forward that we are witnessing in this country. 

 Just looking at the potential in the room of 5000+ Christian's being motivated to go out and reach their corner of Thailand was exciting.  We were privileged to be a part of Congress 8.