To Thailand With Love from Mississippi – 2025 – 11 – 25

As I sit here in the cool weather at the very top of one of
the most beautiful mountains in Northern Thailand called Doi Mae Salong. I am
sitting at a desk at a community school listening to one of my Thai team
members assisting one of my Friends from Mississippi teach English in one of
our projects we call “English Fun Day.” As I sit here and write this update, my
heart is overflowing with love and thankfulness to God for allowing this
normal, ordinary man, who has been touched by an extra ordinary God, to
experience love and grace of our wonderful God who loves us and wants us, as
followers of Jesus, to join Him in His work of taking the love and message of
Jesus into all the unreached people groups of our world today as Jesus
commissioned us in Matthew 28.

Today we simply and clearly testify and to say that there is
great indescribably joy and peace knowing that you are living exactly where God
wants you to live and doing what God wants you to do. God gives us many
wonderful ways that we can serve and honor God with our lives. One of those
ways that God has led us to join Him in what He is doing in our world is that
we have joined God through the 501c from the USA called NTIM. www.gonitm.org
 NTIM is one of the tools God is using to
facilitate the gospel of our Lord Jesus and those who want to take that gospel
and go into the heart of the Buddhist world through a very intentional strategy
of teaching English.

We teach English as a platform to build relationships with
people who do not know Jesus and we “Build Bridges” to their hearts by loving
and blessing their lives with helping develop their English language skills. We
don’t just teach English well, but we do it with integrity and with legitimacy
and not as a front or pretense for evangelism. We believe that it honors God
when we work with integrity as English teachers to teach English as our “work
permits” give us permission to do. We do not use the “English classroom” to
preach the gospel but we use the “English classroom” to teach English with
integrity and build relationships of love and mutual respect. As we build these
relationships, these relationships naturally lead to discussions of beliefs,
values, and discussions of the meaning of life. It is in this context of
relationships, not the classroom, that God often opens natural doors to share
the love and message of our great Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. 

Thank you for your continued prayers and financial support
for this amazing work that God is doing in one of the least reached areas in
our world today. Even in the midst of millions who have still yet to hear the
message of Jesus clearly and where there are still thousands and thousands of
families where there have never, ever had anyone in their whole family heritage
become a follower of Jesus. But God is at work changing people’s lives. God has
raised up an English language platform to build a bridge to the hearts of our
students and many of our students begin or complete their journey toward
becoming followers of Jesus. Because teaching English is so relationship
intensive, God has given us a great platform to build healthy relationships
that lead us down the road to not just teaching English skills but sharing our
very lives and the values that we hold dearly and what a joy it is for us when
some of our students want to hear more about Jesus and How God loves them and
has a wonderful plan for their lives. So, please remember to pray for Grace
Language School and for all of our teachers including: Becky, Daniel, Paulette,
Doug, Hope, Michael, Ball, Jay, Boom, Ja, and Pat. Please also remember to pray
for Liz, Dallas, and their two children Mary Ella and Theo who also live here
in Chiangrai. Here is a picture of our NTIM Grace Language School team that was
taken at the beginning of this year.

One of the greatest ways people from the USA and other parts
of our world can help us is to bring a team of native English speakers to come
and help us go into one of the Thai schools and give them a chance to interact
and enjoy speaking English with native English speakers.

We love receiving volunteer teams and what a great joy it is
when friends bring a team to help us reach out into our community from the
great state of Mississippi. All 5 members on this mission team are all members
of FBC in Florence, Ms where Bro. Sam Taylor serves as Pastor. One of the
members of this team, Joshua, came out for the first time about 10 years ago as
best I can remember. This is the first time for 3 of the other team members to
come and serve with us: Kellie, Darlene, and Melanie. The last member of this
team and the team leader Beverly Bridges, has become one of my closest friends
and also serves as a Board member of our NTIM Board. This is not her first
trip, or her second or third trip. No, This is her 18^th time to come
and serve with us on this side of the pond. Beverly has been coming almost
every year since 2008. She loves the Thai people almost as much as I do. Let me
be clear: WE LOVE IT WHEN OUR FRIENDS AND PARTNERS COME and help us reach the
various Thai unreached people groups living in and around Northern Thailand.

When I started writing this update yesterday, we had just
arrived at a school and did an English Fun Day at a school in Doi Maesalong.
Here are a few pictures from yesterday.