Greetings friends, family, and partners from the Northern part of Thailand.
What great joy it brings my heart to get email from friends and loved ones. This week we received a special email from some very dear friends that we have known for over 20 years. These friends were active members of our church in Tuscaloosa (Emmanuel Baptist Church) when Hope and I were in college at the University of Alabama. The Donald Rush family and the Rick Rush family were very instrumental in our lives as young college students, and Don played a very special role in my life as a friend and mentor. It has been quite a long time since we have seen either of their families, but what a joy it brought to my heart to receive an email from Don this past week saying they have been thinking about us and praying for the ministry here in Northern Thailand.These two families recently felt challenged after hearing a story about people raising and selling piglets to support missions in Nepal. Don went on to say, “Rick and I do not have any pigs but we have lots of art. We want to offer you up to $10,000 of art to be used for your ministry.”
Many of you on this email list know the Rush families but for those of you who do not, let me take a moment to say a word about their business Rick is an extremely gifted professional sports artist based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Don helps market his work as the president of Jireh Publishing International.
Don has proposed a project called “Art for Missions” to help support NTIM’s ministry:
“Your supporters or any interested party can go to our website www.RickRushArt.com and pick the art out and we will ship it directly to them and 100% of the money will go directly to your ministry. …. Rick’s large serigraphs sell for approximately $800 each so if you had 12 people respond, you would be close to $10,000.”
As their website says, “The essence of sports is a fleeting moment of intense exuberance–life at its most exhilarating. At its best, sports art acknowledges yet counteracts life’s brevity by allowing the viewer to savor the intensity of a moment in motion. Artist Rick Rush is a master of the Sports Art genre.” Art for Missions is a great opportunity to accomplish two things: (1) receive some fabulous sports paintings and (2) help up to $10,000 go directly to our missions work through NTIM.
Please join me in praying that God will use “Art for Missions” to help raise much-needed funds for NTIM’s continuing outreach to this part of God’s needy world with the love and message of Jesus. If you know someone who loves sports, please feel free to forward this email to them. They may be interested in purchasing some of this great artwork while at the same time supporting God’s work here in Northern Thailand.
Your Servants to the Nations in and around Northern Thailand,
Michael for the team
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You can also send donations to support God’s work to NTIM directly. All donations made are tax deductible and can be made either online at www.gontim.orgor mailed to NTIM, P.O. Box 26115, Birmingham, AL 35260
Reaching, Teaching, Discipling, Equipping, Training, and Serving People in God’s World through acts of love and compassionate is what NTIM and our ministry team is all about.