Heavy rains came again yesterday and the flooding this morning was much more severe today than it was in my update two days ago. This morning, one whole apartment complex was surrounded with water 3 feet deep and the residents of that apartment had no way to get out and get food except by boat. This complex has two members of our church living there along with dozens of university students and is a stone’s throw away from the back of Baan Athitaan Church.
We called one of the members of our church after we saw the flooding and she said there were about 20 residents trapped inside the building with water over a foot on the first floor. None of them had eaten and they did not have a way to get out except with a small boat. So, several of us went out and bought enough food and water for 20 people and waded through knee deep water to get to the boat that then took the food over to the residents. Please pray for us during this time. This is the worst flooding I have seen in this area in my 9 years of living in Chiang Rai.
Flooding in Thailand affects hundreds of thousands of people every 
year. It not only destroys lives but destroys houses, farmland and carries bacteria and parasites in the water that cause sickness to hundreds of thousands of people in Thailand. Floodwaters in Thailand are normally full of parasitic leeches, human waste and bacteria that causes skin infections and fungus.
Attached is a link of pictures that we took this morning and two days ago of flooding as a result of heavy rains over the past several weeks. All of these pictures were taken within a 15 kilometer radius of Baan Athitaan Church and most of them within 200 yards of the church.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24338&l=1691966a95&id=141698185871002
God has burdened our hearts to see if we can begin raising funds to help with some of these disasters that happen like this. When we look closely at Jesus’ mission statement and at the way He lived out the Gospel during His 3 years of public ministry, we find that He always expressed His love and devotion to God in compassionate ways that reached out to the downcast, the distressed, the hurting, the sick, the poor, those in bondage, and the needy.
As followers of Jesus, our love for God must be expressed in these same compassionate ways.
As I shared in my last update, this Saturday a group of about 14 people from Baan Athitaan Church are going on a mission trip to Huay Khu Village, a Hmong village about 3 hours from the city of Chiang Rai. We are going to help a small church in that village rebuild their church that was destroyed by strong winds just a few months ago. We had hoped to raise enough funds to replace this very weak bamboo structure with a more solid block structure and anticipated spending less than $2,000. That may not sound like much but to those of us who live in this part of the world that is a lot of money.
Our church took up a special offering and tried various ways to help raise these funds here and praise God, we have been able to raise a little over $500. That is not enough to put up a 
block structure that we had hoped, so we will be putting up a very similar bamboo structure on this trip. It simply reminds me of the truth that because the Christian population in countries like Thailand is so small we still desperately need resources from Christians from other parts of the world that have a heart for missions.
We would like to do so much more and need your partnership to make that happen. Would you please pray about making a donation to NTIM and mark it “For Disaster & Emergency Relief” so that we will be able to use that in the future for assistance with flooding victims, or even for help in rebuilding churches that have been destroyed from strong winds or flooding.
Your Servants to the Nations in and around Northern Thailand,
Michael for the Team
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Your donations to NTIM are making a huge impact in the lives of people. They help us connect people in need with people who care. To make a donation for “DISASTER & EMERGENCY RELIEF” please send checks to NTIM, P.O. Box 26115, Birmingham, AL 35260 or make your donation online at www.gontim.org
“And if you offer yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted one, then your light will shine in the darkness, and your night shall be like the noonday.” Isaiah 58:10