God’s Transforming Power Among UPGs – NTIM Edition – Sept 14, 2018
The reality is that Christians should live with an acute awareness that one day – probably soon – Jesus will come again to this earth and will usher in the beginning of the countdown of the earth as we know it and even more importantly will usher the beginning of the end of the time when men, women, and children all over the world will no longer have a chance to believe in Jesus and become citizens of heaven.
Since this is true, I want to plead with all of our Christian friends all over the world to not fail to pray for all of those least reached people groups mostly located in the heart of the 10-40 window who are filled with millions and millions of people who have never heard the message of our great Savior Jesus Christ.
Even in the midst of millions who still have never heard the message, God is at work drawing people to himself and transforming their lives. Please take a moment and listen to Gahn’s personal testimony.
Most of you reading this know Gahn because Gahn served on our staff as our Worship Leader at Baan Athitaan Church for many years before I had the honor of marrying Gahn and the former Kim Matthews who also served in our ministry before they were married. Now God has given them an opportunity to lead a great children’s ministry home under the care of YWAM called Baan Eden. We are very glad to all be a part of the same church family at Baan Athitaan Church where I have the honor of serving as Senior Pastor and to have Gahn lead us in worship from time to time.
Gahn is from one of these least reached people groups in Thailand. As a matter of fact, Gahn is from the largest unreached people group living in Thailand which also is the same unreached people group that leads the country of Thailand and is of the same ethnicity as the King of Thailand. This UPG is the group we call the Central Thai people group.
Out of the 67 million people living in Thailand, 20 – 32 million of them (if you include the “thai-chinese” from Joshua Project into the group) are from this least reached people group. The second largest unreached people group (UPG) in Thailand is the Isan people group and they make up about 18 million people. The third largest unreached people group (UPG) in Thailand is the Northern Thai (Muang) people group and they have about 7 million people here in Thailand mostly living in Northern Thailand.
There are over 80 unreached people groups living here in Thailand but these three UPGs are by far the largest and most influential in Thailand. God has given us the opportunity to be involved in seeing hundreds of Thai people from these various unreached people groups come to know Jesus over the last 19 years we have lived in Thailand. Most of them have been university students and have been the first or second persons in their entire families to become followers of Jesus. Even though we have seen God do some amazing things over the years, we feel very much like we are just now beginning to be used of God with so much more work to be done and the focus of our work is moving more in the direction of training and equipping and putting down a solid foundation for future growth with a permanent presence through our upcoming building project (which I will give an update on soon).
Please pray for these unreached peoples and for the work of NTIM, Grace Language School, and Baan Athitaan Church which are the ministries that I have the honor to lead. Please also pray for Gahn and Kim’s work through Baan Eden as well. This ministry is a part of YWAM’s work in Thailand.
Remember these words from our Lord Jesus who said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” Matthew 9:37-38
For more information on the work that God has allowed me to lead through NTIM, please write me at pray4ntim@gmail.com or go to our website at www.gontim.org
Thanking you in advance for your prayers and for your support. “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” James 5:16
Please ask others to pray and forward this email to them.
Grateful and Happy to be Serving Our Awesome God in Northern Thailand for such a time as this.
Michael Johnson
P.S. AN UPDATE ON THE BUILDING PROJECT COMING SOON….
