Special English Classes for the young men in our camp.
Lots of room in our new Dining Hall (North-East Thai Teens like sitting on the floor on mats to eat--most meals! How convenient!
Don and Gail Craft, Missionaries to Thailand, "CRAFT EMAIL NEWS UPDATE, October 20, 2009
Thailand News – October Thai School Break. Camp!
Yearly, during Thai Public School break, we have our yearly "Light English Camp." This year for the second year in a row, we had our camp right here on the Sawang Dandin Baptist Church facility. Never before had we such a complete "campus" as this year. Since my father, Donald Craft (Senior) has been living with us as part of our family, his comfort and care has demanded us giving up one bathroom and my office meaning we would have been short one room and one bathroom. Well, we were able to resolve this by adding an 800 square foot addition to the "parsonage" building to include a large covered open air "multipurpose" area which we use for meetings, dining hall, and parking for the second church vehicle (which is used to pick up the young kids for our church here). We also added another room for a girl’s dorm, and two Thailand style bathrooms with a washing sink for cleaning up before meals.
This year’s camp had five volunteer helpers, which included Miss Liz Stevens, a short term missionary who taught English, two men from the Philippines who taught English and Basketball and a Thai Bible school student and a Thai Pastor, Phairat Senakhun from near Bangkok. Camp went very well and the Bible studies and classes went real well. See our blog to see an update report with pictures. We also had a cook and music leader from our Santisuk Baptist Church. It was a great success and I believe we can look forward to many more good camps here at our church facility in the future.
Our two church plants where we are involved continue to grow and see fruit. We see new people saved regularly. Last Sunday we had a baptism here in Sawang Dandin.
Family News – My Father, now part of our family and ministry.
It has been nearly six months since we brought my Father, Donald Craft (Senior) now 80 years old, here to be with us. Dad seems to enjoy himself and we have dad’s personal maintenance funds to share in our expenses – he now shares in our expenses and enjoys that since he is using his funds to help with our ministry – a real help with the current downturn in American economy. Dad is physically healthy and doing much better now that his physician has reduced much of his medications to only those he needs for good health. He is on modern memory medication and is in much better health than he was when he first came here. Dad has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, which is an incurable and degenerative disease of the brain. He is still very early in symptoms is quite aware of things going on around him and still has a sharp memory, meaning he loves to listen to sermons, Bible study, loves watching classic TV programming (like Andy Griffith) but is slowly loosing his abilities to carry on a coherent conversation. He interacts well with our Thai Christians, loves to sing the old hymns, participate in our family devotions. Our Thai friends being Asian culture, all feel this is a noble thing to do since elder care at home is a major issue in Thailand.
It is hard to believe it is almost November. Some of you have told us you are seeing snow, but none is to be seen here (ever!), I am happy to report! But we do have somewhat cooler weather from now until February. Last November, Gail invited everyone we knew in town and she cooked (would you believe!?) sixteen turkeys with all the trimmings including stuffing, cranberry sauces, pickles and gravy for an "American Thanksgiving," now a regular tradition, around here. I think she made 30 pies too. It is great fun, food and an outreach into our community.
Prayer and Praise
Continue to pray for our financial needs as we are somewhat affected by the economic downturn. Pray for the discipleship ministry going on here among the many new contacts and the leadership training we are doing. Pray for the camps and year end programs. Pray for our fellow missionaries, Rick and Lisa Caynor and their two children. Lisa has been in a coma for two months after a car accident. She is showing ever so slow improvement but may still have a long way to go before she may be normal again. They had finished two years of Language school and were opening a new church center in the South when the accident happened. Pray for our continued generally good health – we are 57 now by the way. Praise the Lord for spiritual growth among us and the Christians here. Pray for those who we are training for leadership.
Yours in Christ,Don and Gail CraftOur USA based phone number is 586-797-9019, (rings in Thailand! But a local call for Michigan) Our Email: doncraft@comcast.net
Our web page as follows: http://donandgailcraft.blogspot.com Our Home Address: Don and Gail Craft, PO Box 1 Sawang Dandin, Sakon Nakhon 47110 Thailand Don and Gail Craft are ABWE Missionaries to Thailand doing church planting among the Romprakhun Fundamental Baptist Church Fellowship of Churches as a fellow missionary with the PABWE mission.If you desire to help our ministry, please send your gift to our mission ABWE, Inc. Gifts for our projects, can be designated. Tax deductible gifts for our ministry can be sent to the following address: ABWE, Inc., PO Box 8585, Harrisburg, PA 17105-8585 USA with a note, "For the work and ministry of Don and Gail Craft, account number 0130353."
