I
had a flat tire on the scooter we borrow. It turned into a neighborhood
project after I bought a patch kit and pump, and later a new tube. It
started with a few neighbors and ended up with five men, one lady and six
children. We weren't successful though in the repair, the following day we
had to buy another new tube. On another day I knocked the pvc water pipe
with my hoe as I trimming the weeds around it, and broke the elbow. I
asked the neighbor where to turn off the water and ended up with two policeman,
the village waterman, and many neighbors. It has become a regular routine
now for me to work on street clean up every morning except Sunday. I start
at six or seven and work for an hour until it gets too hot. The street was
really overgrown with weeds and other plants and littered with lots of trash.
It's getting better and better. One morning as I went out to work, a lady
came running down the street after me, yelling, you, you. Then she said in
Thai, it's very hot out and gave me a helmet to wear. I started with just
a hoe and a rake, but have since added gloves, a weed eater, and Round Up weed
killer. I burn piles of weeds and trash nearly every day in the street.
Every morning people greet me and often let me know how much they appreciate the
street clean up. Nipon a retired navy man, who carries a huge knife and
sometimes a gun, took me for a bowl of rice soup and coffee at one of the small
village restaurants near the Community Center. He is one of Cindy's
English students too.
Today a family gave me a nice steel cup of ice water.
Happy Thai New Year. Yes, that's right we just celebrated New Years. On Monday the 14th our village had a large outdoor gathering,
with lots of food, then we poured water on each other and then there were tug of
war tournaments and other games. Songkran is a Thai traditional New Year which
starts on April 13 every year and lasts for 3 days. We didn't get near as wet,
as last year when we were in Bangkok. Songkran festival on April 13 is
Maha Songkran Day or the day to mark the end of the old year, April 14 is Wan
Nao which is the day after and April 15 is Wan Thaloeng Sok which the New Year
begins. At this time, people from the rural areas who are working in the city
usually return home to celebrate the festival. In the church service that
day I emphasized the need to honor and respect your family and older adults and
purpose to live a godly life in the new year.
It was my birthday on April 21. We celebrated with a trip to the Phi Phi
islands. I was there before just after the tsunami. Cindy wanted to
see it and I wanted to see it again. It was so wonderful to see everything
restored and fully operational on the island, plus the natural beauty is out of
this world. The water surrounding the island is clear like a swimming pool
a good 30 yards out from shore.
Our coworker here, and translator Jum, has been on a two week vacation. It
was challenging without her. I used an audio player that Don Jentes gave
me, that plays the God Story in Thai and used that for the Bible studies and
then I used a video version of it for one church service. It worked well,
in that I could find chapters in Genesis on the audio version that coincided
with what we had been studying in the Bible studies and then found parts of the
video of the life of Christ that coincided with our studies in Luke. Then last
Sunday we had the privilege of meeting the new Southern Thailand area director
with YWAM Thailand, Phillip Anderson, his wife Yvette, and their daughter Pearl.
Phil was my translator. He just returned from two years in the U.S. , but
all total he has been a missionary in Thailand for about twenty years, and
planted a church in Phang Nga. Phil is from California and Yvette is
from Australia, they met in Thailand. They live only about twenty minutes
away and will be a great resource. Jum is moving away the end of this
month so please pray that the Lord will provide a long term translator to take
her place until my Thai is better. Jum will be greatly missed not
only by Cindy and I but also by the congregation here, she has done much to
minister to the people of this village and the surrounding communities, both
young and old.
At some point
I hope to have a complete website for the church, but for now we have a
Calvary Chapel at the Bridge
web page. There are sermon notes and Power Point slides of our
services and Bible studies.
Our beautiful house is for sale.
$305,000 Quiet neighborhood with shopping and schools
nearby. Double door entry, ceramic tile through to the kitchen and in all
bathrooms. Step down into a formal dining room, plus a large separate family
room with a fireplace and wet bar, and there is a separate computer office. The
kitchen overlooks a covered patio and the hillside. Mt. Rubidoux can be seen
from the front yard. There is a nice sized back yard for gardening and pets.
This home is great for entertaining. Vaulted ceilings, lots of parking, wood
cabinetry in the kitchen. There are two closets in the master bedroom. There is
direct access to the three car garage and electric door opener. Laundry set up
in the garage. Easy access to the 60 freeway, nearby shopping and schools.
Click here for more information.
Songkhram tug of war competition
Cindy in front of our house
Another view of our house
Dana and Cindy
on our way to the way to the Phi Phi Islands
Pleasant boat ride, takes about 1 1/2 hours
Phi Phi Lay
Phi Phi Don
Phi Phi Don, what a change from three years ago
This hotel was where I helped the island doctor and
nurses three years ago, now it is fully restored, see more .Phi Phi today
pictures here
Last time I was there, it looked like this, you can see
more from the time of the
tsunami here
New weed eater and a new helmet, this is directly across
the street from our house
Our dog Muttley outside the home of Som and Nit
Soi Thachatchai, the main road I am cleaning up. It
did have vegetation and trash covering the sidewalk and 1/3 of the way
into the street
This is the Community Health Center on Soi Thachatchai
just down the street from the Community Center.
Street cleanup in process, a little bit better each day.
We hope to have YWAM teams help us make replacement
cement tiles for the sidewalk/storm drain.
Our four Bible students who helped us with worship
finished their two month internship and returned to Bible school in
Phuket
Our friends in Bangkok, Alistair and M, have a 2001 Nissan Frontier pickup
with only 25,000 miles they want to sell to us for $8,000 U.S., and they will deliver
it from Bangkok. We will then add the song tao, which means two
benches; there is a frame with an aluminum or canvas roof, like a camper
shell but with open walls and two benches. That part costs $800. So we
need $8,800. The truck will be our personal car as well as the church van. Can you help us with this project?
We have $2,500, we need $2,000 more by May 21, or Alistair may have to sell the
truck to someone else since he needs to buy his plane tickets for a trip to
Ireland.
We need the Lord's wisdom in leading and overseeing this ministry
which will probably also involve many new programs in the community center.
Pray for Southern Thailand and
especially for Calvary Chapel at the Bridge, the church plant in Thachatchai, Phuket.
Pray for Cindy as she teaches four
English classes in the Community Center each week. Two are designed for
adults, two for children. Next week she starts teaching English at the
public school 4 afternoons a week. .
Pray that the stewards of the Community
Center which is Food for the Hungry in Bangkok, and leaders in the village will
labor together to develop programs for the Community Center and that we will
together be able to raise support for air conditioning and an acoustic ceiling.
Pray
that God will enlighten the minds and understanding of Buddhists, to recognize
God as the only true God.
Pray that the Lord will send more laborers for the harvest here. We
urgently need a translator and we still need a new children's worker
who also speaks English, so she can work with Cindy in children's ministry.
We need some additional monthly support
Support may be sent to YWAM Montana 501 Blacktail
Road Lakeside, Montana 59922 U.S.A. Project number
3454.
Pray the Lord will help us to become fluent in Thai
so that we can be most effective in sharing the
Gospel and training and discipling.
We will begin lessons soon with a
teacher from the Thachatchai school.
Pray for the song tao truck
project
Pray for unity in the church and
for God to raise up servant leaders
Pray that our
house will sell. Our sons and their wives have
determined they cannot afford the monthly mortgage on our old home in Riverside.
They just replaced the heater and air conditioner, have done some painting and
yard work and have put it up for sale. Pray that it will sell quickly
and at good price that will benefit them and us. The home is located at 6517
Avenida Mariposa Riverside. A three bedroom house, two stories, three car
garage, 2 1/2 baths, we have reduced the price to $305,000. Contact Jerry Cook at Park
Place realty in Moreno Valley.
Nathan and Denise are expecting
their first baby this month. Praise the Lord!
Thanks for partnership with us, we greatly appreciate your support through prayer and
financial giving. God bless you,
Dana and Cindy Bratton
YWAM Thailand missionary. Support may be sent to
YWAM Montana 501 Blacktail Road Lakeside, Montana
59922 U.S.A. Project number 3454. or through
PayPal
The Thai Evangelism Committee is a coalition of churches
and ministries who have the goal of planting churches in 800 districts
throughout Thailand by 2010, with a “Christian presence” in each of the
8,000 sub-districts and a “Christian witness” in each of the 80,000 villages.
This plan unites Thailand's three different Protestant streams under the
Thailand Evangelism Committee (TEC): the Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand, the Church
of Christ of Thailand (CCT) and the Thailand Baptist Association.
The main goal of the website is to provide resources, many of which are free,
for Thai pastors. The English version can be
viewed here, http://www.thaivision2010.com/eng/
We are creating a birthday calendar for our friends and family. Can you please
click on the link below and enter your birthday for us. Don't worry it is quick,
and you don't have to enter your year of birth.
What led Dana and Cindy Bratton to
become missionaries to Thailand?
I went to Thailand in January 2005 to assist with
disaster relief as a pastor following the tsunami. I ministered in the city of
Krabi and on Phi Phi Island. I also taught English in a school near Nua Klong at
Laem Kruat. I tried to purchase a Bible for my host family in Thai or English.
I went to five different stores, new and used, and found no Bibles at all. This
really tugged on my heart, "how will they hear without the Word?" There was a
Baptist church in Krabi and I was able to obtain several New Testaments there. I
lived with the public school principal for nearly two weeks. I had his
permission to share my testimony and teach Bible stories in each English class.
Two Muslim teenage girls accepted Christ. When I returned home from this short
term trip, I told Cindy we really need to prayerfully consider going to Thailand
full time. They lack Bibles, they lack preachers, and yet the field is wide
open through the teaching of English. 95% of the population is Buddhist, 4%
and increasing are Muslim, and less than 1% is Christian. Cindy and I, and a
team of three others, went to Bangkok and to Krabi in July and August. We did
prayer walking, taught English, I preached in a men’s prison and two churches,
we worked with Child Evangelism Fellowship for a few days. Several things
persuaded Cindy of our call to ministry in Thailand, one was at a private
secular school where the opening song played daily by the school band, is the
missionary hymn "Send the Light." Second was a pig head offered as a sacrifice
to the Emerald Buddha atop two black iron bulls at the Grand Palace, the palace
buildings are mostly covered with gold. This reminded her of Solomon's Temple
and the abomination of desolation in Daniel as well as an attempt to make a
heaven on earth. She saw how desperately the Thai people need the Gospel.
You can see pictures and descriptions of those mission trips at
www.wdbydana.com/thailand
Cell Phone:
+66-08 6267-1370
Skype U.S. voice mail (951)643-8641
93/101 Moo 5 Soi Thachatchai 9
Mai Khao, Thalang
Phuket, Thailand 83110
Dana and Cindy Bratton used to reside in Riverside, CA. Dana was licensed to
the Gospel ministry in 1983 and ordained in 1990. He completed his clinical
training with the Health Care Chaplains' Ministry Association and was certified
as an associate chaplain in 1991. He has served as a hospital chaplain since
1990. He was certified as a full chaplain in 1995 and a provisional teaching
chaplain in 2002. He has also done hospice chaplaincy for 3 years. He and Cindy
both graduated from California Baptist University. Dana completed an M.Div
degree at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Brea May 2005. Dana and
Cindy were both missionaries with Child Evangelism Fellowship for 11 years.
Cindy taught middle school science in Ontario. The Bratton's are members at
Magnolia Avenue Baptist church in Riverside where they both sang in choir and
led a senior adult Sunday School class. The Bratton's have three grown children.
The Bratton's have made several short term mission trips, including Nairobi
Kenya, Campos Brazil, Bangkok and Krabi Thailand.
We completed TESOL
classes at BIOLA University in La Mirada in preparation
for career missionary service in Thailand teaching
English as a foreign language as well as any other means
to have opportunity to share the Gospel. Since Dana is
no longer serving as a hospital chaplain HCMA could not
continue to receive support on his behalf. YWAM
Thailand is active throughout Thailand in sharing the
Gospel, and in a variety of other ministries. We have
joined them as of May, but U.S. supporters can give tax
deductible donations through YWAM Montana. They
required we do a Crossroads Discipleship Training
School, we completed the lecture phase in Perth
Australia January through March 2007, and the outreach
phase in Bangkok and Chiang Mai Thailand April through
May. We began a an internship with YWAM Thailand
in May studying Thai language and culture in Bangkok.
Cindy and I went to
Nairobi Kenya three years ago, went to Campos
Brazil two years ago. Would you consider a short term mission trip? It is out
of this world!
A year ago last summer we went to
Thailand with the International Mission Board. In
August we moved to Thailand.
Our coworker here, and translator Jum, has been on a two week vacation. It
was challenging without her. I used an audio player that Don Jentes gave
me, that plays the God Story in Thai and used that for the Bible studies and
then I used a video version of it for one church service. It worked well,
in that I could find chapters in Genesis on the audio version that coincided
with what we had been studying in the Bible studies and then found parts of the
video of the life of Christ that coincided with our studies in Luke. Then last
Sunday we had the privilege of meeting the new Southern Thailand area director
with YWAM Thailand, Phillip Anderson, his wife Yvette, and their daughter Pearl.
Phil was my translator. He just returned from two years in the U.S. , but
all total he has been a missionary in Thailand for about twenty years, and
planted a church in Phang Nga. Phil is from California and Yvette is
from Australia, they met in Thailand. They live only about twenty minutes
away and will be a great resource. Jum is moving away the end of this
month so please pray that the Lord will provide a long term translator to take
her place until my Thai is better. Jum will be greatly missed not
only by Cindy and I but also by the congregation here, she has done much to
minister to the people of this village and the surrounding communities, both
young and old.
