The team praying over some of the congregation at the church
Paul one of the World Race Team members writes: It has been
hard not being able to speak the language this month, but I can't
tell you how many times we have been thanked for simply being an
encouragement from God to the few Christians in this community.
Please pray for Ohn, Nok, Taton, Ake, and their families, that God
would bless them, and bless others through them. They truly do shine like lanterns in a dark room in this
community.
Every Saturday, we have Kid's Club, which is much like Awana.
Games, Bible lessons, worship and crafts all make up this awesome
experience.
The team: The people in this
photo from left to right are Dana, Cindy, Jobie, Sarah, Becca, Paul, Keryn, and our team leader, Greg.
The church we are working with is a small Calvary Chapel
and is pastored by a wonderful missionary couple named Dana and Cindy.
Despite the small size of the church, we have been helping Dana and
Cindy in a number of ministries that include teaching English, working
to clean up the community, speaking at a radio program, and helping the
church with sermons and worship.
This week has been particularly interesting as Dana and
Cindy have been out of the country renewing their visa and thus giving our team
a tremendous amount of responsibility to be proactive and self-initiative. Our
work in improving the community has not gone unnoticed either. Greg and I have
both had a couple experiences where locals will want to feed us or give us
something to drink as a way of thanking us for the things we have been doing to
improve the village. This is especially refreshing, as there are very few people who
understand English. I have been having a bit of trouble dealing with
this aspect of ministry. Feeling as though a smile and a bow is about
the only thing that I can accurately convey and receive, it makes me
feel inept at times. But I know that God can do a great deal with that.
It seems we have been making quite an impact on the kids in the village,
as it really doesn't take much to be able to play, and they almost seem
more patient than the adults in struggling through communication. One
young boy named But has taken a particular liking to us, even being so
bold as to make himself feel right at home in our living room within the
first couple days of us being there. Between working in the mornings,
speaking on the radio, and just spending time with the kids at the
beach, the days seem to be flying by.
One Wednesday while we were gone to Singapore Paul
gave the message at the Wednesday
night church. And Greg did the two radio programs. These nights and Sunday mornings would be impossible if we
did not have the help of our translators. The few Christians who are
here in our village are awesome, incredibly encouraging and kind. It is
especially noticeable in contrast to the more reserved demeanor's of
most of the residents. Please pray for breakthrough for Dana and Cindy
as they have been here for 3 years and are continuing to learn the
language and become better friends with residents of the neighborhood.
We are very grateful for the hard work of the team in teaching
English and cutting weeds especially in the walking park. Thankful they
each shared their testimony on the radio and at church. They helped with
worship and then Keryn made two videos we can use in California and Oregon
April 18-June 3.
Ministry video of Dana and Cindy Bratton missionaries with YWAM in
Thailand serving at Calvary Chapel at the Bridge and two schools - Wat
Pattikaram and Chao Thai Mai in Thai Muang, Phang Nga served by Happy
Hearts Foundation
Becca writes: There's a park in the middle of town; a beautiful park that
has a nice little cement walkway around the entire thing. I had no idea the park
was a park until we were told that it was - it was so overgrown I thought it was
just a patch of land. Our manual labor includes cleaning it up (trash, weeds,
stray coconuts, branches, etc). No machetes this month though! We've upgraded to
a riding lawn-mower and some awesome weed-eaters, metal rakes that WORK...tools
that make results happen pretty quickly (with limited blister-build up, thank
the Lord!). It's amazing how God is using the work we do in the mornings to
reach the community - they're kind to us, seemed to have accepted us, and are
extremely gracious people. They also know that we are with Dana and Cindy (our
contacts here) and so while we can barely communicate with these Thai people, I
still believe that God is speaking to them for us - even if it is only through
their observations of us. We help Cindy with teaching kids English as a second
language at a few different schools - the kids are a blast! We do fun little
activities and help grade their workbooks. More on the ESL stuffHERE.
Greg writes: pastor at the church here does a radio program a couple times a
week. When he isn't doing all that he usually does a lot of "yard work" in the
community such as cutting weeds and mowing grass and spraying weeds along the
side of the road, in fact many people in the community know him as the "weed
cutting pastor". His wife teaches English at a few schools and runs a children's
program on Saturday afternoon with the kids in the local community...So we took
to work and no joke, just about every day or so we were out there, we had
someone in the community stop us and ask us if we wanted some cold water or
sodas or we even had some lady bring us some freshly cut, cold pineapples, which
were just delicious after having worked long hours in the hot sun.
We went to Singapore to apply for new one year visas for
Thailand, but discovered the Thai Embassy there only issues that kind of visa to
Singaporeans and permanent residents of Singapore. So we only were able to
get 60 day tourist visas, which will need to be extended about another week
before leaving for the USA and we probably apply in Portland. But we did
have a nice 5 day vacation, staying with our friends Tan and Lina Soh.
Hat Yai is in the province of Songkla about seven hours drive south of us.
We had a two day meeting there with YWAM. Phil Porter our national
director was there too.
Friends and fellow YWAMers Wutt and Radt from Krabi were married about a year
and and a half ago. Radt was leading the work of YWAM in Krabi and Wutt
was assistant pastor of a church there. They are moving to Khok Kloy. Wutt
has agreed to be my assistant pastor dealing with member care, discipleship and
outreach. He will also be assisting with some teaching and reaching out to the
youth and asssisting Cindy with worship. He will be with us Sundays,
Wednesdays, and some mornings. He will take my place during our time in the USA
at church and on the radio. During the time we are gone and he is also gone to
LTW or other meetings, missionary David Speights has agreed to fill in. Wutt
and Radt will live with Mark and Doreen, YWAMers who have an orphanage. Wutt
will also help Mark and Radt will work full time with Doreen. He says their
commitment will be for at least a year to help both ministries or longer,
depending on when YWAM begins offering a YWAM Discipleship Training School in
Phuket, then he wants to be involved in that.
We've purchased our tickets, we fly from Phuket to Bangkok on Air Asia the night
of Sunday April 17 then early Monday morning we fly to Shanghai China on China
Eastern and from there to LAX arriving around 11:00 a.m. We would
like the privilege of speaking at your church. I am available for
preaching, teaching Bible studies or Sunday School classes, we both or
individually can share about our
missionary work in Thailand. Cindy can speak to women's groups and
children's groups. Most of the time we will be in Fontana, CA. We will be in Medford Oregon May 19 - 26.
We have a few places on the calendar, but our schedule is
open at the moment, so please let us know how we can serve you.
We were in need of a second
vehicle because of
transporting teams of
volunteers and in the rainy
weather when I can�t ride my
motorcycle. We have found a
used double cab Toyota truck
for $3,000 we think this
will be quite suitable and
was at a good price. We
paid $1,000 down, with
regular payments through
June 15. If we pay if
off in full then, there is
no interest. Please
pray the Lord will provide
for this. We have had to do some repairs on it to bring it up to
full working order.
Praise the Lord for the Bangkok Phuket Hospital who will allow me to
serve on call as a volunteer and are working on details for regular visitation.
Chaplain Don Jentes sent me a generic spiritual care policy, there are reviewing
now.
Praise the Lord the need for
more pastoral care and
discipleship will soon be
met, and the pulpit filled
during our time in the U.S.
Praise the Lord for Kenny
who came from Missouri to
help us for four days last
month.
Pray for YWAM Southern Thailand and for Phil and Yvette Anderson. Phil
resigned as regional director and they will be in the USA for six months
regrouping and applying for Yvette's citizenship (she is Australian.)
Perhaps you will get to meet them as Phil's sister lives in Lake Arrowhead.
Pray for open doors of
opportunity to speak in
California and Oregon in
April and May
Pray for another $2,000 to pay off the truck
Pray the Lord of the Harvest to call, equip, and send laborers into this
difficult but ready for-harvest field.
Pray for Cindy as she teaches English this month.
Pray for me as I preach and teach in our village of Thachatchai, that many
more people will come to faith in Christ.
Pray for the team who is ministering with us this month. We have two
YWAMers on DTS outreach from Chiang Rai for two weeks now, they will be joined
by another eight team members in mid March.
Pray for English Bible Camp
at the Korean Church in
Phuket, I will teach March
15-17
Thanks for your partnership with us, we greatly appreciate your support through
prayer and financial giving. God bless you, Dana and Cindy
Bratton
YWAM Thailand missionary. Regular support may be sent to YWAM Montana 501 Blacktail Road
Lakeside, Montana 59922 U.S.A. Project number 3454. or through
PayPal
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