Don and Gail Craft

The Ministry in Sawang Dandin

2010-11-07T23:46:00.000-05:00

Romans 15:9 And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name.

The ministry God has chosen to lead us into is in a far corner of the world. Perhaps some might think it is unimportant and obscure since we live in a town which is not considered a huge town or financial giant among world cities. In fact, our town is almost devoid of any industry. We are roughly 340 miles from Bangkok and half way between two provincial capitols. There is a plan to develop this city into a provincial seat that has been delayed mainly because of the economy. Yet, there are 152,000 people registered residents here, though most families have at least one working elsewhere to support their families. There have been many gains in recent years developing the regional economy for agriculture, in particular Sugar cane production and rubber plantations. But most local salaries are still below national minimum wage. Many of the local youth grow up to move and work elsewhere to acquire work that would be gainful enough to support them since other than sales, government and education, Sawang Dandin offers very little opportunities.

Our Baptist Center, composed of three buildings and a open air Basketball/sports area is located just outside the edge of the city limits. It is in a particularly quiet and secure locale being on a side street off the main road and with a high elevation, which is good for a church property. While other areas in Thailand are enduring are flooding, and unlike our former rented church location, we are high and dry on a hilltop. Parents who send their children to our English ministry are also happy about our center location since it away from stores and busy streets. Gail opened a small snack shop so children who attend special classes do not want to leave our center to get snacks, and the profits are used for the prizes used for bible memory and group games.

Kids Games a great success!

2010-11-07T19:39:00.003-05:00

Four wonderful days for our group here at Sawang Dandin Baptist Church. Our first day was "leadership training" classes for those participating as leaders. This was a new concept for camping, which includes youth in the work and leadership process and equipped them for the following three days of camp. A side benefit is we have youth who learned a number of principles about Christian leadership. It was no wonder that on the final day, at least nine people dedicated their lives for Christian work. Kids Games included lots of fun games for kids with a Bible focus, Bible memory, and a jam packed, fast moving program where the youth were not bogged down in classroom activities. After all, they are on their semester break from the public schools, so this was a welcome change of pace. A few schools in the area had already begun the next term conflicting with the camp schedule, something we often face here during the three week break, cutting into the numbers who attend. But still the quality of the camp was wonderful and the results point to the success of the kids games camp

Kids Games in Action!

2010-11-06T20:55:00.000-04:00

Very pretty and talented Miss Debbie Meiers (back) came to help us for two months from her home in Wisconsin upon recommendation of her pastor and has been an amazing delight with lots of musical and interpersonal skills with our Thai students. Here is Debby with some of her English Classroom. She amazed all of us when she memorized the Thai words to Thai versions of songs and sang duets and parts with her crystal clear voice. Debbie continues to learn Thai expressions and has a lot of energy -- the kids here all have fallen in love with her. Also in this picture is another Church Planting Assistant from the Bangmot Baptist Church, a fellow Romprakhun Baptist Fellowship Church near Bangkok, Miss Warang, one of the favorite helpers at our camps.

Football! (What we Americans call Soccer)

2010-07-06T22:23:00.001-04:00

With the World Cup in the news internationally and daily, once in four year event, our teens are really interested in playing football (the game we Americans call soccer). We had two team, one small kids and one big kids in a form of soccer called fusol played on a cement pad. The game is fast and actions is constant. One week before this our big team played in Nong Mek on a full size soccor field, at a friend's church there and were beaten twice. But here on home court they won handily twice. This soccer match with the Song Daaw church and it was a lot of fun. Extra special was the chance to bring in neighbor boys who normally do not attend our classes. We are trusing the Lord that we can reach our neighbor boys with the gospel through sports.

A point for our team!

Our goal is smaller but according to the fusol court regulation size. The player's skill level has to be much higher as everything moves fast in this game.

Regular tennis type shoes mean more control and fast action. The light blue Sawang Dandin Baptist Church "Wild Cats" are pressing for a goal.

Though it was sprinkling and humid, it was cool making the game fun. Even the ones who stayed to cheer on the players had a lot of fun.

Three hours of sports is pretty exhausting but Gail made a huge pot of Wanton and noodle pork Soup for the players. They finished every drop.

2010 Missions Conference at Sawang Dandin Baptist Church

2010-05-04T19:17:00.004-04:00

Thailand Association of Baptists for World Evangelism Mission, missionaries, appointed to serve in Cambodia. (from their prayer card)
From 3John, "Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers; Which have borne witness of thy charity before the church: whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well: Because that for his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellow helpers to the truth".
It was our great privilege to be a part this new work for our Lord.

When they came to our annual Missions conference, I did not know how well this family sang together until they came and shared with us this weekend. From the left is there daughter Lydia, Mrs Nat Khamma and Pastor Soontorn singing the Ron Hamilton song, "A Servant's Heart" translated into the Thai language. They blessed our conference at the Sawang Dandin Baptist Church with their zeal and passion for the Lord and shared their burden and mission to preach the Gospel in East Cambodia. They will be the first TABWE missionaries from the Romparkhun Fundamental Baptist Church Fellowship sent out to serve overseas. These are exciting days for the member churches to see one of their own go to the mission field with the Gospel, supported and sent by their own.

One of the blessings of a missions conference is the many folks who participate. Here is Pastor Wittaya, assistant Pastor of the Bangkhen Baptist Church, Bangkok, and his wife sharing a short message followed by a song by his family.

After these meetings, my heart was blessed and stirred with the job again. I am sharing my heart after hearing the messages and challenges. How these things remind us of how we have found the Lord faithful to us these 30 years of service in Thailand.

Our missions conference was blessed by mission messages from the Word of God and songs sung by the Soontorn Khamma family. Our conference began Saturday morning with a challenging message about the need to preach the Gospel by Pastor Soontorn.

2010 Missions Conference first day

2010-05-01T20:32:00.000-04:00

During the afternoon session, Pastor Soontorn told about the formation and registation of the TABWE mission as a legal entity for missionary work under the Thai Department of Religious Affairs, paving the way for recognized status as TABWE missionaries open new countries for Thai missionaries.

Our mission Board showing faces of Cambodia and the Cambodia flag and a map.

Challenging music and messages make a missions conference.

Our evening time was a special informal time where Pastor Soontorn and Nat and their two children shared in an informal setting about their conversion, call and minstry. It was very interesting and was a time for interaction with our missionaries.

A number of youth raised there hand to show a desire to give their lives to the Lord. Pray with us for them.

Final prepartions for the morning meeting included our teen boys preparing their special music one more time. Then a time honoring the Thai flag and the opening of the Mission Conference.

A number of challenging songs such as "Send the Light, the Blessed Gospel Light" in Thai.

Leading up to the conference, the youth helped set up and decorate including the Poster Board featuring the mission field of Cambodia.

Missions conference poster.

Our 2010 Summer Camp

2010-04-19T15:34:00.005-04:00

We had as many as 72 in our camp April 5-10 extending six full days! This is our final day picture with certificates and some of the parents who came and participated in the awards time. It was one of the best summer camps we have ever had and all of the camp for these kids was hosted right here at our Sawang Dandin Baptist Church.

Our camp program theme this year was "Working together in Love." Each day was filled with opportunities for lots of sports utilizing our church facilities which has a combo basketball, volleyball, takraw (an Asian sport) and short court soccer area.

Each day began with morning calisthenics, then morning devotions, followed by breakfast and the morning Bible study session. We had group games outside in the cooler mornings with some of the craziest games for kids on earth and in the hot afternoons we had more games inside and English classes until the evening meal. Smaller children were taken home after the afternoon classes and games (exhausted by the way!).

Our evening session was really special with great preaching, singing and special music from the fellow campers. Then we had "Sports with a Passion" under our flood lights until bedtime. Many of the young men slept outside in pup tents scattered on the east side of the property. The young ladies and lady leaders slept in the "Youth Building," which was our ladies dorm this year on the south side of the church. Overflow boys slept in the auditorium on the floor and stage. Thai kids do not mind sleeping on a floor mat or rug. So sleeping areas were easy to come by.

Even though camp week was one of the hottest weeks in 2010, the general health and well being and attitude of the campers was great. The youth really did not have time to get bored since our helpers kept them busy all day! When they did have a little free time they were basically ready for a rest.

Our cooks had worked for weeks preparing the menu and meals. Our food this year was almost like eating out in a fine Thai restaurant, thanks to our helpers and especially Miss Kunya from the Santisuk Baptist Church. Needless to say, our camps will be well attended in the future with the team we have.

I was reminded once again how just three years ago at this time of year, Gail and I were at one of the lowest points of our 30 years of ministry with a burnt out rental home and uncertain future. We are amazed and praising the Lord seeing how has taken this destroyed and useless situation and made it one of the finest facilities in Northeast Thailand for the Lord's grace.

Matthew 21:42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?

Many of our helpers came from member churches in our Romprakhun Fundamental Baptist Church fellowship. All of these churches have been planted by the Philippine Association of Baptists for World Evangelism. Gail and I work as fellow PABWE missionaries in this fellowship of churches. We had Thai Pastor Sawkham and Orn, who are church planting in Cha-am in the evenings with Romprakhun Baptist Seminary student, Khun Wichit. In the mornings, we had visiting ABWE missionary, Ron Powell, who came to help out from California. One special helper, who has been a long time friend of our ministry was Miss Walangkana Mandee, a church staff member of the Bangmot Baptist Church near Bangkok. She brought a new convert and growing Christian Dr. Tdu who shared her testimony and helped out with the youth. Our cook is Miss Kanya from our own Santisuk Baptist Church where we are co-pastoring and church planting. Helping the cooks were three ladies from the Thai Church of Nongphok, including the pastor's wife, Mrs. Plernjit Panangtang. Our other helpers were from our own church, Matthew and Kaew Panangtang.

Needless to say, the last evening with many new converts in the group (perhaps 10) there were many tears that the camp was drawing to a close and some of the helpers were going home. I always say, better not enough than too much! The kids did not want to end the camp but we only had our final day. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Camp in Sawang

2010-04-10T16:29:00.003-04:00

Old McDonald had a "Gecko"? Wait a minute!

Pastor Sawham preaching opening message for Camp on Seven Types of Love in I John.

" I want to be your friend" song in English.

Mrs On sharing her life testimony how she was saved by the Lord while a student in Bangkok.

Bible Memory game: Arrange the words of the Bible correctly before the little train makes a circle. If not, "POP!" goes the balloon (a pin on the train makes sure of that.

Our pianist, business manager, organizer and housewife...how does Gail Craft do it all.

Singing the friendship game song.

Like a row of logs after a long day and short night ... WAKE UP it is 6AM devotions in just 30 minutes.

Bowling with Grandpa and the teens

2010-03-24T23:50:00.005-04:00

Short term missionary, Miss Liz Stevens, met us at camp and we enjoyed her sweet attitude for another few days and heard of the love and zeal for our young people. So here is a photo of her ad hoc fan club (one of many I am sure!) from the Sawang Dandin bunch. This is in front of the Coral Resturant where we had a lovely seafood dinner before heading home to Sakon Nakhon.

Girls always take opportunity to make a publicity spot photo-- here they are at the bowling alley with Miss Liz.

And of course where Ronald is there is always a smile.

10 teens went to send Liz off to the bus and we had some time and went bowling. Here is Oah trying to get a spare.

When Dad went bowling with us, he did not have his old bowling arm in shape...in fact he sort of dropped them **BOOM** trying to send the ball off.

Well, Dad managed to get a couple bowling balls down the alley but the third went so slow it finally stopped half way and the managment had to go and retieve the bowling ball. So we used a handicap bowling helper and it really made it a lot of fun. For Dad it ended up a great day of fun. And Dad's score was not half bad with his handicap...ha!

Bowling is easy on the "kids lane" where they have gutter rails...why haven't they had those when I was a kid!

USA comes to Northeast Thailand

2010-03-24T23:26:00.002-04:00

Life in our area has changed again...well sort of, since now we sport a brand new McDonalds in the neighboring town of Udon. Their 30 cent ice creams are just as much fun as USA.

Sawat dee Krup, Sawat dee Ka, the Thai greeting coming from good ol' Ronald McDonald himself. Here is Miss Oah and Miss Oom posing by the clown himself.

And here is Miss Tangmo (or Phuong Le) making the scene with Ronald McDonald

Hi Ronald!
Hi Tangmo!

Oah's World Blogspot

2010-03-24T23:14:00.003-04:00

One of our High School Seniors has started her own Blogspot web and it is full of fun teen stuff. Here she is goofing off with some huge eyeglass frames.

She now is a HAM radio operator too with the following callsign HS4VKJ.

Her blog: http://www.oahsworld.blogspot.com/

Teens are lots of challenges and fun.

Happy events in Sawang Dandin Baptist Church

2009-11-15T23:52:00.003-05:00

My Father is one very happy man here these day.

Mr. Sutisak (or Tangmo) the first new convert of our Santisuk Baptist Church is now a High School teacher and an active church leader there.

Miss Michelle Garcia, one of the regular and faithful friends of our youth and a regularly camp counsellor who helps out in Sawang Dandin who came up special for the baptisms.

Five happy girls and and one boy from Sawang Dandin Baptist Churhc and one young man and one young lady from the Santisuk Baptist Church who followed the Lord in Baptism with Pastor Duane Harper a prayer warrior and help in our work. Three of the young ladies in Sawang Dandin starting coming upon his urging. He flew here from Wisconsin to participate in this event (much to our pleasure and surprise!). On far right is Mrs Thonbai a godly member of the Santisuk Baptist Church who has led many of the young people to the Lord over the years.

Morning worship in Sawang Dandin Baptist Church

Miss Oom recieving the broken bread in her first time after Baptism to partake in communion (our rule considering Baptism obeidence to the Lord).

2009 October "Light Camp" at the Sawang Dandin Baptist Church

2009-10-20T11:02:00.002-04:00

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!

Almost ready to eat. We big people get to sit on chairs.

Volley ball action.

Even at night with our new flood lights.

2009-10-20T11:01:00.000-04:00

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."

2009-10-19T11:57:00.000-04:00

Hands washed and ready to eat!

Bible Memory.

with icons ....

Pastor Phairath Senakhun making a point.

And of course, the Flag cerimony how we start each day!

Finishing faithfully, Rev Arturo C. and Phebe Inion,

2009-07-20T20:04:00.003-04:00

"Pastor Art" and his dear wife, Phebe made one last visit to Sawang Dandin before his return to the Philippine Islands to retire.
Pastor Arturo and Pastor Surasit, pastor of the Santisuk Baptist Church.

Here are some photos of this get together.

Song and fellowship because of the Grace of God in our hearts.

Over the last year Pastor Art has faced a number of challenges to his generally good health and has decided that he would finally go on full retirement status and return to the Philippines. Even though he partially retired a few years ago they continued to serve in a new church plant in Bangmot near Bangkok. Pastor and Mrs. Inion are the pioneer Baptist church planters in this province, having a direct hand in the salvations of hundreds of souls and a part in many fundamental Baptist Churches in the province of Sakon Nakhon which are on going works and reaching out in the pattern Paul the Apostle espoused in 2 Timothy 2:2, "And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." We were not able to prepare ahead of time for a surprise visit, but a number of the ones who are the results of the direct and indirect ministry of the Inions came for a special Sunday night reception to fellowship and honor them together here at the Sawang Dandin Baptist Church.

Life with Dad, what a pleasure!

2009-07-20T09:03:00.003-04:00

My last real post here was back in May and perhaps late July is kind of late to get caught up but believe me these have been exciting and busy months here in Sawang Dandin. So get a cup of coffee and "sit down and read a spell" and let me catch you up on what we have been up to.

First off, Dad is here and has been for almost two months today. Gail brought Dad back by airplane late May and we drove home to Sawang Dandin. It is an interesting new challenge to become reacquainted with one's father after being pretty much separate for nearly forty years. Of course, we spent some time from time to time while on furlough (or home ministry) but it is a different story if you are going to actually make your father part of your family. Since Mom has been with the Lord ten years ago next month, it has been a challenge to know what we should do about Dad. I would dread leaving the mission field to care for family, but many missionaries have had to do this. So we are doing kind of an expeiment. Thai law and other major steps to moderizations has made Thailand a true retirment destination.

We believe that Dad is very happy here with us. But we must take on extra responsibilities having him here....well actually most of the work falls on Gail. Gail must plan and cook for one more person, considering Dad's likes and dislikes. Other than that, she must do more household management, which means cleaning, wash, ironing, folding, putting things away. But we are able to get help for some of these extra tasks. Earlier this year one of our college age Christian girls here asked Gail if her mother could help. At the time, with added responsibilities with our growing ministries here, it seemed like a good idea to hire her mother to come twice a week to help with some of the cooking and cleaning here. So when Dad moved in with we decided for her to work 5 days a week. Dad is paying for this care from his retirement income.

Other responsibilities added to our regular work are getting Dad adequate medical attention. We have found a aging specialist here, Dr. Bunchuay, who is now overseeing all of Dad's medications, making recommendations for his further care. We were also able to get some needed dental work done for Dad at our regular dentist here. Dad just had a filling repaired, and a new crown done. We are pleased to report that he is very pleased with the dental work and the price is amazingly low. These extra trips to Udonthani fifty miles from here on Dad’s behalf have been combined with needed trips for shopping.

Duing the last two weeks, we decided to remove my entire office from it's location which had an unsused Thai style bath room attached. We remodel the bathroom to be a western style bathroom with a regular flush toilet, a shower stall, a urinal (needed since Dad has to go to the bath room often), and handrails for extra support while walking and standing in the bathroom. My office had a very nice wall mounted air conditioner making it like a classy hotel room. We decided to keep the bunk bed and trundle bed in the room so he can have roommates when we have visitors. That project is all finished as of today. Some one suggested we get some kittens for Dad and sure enough he is having a great time with them.

Dad eats all his meals with us and we care for his taking medications--which means he is getting as good care as he was in a hospital with the added benefit of being able to get out and exercise, cut the grass some, and listen to Internet based radio and TV news and other interesting intellectual stimulation. Even though Dad does not understand my messages preached in Thai, he enjoys knowing what is going on, whether communion (which he partakes of with us) or singing where he sings out in English, he also likes having our daily family devotions and Bible reading and prayer. I also get him messages from his favorite preachers off the Internet for him to listen to almost daily.

Talk about stimulation! How many of you could roll the car window down and pet the trunk of an elephant reaching in the window of the the car? Well Dad has done this just over a week ago -- and lots of other fun things since being here. Thailand has lots of new fruits and vegetables to learn about. Dad has always loved to eat rice and Thai food (and Chinese food, etc) so he is enjoying life here immensely. He of course has his ups and downs, but since moving into his new bedroom, he has little to complain about and hasn't. He even is checking Email now ( dadcraft@gmail.com ) and answering mail too. I also linked him up with his family via our Internet based Vonage phone ( 1586-797-9019 ) and he has spoken with most of his own family since being here. Isn't that great!

At the same time when Dad took over my office for his bedroom, we had to move my office somewhere, so we took our guest bedroom which is off our kitchen / dining room and church auditorium and make it my office. That is an ongoing project. One of the nice things about our recovery house/church facility is we did design it to be flexible and changeable. So with a few hours work, we were able to disassemble my entire office and begin to move it to the former guest bedroom. Two major changes were necessary: (1) I needed an air conditioner in the office. Thailand especially this time of the year is very humid and hot and sticky. I feel I needed to get an air conditioner for the new office – not only for me but for the printing of study books and lessons used in our ministry here. (2) we needed to replace the solid panel bedroom door with a glass door for sake of testimony here. We feel that anything done in a room with computers, with guests for counseling or group ministry should be done publicly. By the way the old office still had the glass windows between the office and the auditorium, which now have curtains for Dad’s bedroom. Today, the air conditioner was installed and we are hoping tomorrow we will have our new sliding glass door installed.
As we work to make our home a home for three, Dad’s income has helped with the expenses. In fact, we are able to meet many of our needs using some of Dad’s help with the ministry financially. This is an added benefit during a time when our support has dropped off and expenses have increased. We believe it is from the Lord that these events have taken place. Dad has spent his life supporting us and other missionaries and now in his senior years, he is able to actually be an associate missionary here. The youth love Dad and like to practice their English with him. Asians view caring for elders as a noble practice and our Thai friends all think we are doing exactly what we should be doing. We were pleased that our sending church leadership and our mission board also approved of this proposal. So rejoice with us as we enter a new phase of our lives caring for our aging father here on the mission field.

I am hoping now that I am settled into my new office life will be more on an even keel and I can get back into the swing of things with my needed communications with you and other supporters. My next post here will have some pictures of the changes as they have taken place here. One thing at a time. Thank you for your fellowship in prayer!

Dad and his new apartment

2009-07-19T19:11:00.000-04:00

Dad and one of the purring kittens.

The bathroom project is almost finished. Just some painting of the pipes (water and waste pipes are all blue before they are painted to match).

Here you can see my former office. Gail has set up the bunk beds and a reading library for Dad. I installed a computer with settings for seniors (big fonts, big icons and dad's email icons, his favorite links to Internet, etc.). With air conditioning and good lighting it will be a nice place for Dad to relax and live.

Our unused Thai style bathroom was truly the only room unchanged since we rented the house originally. After purchasing and remodeling the rest of the house we used it "as is." Incidentally, Thai people seem to like using these old style bath rooms where everything in the room gets wet during a shower or after regular personal business is done. That is why they call it a "Water Closet." During the fire recovery, it was the only bathroom. We were only using the the room for storage and once in a while for a secondary Thai style bath when we had guests. To remodel the room, the original "squaty potty" and former water storage containers had to be chipped out and replaced with a new floor, shower stall, flush style western toilet, a urinal, and hand grips. What a job. But something we thought we would do when we had a chance....well we now have a chance to do the renewal and make it the bathroom for Dad.

Gail and My Dad

2009-05-16T17:29:00.002-04:00

Gail has been visiting Hannah in Chattanooga Tennessee for the last couple days and getting through jet lag. Today (May 16) Roy, my brother, is picking up Dad and delivering him to Gail and my Daughter. On Monday May 18th they will fly to Michigan and see my other two children and their spouses and our other six grandchildren. Dad will be getting a visa for Thailand while waiting and having a nice visit with his family members and friends who are living in Detroit suburbs. Hopefully all paperwork will be done in time for scheduled flight date, May 25th. Then Dad and Gail will fly to Bangkok and I will be picking them up there. We have some paper work in Bangkok and will return to Sawang Dandin in a day or two. Then a new chapter in our lives, "Living with Grandpa" will begin. We think it will be fun and while extra work, a blessing to our lives. Asians here choose this status as the Asian way. So we trust it will be a good testimony and Dad will have more of a part in our work here. Dad has been supporting the ministry in Thailand for the last 29 years already, so why not! We appreciate your fellowship in prayer.

News around Sawang Dandin

2009-05-14T17:19:00.003-04:00

One of the most interesting new items and one that has kept us quite busy for the last few weeks (outside of our regular ministry responsibilities which we have not let slide!) is the prospect of bringing my father, Donald Craft, Sr. here to be with us. Dad is now 80 years old and has a good retirement but unable to live alone at this stage. He had been attached to the farm property that Dad and Mom purchased for retirement about 20 years ago in Paragould, Arkansas. The problem is after Mom's passing away, Dad was pretty much alone. Dad had remarried back in 2001 to a very nice widow who was a nurse but after her stroke, her children would not let her return to Arkansas fearing for her well-being. After a number of years of separation, and Dad's refusal to leave his farm they annulled his marriage which resolved a lot of legal and tax issues facing them. So Dad was alone again and life is complicated when you are nearly 80 with bills, taxes, and deteriorating health which meant Dad could not drive and so on. Finally Dad was hospitalized just before his 80th birthday. Dad is still quite sharp but at 80 years, he needs family and we are the best option for him, I think for this at this time. We believe that Dad can help our ministry by being here too. We have plenty of room for him and he can eat with us and we can take care of his needs just as though we had children. But in Dad's case, he is paying his own way -- because of retirement and SS something that few children can claim. We also think that this may be provision for our ministry, not only in having another helper for our English classes and a person to help out, but also with some of the financial pressures we are under considering the world wide financial crisis looming.

Gail, my wife, is currently in USA and having a great time with our grandkids as she prepares to receive Dad. I decided that I would rather Gail go so I can continue my work here and she can use her spare time doing grandmother things with our seven grandchildren. Besides, I hate air travel and Gail doesn't mind too much knowing she will see kids as well.
These are good days for my Father too since we are able to help him have a happier time with family and we can help him with keeping in touch with family using modern communications such as Email, phones (with my unlimited Vonage Phone service) and other things we can help his quality of life, not to mention eating his meals with one of the best cooks on earth, my wife. Other care issues such as house keeping, medications, housing, clothing and so on are much cheaper in Thailand, so we believe that this will be good stewardship with Dad's resources. If you care to comment or have questions, feel free to contact me at my regular email, doncraft@comcast.net or call me on our Vonage phone. 586-797-9019

Is Thailand still a remote country? Hardly

2009-05-13T18:07:00.000-04:00

Last week Gail and I went to buy some Air Tickets for her return to pick up my Dad, w.
e stopped breifly at a brand new shopping center here called "Carerfour" (kind of like a Myers) which had a KFC, Dunkun Donuts, Dairy Queen and so on. On the way back to Sawang, we noticed another big mall going up and sure enough, a McDonalds Hamburgers is going in there too with all the other resturants. This means that not only we westerners are enjoying an occasional stop for a hamburger or KFC but a majority of Thais also like them. Who would have believed that cities in Thailand would become so much like a suburb in any American city when we arrived here 29 years ago when we first came to Thailand? But they still need people preaching the good news! No amout of western influence will provide eternal life in Jesus Christ!

Church Camp

2009-05-12T17:40:00.005-04:00

Children's special music in front of Camp auditorium with Theme poster for Theme, Walking Forward Together, a special World Missions emphasis this years.

Camp songs...what a lot of fun and laughs!

Ah, yes! Camp what a wonderful time for kids. Here skit practice.

Nearly 400 people at our annual Church camp in Chomtian district of Chonburi. The singing was great and the messages great and challenging.

Camp Music is prepared by a team from our Romprakhun Baptist Bible School. Here, introducing the Camp Theme song.

Day two Camp in Sawang Dandin

2009-03-31T17:10:00.005-04:00

Don translating Candice's testimony. In classes we taught about knowing God yesterday and had a special personal Testimony from American Volenteer Candice Christiansen. Her testimony about growing up in a environment which was hostile to Christianity was good for our youth who many are facing pressures from friends, family, school teachers not to become Christians

Game time in the sports area.

How we did not get any skinned knees, I do not know but the kids were having the time of their lives!

Having fun playing UNO with volenteer Miss Kristian Caynor (MK)

Miss Leza Morgan with her
upper Elementary age group at the ping pong table in youth building.

Mrs (now married!) Kaew Patangnang and her junior age kids with helper Miss Ning.

More game time and sports.

Running through the"Trees" game.

Prayertime with Tangmo.

Gail tells me that we have 45 campers today.

It has been a good week for camp with cool weather and overcast sky making outdoor activites good.

Ready for a week at camp March 30-April 4 here at Sawang Dandin Baptist Church

2009-03-27T07:46:00.002-04:00

Thai school summer break is here and lasts from March through Early May. Two of our regular "summer" ministries is Special Intensive English Classes and Youth Camp. But this year, with our enlarged and completed facility, we are now able to do both all at our one location. This year we have added the new sports area with Volleyball, Basketball with new backboards and hoops, and other outdoor sports without having to leave our church facility.

We are hoping to have a number of new prospects for the gospel here through our Camp. We have invited adults and youth and will be providing meals and sleeping areas for the youth that come. Some will come as a "day camp: and go home to sleep each day. There will be many opportunities to hear the gospel through our classes and evangelistic meetings.

More wedding fun.

2009-02-28T14:52:00.003-05:00

Tradition is fun! The family and friends of of the groom march up the street making all the racket they can. I kind of think this is like the Lord appearing with his saints!

The bride groom appears ready to take his bride.

Ta da da dum

Ta da da dum...

Gail played the traditional wedding march as the Bride appears and the announcement is made to stand.

The little group from Miss Keaws' Sunday School class all dressed up and full of excitement to see their teacher wed. It is never to early to lay spiritual foundations.

During the meal the couple greet family and friends. He is a hansome young fellow and she was so very beautiful!

When Two Disciples Wed

2009-02-28T13:43:00.005-05:00

Presenting Mr and Mrs Suchat Panantang

One of the greatest privilege in the ministry is to be host pastor when two godly young people in your ministry marry. This Saturday morning over 150+ friends and family of a new married couple joined together in holy matrimony. These two young adults, Suchat (nicknamed Matthew, a pastor's son and a mechanic active in our church here) and Miss Kaew (a Bible School graduate and helper in our work here for about five years) whom have decided to be married this February 28 here at our Sawang Dandin Baptist Gospel Center, the home of Sawang Dandin Baptist Church.

You could say it was "picture perfect" as far as the decorations, the provision, program and the unity of the churches here to make this one a great wedding. One of my burdens for this our first truly Christian wedding was a example to be followed by our many young people who live in a culture which is quickly crumbling because of immorality and family breakdown. While we do not seek to appease the world in anything we do, we recognize that the Lord himself honored weddings and preformed his first miracle at a wedding in John 2 and turned a wedding that was heading for a disaster of not enough supply into a joyous occasion by his turning the water into wine. (Wine, by the way, in the Bible is, of course, sometimes simply the beverage made from the fruit of the grape and implies the joy of the Holy Spirit which was the presence of the Lord at that wedding. We do not ever condone the drinking of any social alcoholic drinking).

In John chapter 4 Jesus again puts emphasis on the institution of marriage as a holy commitment before God in convicting the woman at the well of her adultery because of His (God's) acknowledgement of the legal human binding wedding ceremony preformed by the family elders. In Matthew and the other Gospels, divorce is marked as sinful hardness of the human heart. All this points out that there is a universal human law from the days of the garden of Eden of the purity of the marriage institution. The Bible tells us that "Marriage is honorable among all," and thusly, we sought to honor God and Thai ideals in this wedding.

One of our burdens with many youth who have responded to the gospel is how to teach the principles of God regarding marriage. Old landmarks in Thai society are gone today with widespread immorality and family breakdown. But God has graciously chosen to provide us with a fine and good looking young couple who live above the world and chose to honor God in a wedding ceremony.

Many of the things done in this wedding were carefully chosen to communicate the message that those who chose purity and God's blessing would be rewarded. As Asians, they had a customary counting of the dowry, honoring parents especially in a traditional bowing down to their families of the bride and groom, seeking their blessing on their new life together. But there were some wonderful western traditional additions, such as Miss Kaew's snow white gown, emphasising purity, the unity candle which quenches the flame of life from their mothers hand to one new flame together which showed their new independent life together. There was a ring ceremony emphasising their love. We show the legal document in the wedding in a society which says, "Don't register the wedding because it is too hard to divorce." We believe a wedding should be a life time committment and make that the bottom line in the vows, the announcments and the message.

It has been our hope and we trust the Lord that this wedding will be a model of a dedicated Christian family for future weddings here of young people who choose to honor God, that these young people can also aspire to. We covet your prayer for these people who came and participated. It was heart warming to see the delight in the eyes of the youth who love this couple to see them married in a "Cinderella" wedding (as Gail calls it!).

It was a humbling blessing to see them sitting alone in their automobile for a season, as they prepared to leave for their days of honeymoon (provided for by designated gifts) taking a few moments for a season of prayer. We know that both were totally exhausted by the days leading up to the wedding with all the pressures to have everything just right. And it was truly one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever seen in Thailand. How blessed we were to be part of it.

Joint meeting in Sawang Dandin and "Multi-purpose" cement pad

2009-02-12T14:47:00.004-05:00

This past Sunday we had a joint meeting with the Santisuk Baptist Church here in Sawang Dandin. What a wonderful time of testimonies and sharing from the Word. Our church facility has continued to be a great blessing here in our area.

Our sports area has been enhanced by two new Huffy portable basketball backboard and stands, and other new equipment donated by a pastor friend at the Nontaburi Baptist Church in Bangkok. So in the time before the mid-week meeting here, the young people mill around in and out. For sports, we offer basketball, volley ball, takro, badminton, table tennis, and there were children playing Thai style jump rope using rubber bands. Others were playing with building blocks, dolls, and some were doing their homework here while waiting for the Bible Study. Neighbors were invited and the group is growing . Praise the Lord for one of the nicest church facilities in the province. God has blessed and you have been part of it through your prayer and support.

Great fun with our new Athletic area

2009-01-24T12:02:00.004-05:00

Is that the ball or the sun???

Boys vs. Girls

The Girls clean up (win all).

Afternoon Volleyball with our teens.

Miss Keaw keeping score.

Great fun..."I'll get it!"

A view of our center we did not have before...What a blessing

Are you free from responsiblity laid on you from our Lord?

2009-01-22T12:45:00.001-05:00

Can we shirk our responsiblity? I hope not.

In Acts 20.26-27 Paul declared
26 Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men.
27 For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
Which is a direct reference to this passage of Exekiel:
Ezekiel 3:18 When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

เปโลเคยพูดว่า...
กิจการ 20.26 เหตุฉะนั้นวันนี้ข้าพเจ้ายืนยันต่อท่านทั้งหลายว่า ท่านทุกคนจะเป็นหรือตาย ข้าพเจ้าก็พ้นโทษแล้ว
27 เพราะว่าข้าพเจ้ามิได้ย่อท้อในการกล่าวเรื่องพระดำริของพระเจ้าทั้งสิ้นให้ท่านทั้งหลายฟัง
ซึ่งเป็นคำพูดยกมาจากเอเสเคียล
เอเสเคียล 3.18 ถ้าเราจะบอกแก่คนอธรรมว่า 'เจ้าจะต้องตายแน่ๆ' และเจ้าไม่ตักเตือนเขาหรือกล่าวเตือนคนอธรรม ให้ละทิ้งทางอธรรมของตนเสีย เพื่อจะช่วยชีวิตเขาไว้ คนอธรรมนั้นจะตายเพราะความบาปผิดของเขา แต่เราจะลงโทษเจ้า เพราะความตายของเขา

Ten things that will happen to the people of Sawang Dandin who refuse to accept the Gospel.

2009-01-21T18:27:00.001-05:00

1. They will waste their lives on things not worth living for and never know the joy of knowing the Lord who is the purpose for living.
2. They will be damned to hell eternally as punishment for their sins.
3. They will face death alone and stand before the white throne judgment and be sentenced for their sins without help from Jesus the savior.
4. They will have a life filled with frustration and grief because of their own sin.
5. They will destroy their own families by being immoral and living selfishly.
6. They will suffer from addictions from alcohol, drugs, and gambling misusing their time and money on wasteful things.
7. They will contract and suffer from disease from their sinful lives.
8. They will be poor citizens of Thailand and participate in corruption, disobedience, and disrespect of their kingdom.
9. They will make their neighbors lives miserable by being a bad neighbor and selfishness.
10. They will live for the devil and his cause to resist and oppose God in the world.

In Thai it reads like this (I am in the process of writing this in Thai as well)

สิบอย่างที่จะเกิดขึ้นสำหรับคนในอำเภอสว่างแดนดินที่ไม่รับเชื่อข่าวประเสริฐ

1. เขาจะใช้ชีวิตโดยทำหลายๆอย่าง ทำนั้นโดยความปรารถนาสิ่งที่ไม่สมกับชีวิต และจะไม่มีโอกาสที่มีความสุขถ้าพบพระผู้เป็นเจ้าแท้ ไม่มีโอกาสรู้จักเหตุผลที่เรามีชีวิต
2. เมื่อตายไปแล้ว เขาจะนำไปขึ้นศาลยุติธรรมต่อพระผู้พิพากษาเพื่อ ตัดสินว่ามีความผิดบาปพอรับลงโทษตกนรกตลอดไปเป็นนิตย์
3. เขาจะตระหนักต่อหน้าพระที่นั่งใหญ่สีขาว เพื่อพิพากษาลงโทษบาปที่ได้ทำ โดยไม่มีการช่วยจากพระผู้ช่วยให้รอดจากบาปคือพระเยซู
4. เขาจะมีชีวิตในโลกนี้ที่เต็มไปด้วยการทำลาย และกำจัดและสำนึกผิดที่เกิดเพราะบาปที่ทำในโลก
5. เขาจะทำลายครอบครัวของเขาจะเสียหายโดยอยู่อย่าง ไร้ศีลธรรม สำส่อนในการร่วมประเวณี และ
6. เขาจะทำลายร่างกาย และทนความทรมานจากการเสพติดเหล้าสุรา ยาเสพติด ของมึนเมา และเล่นการพนัน พร้อมเปลืองใช้เวลาและเงินทองอย่างทิ้งเสียเปล่า
7. เขาติดโรคที่เกิดจากใช้ชีวิดในการทำบาป
8. ประเทศไทยจะเสียหายเพราะว่าเขาจะไม่รับผิดชอบภาวะแห่งการเป็นพลเมือง โดยมีส่วนในการฉ้อราษฎร์บังหลวง การกินสินบน ไม่มีการเคารพกฏหมายของราชอาณาจักร
9. โดยการเห็นแก่ตัวเขาจะและไม่เป็นเพื่อนบ้านดี และการจะเห็นแก่ตัว.
10. เขาจะใช้ชีวิตตามแนวทางของมารที่มารซึ่งขัดขวางพระเจ้าในโลกนี้

Horray! It's done. We now have a sports area for basketball and volleyball

2009-01-13T07:09:00.003-05:00

"Matt" the fiance of Miss Kaew who has been our loyal helper here in Sawang Dandin for 5 years now. Matt is from a fine Christian family north of here and is a helper at our Church here. He is starting a motor rebuilding company here.

The bottom picture is the finished cement area. Gail is off in the distance so you can see the size of the area.

Very useful and the big Maidoo hardwood tree provides great shade for the area most of the day. I just heard that we may be getting some free basketball goals from a church in Bangkok. We are so excited about this.

2009-01-08T19:24:00.004-05:00

We have are still up to our ears in pouring cement. It is a big job leveling and we do not want cracks and problems. Yesterday I went to get a tractor to level the lot a bit yesterday and the owner, a friend said, you go ahead and do it yourself. So here I am having some fun. Today we pour another 8 cubic meters of cement for our basketball court. By the way, the funds for this project came partly from a Thai friend and special gifts for this project.

The Air horn is fixed and pouring Cement!

2009-01-07T09:17:00.002-05:00

Just in case you are wondering, one of our church members, Matt, has a new Auto-Electric shop in our town and fixed the offending horn from the last blog for me the next day. About a month ago he also fixed my alternator which had worn brushes and no longer generated electric power.

It is nice to have Matt around for these things. And he is very inexpensive too.

We are pouring the concrete for our open air sports area this week. This is exciting for all of us. Yesterday we have 4 men putting in the forms and doing final leveling the ground. We are making the basketball court about 20 percent smaller than official size, at least now since we decided not to cut down the big tree which provides sun shade and a guava tree. And besides this is the tropics, it is good to have a bit shorter court. If perhaps we did decide to go bigger in the future there is lots of room for that on the same spot necessitating removing the trees. As of this post we are 1/3 done.

My Air Horn

2009-01-04T16:19:00.002-05:00

I will tell you about a funny story that happened yesterday while dropping kids off after Sunday school.

One of the narrow village lanes in one of the villages where we have some kids off the main road where I pick up and drop off a sixth grader and a fourth grader off, is always cluttered with bicycles and motorcycles and recently a car (over New Years) parked just so it is hard to drive through.

Thais as you know are kind of lazy when it comes to this kind of stuff and kind of clutter unused lanes and streets rather than park in the empty nearby yard. Besides there is plenty of shade on the road another priorty in the hot tropics. Well, each week I have had to tap my horn "beep-beep" to get passage. And they take there time coming out and moving the respective motorcycles and bicycles.

Until yesterday...I simply tapped my horn lightly hoping to get passage and the relay for the air horns went into locked on. And was it really loud and would not stop. I desperately tried a dozen things to get rid of the offending horn blast. At the same time, I could see out of the corner of my eye that they were scrambling. I pulled a few fuses and nothing worked. Finally I had to get down on the ground laying on my back and unplug the power from the compressor that supplies the air to the horn. My ears were ringing when this whole operation was finished and then I saw the road. Not one bicycle, motorcycle in sight....the car even moved closer to the curb.

And everyone was standing rather stiffly, "stunned" I guess, wide eyes, observing me as I now quietly rolled away down the now easy to drive on lane.I wonder what will happen next week....and I am sure they are too.

First Christmas party for many happy Thai Children at our Center

2008-12-27T06:10:00.001-05:00

There was not one sad kid in a group of over 80 who joined us for our annual Christmas party.
I could say that most have never had the fun of a Christmas party with lots of singing about our Lord, a Bible message, Bible memory, group games with fellow youth, and a big meal and gifts from each child who registered. We had children register only 75 cents each assuring each gift was carefully selected (most cost more than a dollar or two) and a chance to win the big prize (a big loveable stuffed teddy bear!) costing less than 10 dollars. Our friends in the local Lions club also added some cheer by giving gift bags with a toothbrush, toothpaste, hand cream, soap, pencils, pens and other school supplies. We also gave each child a Christmas theme gospel message. Needless to say, it is a Christmas to remember for these children.
Recently a grandmother and a widow, who cares for Sugas, pictured below, who is one of our regular students, told us thank you for two extra KFC Chicken meals we sent home with Sugas after Sunday night church. She said she had not had supper and did not have anything to eat and was so very pleased with the delicious supper we provided for her. That sure make you understand the Christmas spirit and reminds us how good we really do have it. I have always noted that little Sugas always ate a lot and went back for seconds when we provided meals for our childrens programs. Now I know why.
When this girl won the prize Teddy Bear, there was a great round of cheers! At least someone got it!

And there was lots of delicious Thai style food -- Here Ann on of our active members and a college girl is helping serve food. And this is the seconds (and Thirds line!)

Christmas Eve Caroling! All 33 of us!

2008-12-24T16:18:00.005-05:00

"We WISH You a Merry Christmas, We Wish YOU A Merry Christmas, We Wish You A MERRY CHRISTMAS and a Happy New Year."

Left is a picture of the Nativity scene using the very popular LEGO toys. This Chrismas, for our Childrens party on Saturday, I have found a whole set of LEGO pictures representing the Nativity and have the Christmas Story for the children told using these toys. Amazing!

One of the funnest things we have done this year was our Caroling outing with our area youth. For weeks the youth have enjoyed learning and singing Christmas songs to join in with the seasonal Christmas cheer. Actually this year we are having our annual Christmas party for the kids on Saturday the 28th because Thai schools and government offices do not close in Thailand, a predominantly Buddhist country, on Christmas Day. We have registered a total of 100 + children for our Christmas party gift exchange. But the "Caroling Night" was in the evening and filled with lots of singing at many of their homes, we also visited Kentucky Fried Chicken at the local Lotus Shopping Mall, though a special arrangement with the manager who had studied English at our center. We sang our Christmas songs had fried chicken, french fries, sodas, and a softserve ice cream. The KFC store was really a fun stop because they special service we received and the happy shoppers who stopped to see the singers, all 33 of us singing traditional Christmas song. We also had some Northeast Thai Christmas melodies and one very pretty song from Japan. The singers were feed cookies and snacks at most of the places we went and the last stop was where the largest group of kids in our group lived where we had cookies and Hot chocolate. It was great fun and a experience many will remember for a long time, celebrating Christmas in Sawang Dandin. This Sunday we are doing a joint Christmas Service Sunday night with Santisuk Baptist Church in Sakon Nakhon Province.

Christmas Week in Sawang Dandin at the Sawang Dandin Baptist Church.

2008-12-21T23:56:00.004-05:00

Singing O Come All Ye Faithful

Sometimes crazy and a lot of fun with our Evangelistic English Classes. These youth from neighboring villages attend and study English with us each week. We teach English and the Bible as part of the our Saturday and Sunday School program. The singing is absolutely wonderful as our youth love to sing. We use a digital projector attached to the ceiling in the auditorium of the Sawang Dandin Baptist Center (where the Sawang Dandin Baptist Church meets). This makes singing even more fun since we have interesting graphics and colorful fonts. Some times we have just the piano, other times we have guitar, a small tom-tom drum, and Thai style cymbals to make singing even more fun. Some of our songs are just fun songs in English such as "English is Fun, It's for every one, Come play with me, and my ABCs."

Many of the youth have decided to become Christians after hearing the gospel.

Today we are clearing our new lot of stumps, rocks and leveling it for our new sports field. More pictures later on that.

Why a sports field??

We would like to make it so we can have a place for teens to come and play sports and have fun as well. We are hoping in particular to draw in more boys since English seems to draw girls by a factor of three to one. I guess boys want to play sports and girls like to stay clean, out of the sun and study books.

Pray for us here and God's provision for us during these days of blessed ministry. And a big "Thank YOU!" to the ones who have a part.

Merry Christmas from the Santisuk Baptist Church!

2008-12-21T23:03:00.008-05:00

We are coming into the Christmas season and Santisuk Baptist is the host church this year for our joint Christmas party with the Sawang Dandin Baptist Church. Mrs Thongbai is leading a Choir with traditional and Thai Christmas music. The new auditorium is big enough to hold many more and in special meetings at night, we can seat over 100 people for our Christmas meeting and other special activites, something they could not do easily before.

Some of our over 100 youth (registered students who study at our center each week) who attended the Santisuk Baptist Church last Sunday to sing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" in Thai and English.

New Expanded Santisuk Baptist Church Auditorium

2008-12-18T09:56:00.004-05:00

For months the meeting ""room," a living room in the the home of Pastor Surasit Samarom has been full and overflowing each week for the Sunday worship meeting of the Santisuk Baptist Church in Sakon Nakhon City, the capitol of Sakon Nakhon Province where I have been working with Pastor Surasit now for three years starting a church. We have seem many come to the Lord and grow spiritually there.

But there was no more room! People were sitting in nearly every space in the room, up the stairs, and on the hallway to the kitchen and entrance way.

Finally we had a plan (necessary!) to knock out the front wall, closing in the car port and tiling the floor. Well, two weeks ago the church stepped out on faith and did just that. And we are now enjoying room and a beautiful new meeting hall.

Christmas, "Our" holiday

2008-12-18T09:40:00.003-05:00

Years ago, we were generally afraid of introducing western holidays to Thai Christians, fearing they would transfer their meaning (special days for Buddhism, or such) to Christmas. Plus we do a lot of stuff at Christmas that has nothing to do with our Lord's birth in America. While we still celebrated with our family behind closed doors, we would forgo all the merry trimmings and things.

But in recent years, it seemed to us and our fellow Christians that the world has lots of holidays, days off school, bank holidays and we have almost nothing. That is when we decided to make our Christmas celebration a little bigger and have more activities. You should see the excitement as we prepare songs from our annual Christmas parties and present exchange. Plus we have seen lots of people wanting to know about the Saviour's birth that we celebrate.

So we now make Christmas a real holiday, "Our" Christian's own holiday to preach the word, to remember the time that our Lord, became "Emmanuel" of God with man. It is also a busy time as other holidays we enjoy together, with special singing, fellowship, carolling, eating and Bible study.

May we wish all of you a very Merry Christmas from people who celebrate "our" holiday.

In Defence of Missionary Work and the work of Preaching

2008-11-14T17:27:00.003-05:00

I recently read a website that makes the following claims:

They are obeying the Great Commission to "make disciples" by publishing and promoting Bibles in many languages.

That they are reaching places that traditional missionaries cannot go.

They make converts using the presentation of the Jesus Film and follow up of groups with a recorded Bible translation players using a electronic device with the Bible on a chip and solar power / crank power..

That they have started 600 + churches in unreached areas, using this electronic device with the Bible on a chip and solar power / crank power.

That the doctrine of the ones who distribute these things are from groups which do not even know or believe the gospel of grace. For example, a Roman Catholic priest when offering a Bible to a Catholic says, this book is not the final authority, the Roman Catholic Church is. A Islamic adherent will tell you that the Bible has been perverted by the translators. Jesus' disciples founded the Jerusalem Church with no complete Bibles but trained and ordained leadership who passed the Word of God orally first to people.

My comment:

The great commission is not just publishing Bibles. It IS teaching and training believers and leadership. (cp. Titus 1:5) This takes cross cultural missionaries in many cases (not just Americans, of course) it could mean a Thai Christian who is a genuine believer who reaches a Thai or an Arab Christian who is reaching a fellow Arab.

Let's look at the great commission and see if it speaks about Bibles being translated, translations being recorded and played to groups, or even movies about the translation:

Matthew 28:19-20
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Nope, not here....

Psalms 22:27 All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
Psalms 98:2 The LORD hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the heathen.
I don't see it in Psalms either...

Isaiah 52:10 The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
Hmmm...Isaiah missed this "translation" and "reading" idea too.

Mark 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
I guess Mark missed the idea too...

Luke 24:47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
Surely Luke would have spoken about it...they claim the "Jesus Film" is from the book of Luke...Nope not here either...

Acts 1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
Perhaps this should read...and it "shall receive power from a hand crank or solar panel and it shall be witnesses..."

Acts 13:46 Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.
Of course God always works through the agency of his written word, which he entrusted to the people of Israel. But what happens is they "put it from" themselves. False doctrine is rampant in those who have heard some of the word but lack qualified and saved and baptized obedient believers...

Luke continues to quote Paul saying...
Acts 13.47 For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.
He did not say a projector screen or a audio device...

Romans 10:15-18 tells us that there has to be the agency of a preachers...and the people of Israel heard it all but they did not understand the gospel.
18 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
18 But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.

Churches are planted by missionaries who learn their language, spend time making disciples and train those who are in that culture to carry on the message. This CANNOT be done by a movie nor a electronic player.

2 Timothy 2:2 And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

Consider the following passages which demand a saved teacher in the culture:
2 Thessalonians 2:15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.
2 Timothy 1:13 Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
Jude 3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

Titus 1:9-10
9 Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers...

2Peter 2:1-2 tells us that not just any person can be a teacher...
1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

Paul told us that there would be people unable to know what is true.
2 Timothy 3:7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

God is calling men and women to preach his Word.

2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

Redeemed...

2008-10-21T15:44:00.007-04:00

In a previous post, I mentioned how our camp pictures disappeared. Well I was digging around a CD which had some utilities on it and there was a program (about my 10th try at trying to recover the SD RAM from the camera after one of the teens accidentally deleted the whole camp set). Well before my eyes, there it was popping one picture at a time into the camera.
So these pictures are "Redeemed" in a real sence. Now I can share them with you.

Thirty two campers from Sawang Dandin and Santisuk Baptist Churches at LIFE camp

At least most of us!

Even Miss Kaew was a teacher helper (and she is pretty good in English having worked as a fellow teacher with us for 5 years) teaching children of campers.

Don's class of High Schoolers at English Camp. Work and fun.

Gail Teaching -- starting out with just 7 on how to teach English.

Super Class! Ending up with nearly 30 after many heard about her subject matter Gail was teaching to her students.

A Naval Captain, Sailor, Pastor and Spiritual Father

2008-10-20T06:06:00.007-04:00

A recent guest coming through our center was a retired Naval Captain for the US Navy who had been serving in Thailand in the past. Duane is now not only a Pastor in USA, but also the "spiritual father" of some of the local young people here. Pastor Duane Harper and his wife, Dianne came up to meet an unofficial "adopted" Thai daughter he and his wife met here many years ago. At that time, they were involved in visiting a Baptist church planting ministry in Bangkok and met a beautician, the mother of Miss Nut, now one our our teens.

As Duane told the story, Miss Nut's mom kindly invited Duane and Dianne to Sawang Dandin a few years ago and the grand mother welcomed them into their family as not only friends but family (a Thai form of artificial kinship). For Duane and Dianne this was a chance to show the Lord's love to an unsaved family and they took prayerful opportunity to join as a "Dad and Mom" for Miss Nut. Now her spiritual Dad as well, to their delight.

Duane and his wife met little Miss Nut, then a fourth grade girl and encouraged her to pursue a good education offering to help her and then brought her to us for help in English Classes. After they introduced her to us, then they returned to USA and continued in their ministry, praying faithfully for Nut and her family. In successive visits, they helped out with her needs and continued to encourage her to study well and again brought her to us. Nut was saved in classes earlier this year.

Since Nut's village was a long drive from our home, we asked Nut to consider bringing fellow villagers when we go and pick her up to make the drive worthwhile. Soon that trip to pick up just one little girl grew in numbers as Nut invited friends to fill a entire van load of children. Soon I had so many from her village grouping that I decided to hire a local truck in her village to help bring that group of youth saving me a lot of travel time each time we opened the doors for special classes. One by one, Nut and many of her friends grew in understanding, as they not only studied English, but the Bible, became Christians. She has recently passed her 14th birthday and continues to grow spiritually. Amazingly Nut and her friends have on their own with a little help from us, bought their own Bibles, memorized many key passages of Scripture, and have shared their faith with others. Many of their friends have also come to the Lord. This is a picture of Nut and some friends at a English Camp (From left, Nut's Best friend, Oom, also a new Christian, Miss Nut, Miss Aoh, Miss Kunya an adult helper, Miss Ann-- baptized in May, and Kristen Caynor, a MK who is an age mate).

How delighted Pastor Duane and his wife were when they met Nut this time and heard from her own mouth, "I have trusted in Jesus Christ as my Savior." Last Saturday, we had a lot of fun with our growing English Classes with Pastor Duane and Diane helping out with not only English Classes but the music since Diane is a wonderful Piano player.

I invited them to share in our Saturday Bible time/English Classes and also asked if he would preach for our two Church services on Sunday here in Sawang Dandin and also at Santisuk Baptist Church, through my translation into Thai. It was a wonderful time studying from John 1. 1-14 and Joshua 6.1-6 together. The passage in Joshua was preached at the Santisuk Baptist Church and focused on the confidence in the Lord the Lord's people had to have to be victorious over Jerico and an application to our lives today as we face difficulties.

The Harper family are sweet servants of the Lord and blessed with a gift of encouragement. They unfortunately had limited time (as many pastors do since they are on "personal vacation" here) but we really appreciated the gift of encouragement and ministry they shared here. We were exhausted as drivers and counsellors at camps, for two camps in a row so we also welcomed the ministry help they offered.

Last Day at camp.

2008-10-19T07:21:00.003-04:00

Here are some of the kids after breakfast just before we travel 10 hours home. From Left to right, Miss Nut, Miss Oom, and Miss Michelle a tent maker school teacher from the Philippines and one of the encouragers for these kids. LIFE Camp this year was a special blessing with 550 campers and nearly one hundred decisions for Christ. We took three van loads to camp 10 hours from our churches to a mountain resort in Nakhon Nayok. We baptized Mr. Boss (his nickname) in a river near the mountain campground. Boss was saved at our Santisuk Baptist Church a number of months ago. Sadly we lost all of our digital pictures when one of the teens borrowed our camera to take a few pictures--perhaps she pushed the wrong button? But we have had a wonderful time at camp. God provided miraculously for our expenses this year, in spite of the poor economy and many pressures on our bank book. All of the camp expenses this were provided through a special gift for our ministry. Two local High school Junior men, Isara and Satit (twins) who went to the camp were among the 96 campers saved this year. They attended both churches here this last Sunday, this time as brothers and born again Christians. All in all this has been a blessed school break here.

A Heart for Service - Mike Bosley

2008-10-09T15:00:00.005-04:00

One of our supporting churches, Carleton Community Baptist Church, has a member who corresponds with us and, of course, has been involved in prayer and support of the ministry here, Mike Bosley. Mike is an Electronic Engineer and travels to Asia regularly on business with his company and asked if he could swing by on a side trip. We invited him to participate in our Light Camp this year as guest speaker. For Mike it was an opportunity to see a ministry he and his church have supported and actually get a chance to get involved first hand. He already loved Thai food and was looking forward to this side trip. He brought lots of small gifts (like coffee for us!) and sweets for the kids. But the real blessing was sharing his life and heart with us through translation into the local language. He spoke in English (after all it is an English Camp!) and I translated for Mike.

Brother Mike, I am sure, was amazed with the way the Lord has had his hand on our ministry here. Even the little things that happened while he was here show the wonderful power of the Lord displayed on His work here. As Mike shared the simple and profound message of the Gospel here, many first time campers heard the clear message of salvation for the first time. We praise the Lord how he is working among the people here.

English Camp a great sucess - Thank goodness for Back Ups?!

2008-10-09T13:50:00.004-04:00

Our 2008 Light Camp Staff as follows:
Miss June, Gail, Miss Kaew, Mike Bosley (our guest speaker) , JoyLynn, Michelle, Me (Don Craft), Miss Kanya, and Tangmo.

We finished our English Camp entitled, "Light Camp" on Tuesday, but for our center, the blessing will be an on going boost to our overall ministry. One special event was the first real service opportunity for Miss Kanya, a lady from our Santisuk church who was baptized last year, who now has a great desire to serve the Lord here. (second from right).

Certainly we had a number of set backs as we started. For example:

On the Friday morning before the camp, a hard drive which had much of the Power points and lessons to be used in the camp, died! It simply refused to turn on! That failure took some recent data. Fortunately I had back ups of other materials done recently on another hard disk so we were able to recover and go ahead with no other difficulties and other things went well.

We plan ahead but we can never anticipate what may happen as the school term ends and some schools in the area extended classes a few days to make up for lost class days to meet annual minimum teaching days requirements.

One village where we had a number of new prospective students had a village merit making on the first day of our camp. Most of these children went with their families to the merit ceremonies.

Our septic system for the youth center was taxed to the limit by constant rains and lots of girls some of whom spent the nights for our camp (we always have more girls than boys for classes) and our youth center sewer backed up late one evening. We were forced to re-opened a bathroom we had "retired" off my office which was being used for storage and that helped us get through the camp. I was unsure how long it would take to find a "honey wagon" to clean out the full sewer.

But there was an amazing resolution to the problem early the next day while picking up some children for youth camp, we were almost home when I spotted a "honey wagon" traveling into our city. They were being stopped at a police check, so we flagged them down and told them to follow us to the center. They saw the van load of local kids and only charged us about 8 dollars for the clean out and everything was back to normal again with no interruption to our camp! How wonderful it is when the Lord provides for our needs in big and little things. Now we know we need to extend our sewer some with a first hand test -- so I visited with our builder and we now have a plan for doubling our capacity.

In spite of these things we had a full house each day. It was almost like we had a different group each day for Camp.

On the positive side, one of our college aged Christians asked us if her mother could come and help with housekeeping for family income. That mom saw our center and invited three children the first days, seven the second day and twenty four the final day of camp from her village. Our van was packed.

On the final evening of our camp, a young lady who was a friend of some of the eleventh grade girls and a former LIFE camper stopped by and together with one of our volunteer teachers, Miss Kanya, arranged a plan to send fifteen more girls to the annual LIFE camp next week -- this took a lot of phone calls but because the host church of LIFE camp reopened registration to fill up at the last minute, we are able to send this whole group. How we praise the Lord for Miss Kanya.

Light Camp next week!

2008-10-02T17:08:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, a number of prospective students came and registered for our English "Light Camp" as we get closer to the first day of classes. We are delighted and trust the Lord that these will be days of continual blessing here in Sawang Dandin. Our "regular" students have been inviting their friends as well as the promotion that we expect when we placed posters in the local schools.

Our Saturday English class had 47 students enrolled. Even our Wednesday Bible/prayer meeting class has been full. We had 37 for prayer meeting.

We are excited and anticipate a good showing for our Camp in spite of the fact that many of the local schools have not officially closed for the mid-term break (each October).

In two weeks, we will be taking two van loads to LIFE camp in Nakhon Nayok. Registration for Life camp has been closed for two weeks and we filled up our quota quickly.

Posters (English and Thai Version) of our Light Camp in Sawang Dandin

2008-09-24T01:30:00.007-04:00

Light Camp is coming here in Sawang Dandin just under two weeks (October 5-7). We have called our camps "Light Camp" since the name of the District we live in means, "Land of Light." We will also be participating in another camp in just three weeks. We have lined up some volunteers to help out, including Electronic Engineer, Mike Bosley from one of our supporting Churches back in Michigan. He will be traveling from here to China where he will be working. Other help will be from Bangkok, Short termer, Miss JoyLynn Barger, and Miss Michelle Garcia a Filipino teaching in Bangkok. Perhaps other teachers will join us to help teach for the camp.

Here are our promotional posters. We are planning a combined English/Counsellor Training camp (that is English for prospects and Counsellor Training for those who want to share their faith). Please join us in prayer for the work here. The first is English. If you have trouble reading the second one, it is in Thai Language.

Children's English Classes and other Fun

2008-09-04T10:52:00.007-04:00

One of the great opportunities in Thailand is the need to excel in English to be able to get a good education. This is one of our small groups who meet during the week for special classes. Each meeting ends with a Bible study.

As we get to know children, we try to make our Church their home as well. For example, we make birthdays special times, like this birthday for Muk one of our cute 8 year olds. Gail and I both trusted the Lord when we were 8, so we know this is an important time in these children's lives. At the center, they regularly hear the Gospel, study the Bible chronologically, sing Gospel songs, and memorize scripture.

We now have a growing group of children who like to spend free time at our home. Some have also begun piano study with Gail. Mr Sompon, a boy scout, is now a growing Christian and is learning to play the piano. Across from him is a neighbor girl, Miss Nat, one who has invited many of her friends from her school to our center to study English with us. Nat has also placed her faith in Christ. Recently she won inter-school competitions in English, giving her more "steam" to invite friends to our center where they too can study English and the Bible.

A few pictures around the auditorium during the dedication.

2008-08-14T18:37:00.003-04:00

It is hard to explain the wonderful feeling when you see so many people together whom you love and have had a ministry among. We had a small delegation from our former ministry in Nakhon Phanom, including one man whom I had trained for leadership now 78 years old and his family (including 4 sisters) as well as others from there.

We also had many of the fellow Pastors of the Rom Prakhun Fundamental Baptist Church Fellowship. Each one took about 5 minutes to share a word of blessing.

The singing was wonderful and the message from the word was a blessing.

What a wonderful time we have here with our fellow Christians!

This is a picture of just some of the Thai sweets prepared for our 135 or so guests. I am sorry that I cannot report on how good they were as they were gone before I got to one. But we had other treats -- of fellowship and sharing our hearts with all of our guest.

Here, Gail is welcoming the first of our guests at 4 AM in morning. Many battled monsoon rains driving many hundreds of miles to participate in the Church Building and Property dedication.

We praise the Lord that our property presently is completely finished, paid for, and tax free. The only expenses for the facility are our phone and Internet, and electricity (we have a well!).

First Report of Dedication Service

2008-08-12T18:46:00.005-04:00

Gail and I are just getting home after sending our co-workers to the airport in Udonthani.

Today was the conclusion of truly a wonderful couple of days together with the fellow ABWE Thailand Team members in many ways as they also helped set the warm atmosphere for our Church Building and Property Dedication service. Many of them helped over the past few months in our evangelistic English classes and were a special addition to the event. Rick and Lisa Caynor's two teen age children are age mates with a lot of our English students and now great friends getting together. Truly lifelong friends now saved with a different spiritual status since they first came up and many of these young people who first came to study English here during the days of Evangelistic English classes, were not believers but now are saved, regularly attending our classes and publicly professing their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

As scheduled, we had our regular quarterly team meeting together on the day before the dedication with a great atmosphere of fellowship and encouragement and challenge. Later after adjourning the meeting , we had a relaxing evening, preparing the Church center, sharing meals together including lunch at KFC with not only a 20 percent discount on all the food, but lots of free food from the KFC manager and staff who have studied English with Caynors and us during the Summer ministries here. They were delighted to see the Caynors again at KFC as well. Daily rain for over a month and a heavy rain all night before did not dampen the spirits for our meeting.

Your could say the weather was actually "cooperating." In fact, monsoon rains made it almost cold all day making the meeting in our not air conditioned auditorium very comfortable. Our center was looking as pretty as ever since we have had enough rain to have a American institution, rarely found in Thailand, a green and lush lawn surrounding the Church property.

Our day started early with people trickling in from 4AM to 10 AM for the meeting. We cooked lots of rice soup for breakfast and had lots of good Thai food for lunch with plenty of fruit and Thai snacks donated by guests for the meeting.

Our "Building and Property Dedication" meeting included many presentations of the gospel in our "5 minutes per pastor" blessing time. Afterwards, one gentleman, Mr Kert, who came with BMM missionary, Eddy Weber, hoping to visit family locally, not only trusted the Lord after counseling with Pastor Soontorn from the Rom Prakhun Baptist Church in north Bangkok, but he also made a public profession of faith during the lunch hour. Those who were not saved including parents of English students, neighbors, and other friends, most certainly received a challenge to trust the Lord through these events.

Perhaps this was the ministry here's finest moment as Rev. Arturo C. Inion, the founder of the work here, now doing church planting in Bangkok suburbs and teaching in the Romprakhun Baptist Bible Seminary, brought the message for a group of 127 plus people (we had a dozen who sat outside the building on the entry who were not counted) who joined with the growing church group here. Fellow pastor, of the Suntisuk Baptist Church, Pastor Surasit Samarom, was the meeting leader and was like many others, brought to tears of joy witnessing this special event that the Lord had brought to fruition this day.

Other highlights included a meaningful Thai ballet created and done by our English students as they sang and preformed for the packed out center. The Thai ballet form presented is almost like sign language for the deaf, and not "dancing" at all, but a beautiful visual representation of the message of the song being sung, using hands to communicate, and includes picturesque actions such worship of the Lord on the throne, and bowing in prayer, based upon Psalms 19:1-2, and Revelation 7:15.

I had produced a movie detailing the 9 months of fire recovery and blessing of the Lord concluding with the precious verse, Isaiah 61:3, "To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified."

We have a beautiful place of ministry here now, completed, dedicated, and very useful in the church planting and soul winning ministry we are giving our lives for.

August 12 Church and Property Dedication

2008-06-03T11:24:00.006-04:00

This the Sawang Danding Baptist Church. It is comprised of three buildings: The main building with a large church auditorium space with attached kitchen and a small apartment (used by us presently) which will be classrooms and offices in the future church. Behind the church building is the youth building another roomy building with additional Bathrooms, and rooms for classrooms and /or housing for church workers. There is a storage room and garage as well. Additionally there is a two bedroom parsonage as the third building out back.

It is totally amazing to me to realize that the Lord would bless us so much in just one year space of time. Just one year ago, perhaps the most devastating thing that ever happened to us was the fire that destroyed the second story of the house we were renting. (be sure to look at "older posts" to see the whole story in the blog).

We were able to purchase the property and completely rebuild it into a wonderful Church auditorium and youth center as well as a separate parsonage building (housing Miss Kaew Petchompoo and her mother presently). Because we were building it to our "specs" we were able to build in
features that make this a excellent facility
for ministry here.

And truly we have seen the growth as we opened up for full ministry use of all our our facilities for the Thai school break, from March - Mid May.

Already many have found Christ Jesus as savior in our new buildings. God has had his hand of blessing on this place.

In just two months we hope to have a church building and property dedcation, introducing a new fellow church building to the members of the Romprakhun Fundamental Baptist Church fellowship.

A view of the Youth building and Parsonage

2008-06-02T12:06:00.001-04:00

Off the back of the Church property is the "parsonage" building, the present home of Miss Kaew Petchompoo and her mother who is our co-worker in the work among children and women here.
Right next to the Parsonage is the Youth center, a roomy building for the youth of our church. Here there is room enough for a ping pong table, board games, extra bathrooms, two rooms used for classrooms and dorm rooms. To the right is the garage. I also have a radio tower which has a FM broadcast for Christian music and programming in Thai here.

Inside our lovely auditorium is room for many different activities involved with our outreach here including our worship services, teaching English, Bible Studies, or banquets and so on.

Mid-May Update and Church property dedication

2008-05-27T21:13:00.009-04:00

I have been reminded by quite a few that the web blog here is out of date and I have not posted new material lately. First the "lame" excuses!

I had a bad cold that lasted for a few weeks that started just after our time in the national camp at the beach. In spite of all that we had a string of guests from around Thailand. Well, enough complaints, now for the update!

We had a great time there with 390+ campers. We took two van loads from our two churches and Miss Ann and Miss Kunya were baptized in the gulf of Thailand while there. Gail and I led the English speakers class at camp this year, though only a small group of about 20 campers and only one session, we had fun with them, teaching the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives making the Word of God alive.

Upon returning from camp, and the one year anniversary of our house fire, we had a number of weeks before local schools were beginning the new term, so we decided to continue our "day camp" routine as before. We ended up with daily classes for another two weeks until Monday May 12 when school started. Even though I was fighting off a cold, I was able to carry on the work with some cold medications and we believe it was well worth it. I will tell one example:

One of our bright High School girls, Miss Oom, told me that her High School school principal asked during the first daily "Flag pledge" time if any of the students in the school were not Buddhist. Each day schools, have a pledge to the Thai flag, in the for of a song, honor the King, and the Buddhist religion. Students who are Buddhist are expected to also pray to the image of Buddha during the pledge.

This is a humorous photo of three friends posing for a picture.

Miss Oom [center] told me that she and Miss Nat [left] raised their hands to indicate that they considered themselves Christians now. There may have been others too but she did not see them. I consider this a great step in following the Lord, making public their faith. The principal then went on to make some anti-christian abusive remarks about Christians (a action clearly illegal in Thailand where freedom of religion is the law, but religious intolarance is common).

Oom was sharing this experience with us last Sunday with confidence and happiness that they could be a testimony for the Lord whom they have trusted during their summer classes. Perhaps others who made a profession during the school break in the same school were not so bold of course, but we trust that they will learn to be bold in their faith in Christ too.

Last Monday, there was a conference of the national fellowship, The Romprakhun Fundamental Baptist Church in Bangkok. Gail and I did not attend, but sent Pastor Surasit Samarom, pastor of the Santisuk Baptist church and our co-worker, Miss Kaew Petchompu to represent our churches.

We advised the meeting of the church fellowship of our desire to have a Church property and building dedication sometime this year. They deliberated and decided that a good time to do this would be on the Queen's Birthday, also known as Thai Mother's day, a national holiday. This church dedication will be on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 here at the Sawang Dandin Baptist Church. We expect over 100 people from outside visiting for this occasion. As you can guess we are really excited that we can present our new facility as a fellow ministry to the Romprakhun Baptist Church Fellowship.

Chronological Bible Study

2008-04-13T16:00:00.004-04:00

One tool we have here is many years in preparing detailed Bible study lessons for Studying the Bible from Genesis to the life of Christ.

Here is our Friday evening Bible study group studying about the fall of man.

"Day Camp:" Almost a full month of daily classes

2008-04-13T15:16:00.007-04:00

School break, opened a great opportunity for our team here, starting out with "Intensive English" evangelism classes using support from the new ABWE missionaries in Thailand. After our help left, the youth begged us for continued classes. This year we did not take our youth to camp, but rather discovered our new Church facility is like a "Day Camp" where children come for the day, and return home each evening.

For one thing, our program may have been the fun and most interesting thing going for the next three weeks. We did plan out lots of activities like a daily memory verse with review, Bible study, and lots of games, coloring, puzzles, and English classes. A gospel presentation is made regularly for many who have never heard the good news before -- and would never hear it if we were not here. Our new center has proven itself as a great destination for the youth here. It is a lot of work but the blessings in the lives of youth will be long lasting. Many have made decisions to follow Christ. Others are weighing the decision. We have a big job teaching and preaching. Pray for us!

Two Weeks of Intensive English Day Camp

2008-03-31T18:27:00.005-04:00

Here I am preparing the Certificates of Completion for our 50+ students who studied our first week of Intensive English classes, a "Day Camp" where students spent the entire day in English and Bible classes. They went home for sleeping and breakfast. We had the students register and pay for meals provided for them for lunch and supper. We had lots of help thanks to our new ABWE missionary staff who are all still in Thai Language Study in Bangkok. They welcomed the break from heat and pressure of Bangkok and gave us a real boost here. The adults and young English students fell in love with them and many trusted the Lord during this week.

To our amazement, when the week of Intensive English was "over" almost all of the students wanted to add another week to it. Our full staff had to leave, but we carried on for another week providing a full day of classes, games and fun for the kids. Even now, they still want to continue. Perhaps we will continue through out the Thai summer break.

" Ice cream break" thanks to Miss Lisa Morgan, one of our great teachers this week. And of course, a chance to pose for a picture doing something they love to do. Miss Ning, the young lady on the right, is one of our helpers, a partially retarded and crippled girl who has trusted the Lord here. She has a good relationship with the children and helps us with "crowd control." She also helps with the students we pick up for classes, opening and closing the van doors, remembering where kids go (it gets to be a blur for me sometimes!). She loves to help our center and we love her.
Having 10 helpers was a great blessing here. But one of the great things about a project like this was Christian fellowship around breakfast (our only western style meal during the week). Gail made lots of pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, coffee and fruit each day for our team. From the left are Michelle Garcia, Lesa Morgan, short termer, Deana Zipp, Ricky Caynor, Rick Caynor, Tangmo (from our Santisuk Church-our musician), Kristen and Lisa Caynor. (Bethany Johnson and Miss Kaew are partially hidden).
Here is a picture of Miss Michelle with one of her students from 9th grade, Miss Siliam. Siliam trusted the Lord this week along with others in our classes. Siliam told us that she could tell there was something going on here that she knew she wanted in her life. She heard the gospel many times during the week and trusted the Lord when she understood the message. Many others trusted the Lord or heard the gospel for the first time. We trust the Lord to continue the work started duing these blessed weeks.

Miss Michelle Garcia, is one lovely and talented young woman. She came to Thailand from her home in the Philippine Islands where she grew up in a good Christian home. Her family members are leaders in the Baptist churches in the Philippines which grew out of the pioneering work of ABWE missionaries many generations ago. Michelle, came to Thailand seeking employment to help her family, but always attached herself to a church planting ministry. She has spent many years teaching in Thai universities and is now teaching in a elementary school in Bangkok suburbs. One of the reasons the youth love her so much is her great ability to learn language. She speaks Thai fluently and sings beautifully even though she never had any formal Thai language study. She also has a big heart for the youth here. And she continues to stay connected via phone calls and SMS messages with her students. Here she is leading singing.

Bible Memory that works!

2008-03-31T17:13:00.006-04:00

In our youth ministry here in Sawang Dandin, we have stumbled upon a clever method of helping our youth memorize verses. I used to erase one word at a time, from a white board. Sometimes I would add a cartoon or something to help with memory. It was a lot of work "on the fly" and took a lot of time but I observed kids liked it. But with an digital video projector, we can prepare multible slides using power-point which substitute cleverly chosen icons representing an idea, one word at a time. Sometimes we might chose a pun, or humorous illustration for a word --size it to the sentence size and replace it. For the children (and the Adults!) it is a challenging word game! They not only repeat with great gusto each small change, but it provides a lasting word association method that helps them remember verses quickly and with enduring recall. The longer the verse the more word substitutions and repeats. Each time we start the memory time, there is a round of clapping and cheers--they love it. Here a second grader is quoting from memory 1 John 1:9, just learned. All thirty students were able to do just as well. Interesting enough, they have fun reviewing the verses as they get together in play time, recalling from memory sometimes helping each other, using the mental images of the clip art and icons chosen for the memory verse.

This is just one illustration how, our video projector has become one of the greatest tools in our ministry. I had always thought it would be nice to have one but they are still quite expensive items. This projector was provided for us through an amazing set of circumstances (amazing how the way the Lord works!) which included a automobile accident for a fellow missionary. This nearly destroyed the projector a few years ago. He replaced it, and gave it to us. We had used the projector after a partial repair, from time to time, but because the screen quality was poor, we rarely used it.

A few months ago, I was able to restore it to full function and had our workmen affix it to our auditorium ceiling and now it is instantly usable for any images displayed through a personal computer. This includes Christian movies and cartoons in Thai and English, digital photos of the classes (they like to see their images), Bible memory, Bible Study text, announcements, English lessons and projected songs and choruses for rally time. How the Lord has blessed the ministry here!

Opening of English Classes

2008-03-18T09:54:00.001-04:00

Our English Evangelism classes are off to a good start. Lots of people, including Adults, teens, preteens and primary schools children. Our "ABC" adults are having a great time learning and reviewing English. Each class has lots of Bible memory, songs in English and Thai and fun ways to approach English.

Emma Elizebeth

2008-03-16T19:35:00.002-04:00

This is a picture of Ashley presenting her new younger sister Emma Craft (Joshua and Bekah) born just a few hours before on March 14th. Emma is our seventh grandchild. God bless this beautiful family.

Full Week of Intensive English Evangelism

2008-03-16T19:25:00.003-04:00

This morning starts our first day of a week of intensive English Evangelism outreach here in Sawang Dandin. Many weeks and lot of preparations have gone into this week. Today our helpers, fellow missionaries, volunteers and family are here. We begin at 9 AM Monday morning and will have three full sessions of classes using ONLY English for an entire week. Lots of fun activities are planned including games, singing, plays and other aspects of the program. But of course the important message of the week is the Gospel.

English Evangelism

2008-02-18T16:54:00.000-05:00

Our center's main outreach has been the English Evangelism classes meeting each Saturday and Sunday. Here the children not only practice and learn English from us (native American speakers of English) but also study the Bible. To excell in school Thai children must learn English and this provides us an opportunity to show them we care about them and also provides them with an opportunity to hear the gospel.

Our New Youth Center Building

2008-02-16T17:47:00.007-05:00

After finishing rebuilding our fire damaged home into the new Sawang Dandin Church (also named the Sawang Dandin Gospel Center) meeting hall, we decided at first to expand and remodel our garage into a home for our single co-worker Kaew and her mother. Those plans changed when a neighbor offered to sell us his house and property attached to our church property for a very good price. That new house became our "Parsonage" and was finished first and she moved into the "Parsonage" on Thanksgiving Day. At the same time, we were able to quit renting the separate property where our Sawang Dandin Church used to meet, moving everything to our new location. Our plans changed then for the former garage again to remodel the original garage and storage building into the pictured "Youth Center Annex." Part of the former garage parking area was made into two new bathrooms and our "Computer Room" for the future installation of student computers for our English Students.

The main room was expanded and support posts were removed making it a large open area for teaching, games, and indoor sports. That project has taken a few more months to finish, but was finished just in time for our Valentines Banquet and party here. Here are some pictures of the new completed "Youth Center."

Valentines Day - "Jesus Loves Me"

2008-02-16T17:04:00.003-05:00

Here in Sawang Dandin, we make a special effort to make Valentines a special time. In America, I suppose it is considered a children's holiday (remember exchanging Valentines Cards in grade school?). Or it is like everything else, a retailers' and florist shop's marketing effort to boost sales. Of course we all like roses and chocolates. And we do not think the roots of "St. Valentines Day" are anything special, but Thai students know it as an English speakers special day. What we do is use the theme of "Love" to teach about God's wonderful love to mankind through the Lord Jesus Christ. This year we had a special speaker and friend come from a neighboring country share with our English Evangelism students. We know of one young student who trusted the Lord during the meeting. Many other students heard the gospel for the first time. It was a lot of fun for the kids, and us and a blessing.

This is Thai style "Dinner on the grounds" or literally dinner on the ground between our buildings, sitting on picnic mats. What a fun way to eat a valentines dinner!

Miss Keaw Phetchompu, single church planting assistant.

2008-02-02T06:33:00.000-05:00

Our regular children's classes Bible School teacher is Miss Kaew. Kaew and her mother are from a country village about 125 miles from Sawang Dandin and she is a speaker of the local dialect, "Isan." She is single (at least presently, but has a suitor). She was saved in English Evangelism ministry in Bangkok while working in the garment production industry. We met Miss Kaew while in Bible school as a second year student. We sensed her burden for her people then and invited her to join us and she has been a help here for three years now. Kaew's mother, Mrs. Samon was saved but really never grew much in the Lord until she moved in with her daughter. Here Mrs. Samon helps keeping the grounds clean and lives with her daughter. She loves gardening and saves Kaew and her mother a lot of money. Miss Kaew is supported from two monthly gifts from individuals in USA and offerings from our church center. This is a picture of Miss Kaew teaching here-- our numbers were down a bit because of a week of rain and cool weather,

Miss Grace Ho, Missionary to Thailand from China

2008-01-18T16:20:00.000-05:00

I remember as a child praying for the Country of China. We know the Lord answers prayer but always trust that though we may sometimes not see the answers now, we will all share the blessings of seeing the fruit of our prayer in the bliss of heaven. China has been under a totalitarian Communist government that has oppressed Christianity resulting in amazing church growth and we are aware of the fact that there are literally millions of Christians nationwide. While China is still a great and vast mission field, we know that God's people wherever they are will obey the Lord's great commission to preach the gospel to the "uttermost parts of the earth." Recently Fundamental Baptist churches in Hong Kong, now part of the vast nation of China, have gathered together their resources to obey the Lord and send forth a missionary to Thailand, Miss Grace Ho. Grace was born inland China and moved to Hong Kong with her family and has lived in China for many years. Grace was challenged with the need of preaching the gospel in Thailand and has joined our band of missionaries as the first Missionary of the Hong Kong Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, and is presently doing language study in Thai language. Here she is joining Gail and I in a photo at the PABWE mission retreat.

PABWE Missionary Retreat

2008-01-18T16:11:00.000-05:00

Gail and I have served with a team of missionaries mostly from the Philippine Islands here in Thailand called the Philippine Association of Baptists for World Evangelism for 8 years as one of their fellow church planters. We were blessed to join in their annual missionary retreat to participate and fellowship with these gifted and hard working fellow missionaries. Here is a photo of the entire team here taken on the last day. Also joining the Thailand group of PABWE missionaries is the PABWE missionaries from the neighboring country of Cambodia.

Tim and Mon West

2008-01-18T15:59:00.000-05:00

One of the blessings of being in Christian Ministry is seeing young people grow and choose Christian mates and then being a part of blessing their lives. Just after the new year, Tim and Mon West from our Santisuk Baptist Church were married with the ceremony at the College where Tim has been teaching as a English Professor. Tim West has been a big help in the work here and led Mon his wife to the Lord many years ago. As Mon grew in the Lord and was Baptized, he saw her maturity and commitment to the Lord. Early last year they were engaged and arrangements were made for this wedding. Tim and Mon will continue to live and work here and help in our ministry.

Short termer, Gary VanBuskirk

2008-01-18T15:08:00.000-05:00

Sometime last year, we were in contact with a friend from the church I grew up with in Algonac Michigan, Algonac Baptist Church. Gary VanBuskirk was one of the many young people who was in the youth group we lead who went on after High School to study at a Christian College. Gary was a gifted young man in music and speech and was granted advanced degrees in preforming arts. He also taught at Christian schools and colleges for a number of years as well opening his own repertory theater. We had lost contact for a number of years and our renewed friendship came after Gary had suffered a number of health issues which resulted in his being on disability and unable to work full time. Gary loves the Lord and desires to work for the Lord and be a blessing.

Gail and I invited Gary to visit and consider joining our team as a volunteer working as he can in our English Evangelism ministry. Last week we were able to travel to Bangkok and pick him up at the brand new Sawanaphum International Airport and bring him back to our home where he will join us in ministry.

Gary arrived after Midnight Saturday and just 10 hours later was invited to present a solo in one of our leading fellow churches in Bangkok, the Romprakhun Baptist Church in Bangkok. He has a wonderful tenor voice and presented a familiar hymn. We traveled home the next day and we are working hard together with Miss Kaew and Gail and I to prepare for our growing ministry here where he will participate in helping us in English Evangelism.

Christmas in Sawang Dandin, 2007

2007-12-23T11:30:00.000-05:00

For weeks our Santisuk Baptist Church has been preparing our Christmas Cantata, composed of arrangements of traditional Christmas music from western culture and Asian melodies, under the direction of Mrs. Thongbai, a member. Tonight we sang for the Sawang Dandin Baptist Church Christmas program. Few choirs in our part of the country can sing in harmony with just a piano. It was lovely and well appreciated by those who attend, we will also sing in two other churches here in the area.

We nearly filled our new auditorium tonight with over 160 attending our Annual Christmas program, held on Sunday, December 23, 2007.
The partially finished youth center provided extra dining room plus two "just finished" in time bathrooms. We had three programs actually, a youth party at 5 PM, followed by a buffet dinner, and then the Adult Christmas program.
The children worked for weeks on the Christmas pagent that they presented for the Adults -- it was part of the commication of the Gospel to many of the parents, and helped the children understand more about the birth of Jesus the Savior.

Pray for the lives of many who attended including the parents and friends joined in the meeting.

English Evangelism Classes Saturday December 22

2007-12-22T07:38:00.000-05:00

Our youth ministry is growing each time we meet in our new church. Gail tells me we had 54 students today. Many of the kids stayed their entire Saturday, playing board games, learning piano, reading books and so on. Tonight as we were eating supper 8 more showed up and a about 20 minutes later, a couple of parents dropped in to see our new house and center (bringing their daughter who is also just “goofing around” tonight.
The Youth Center building will be used for the first time for our Christmas party. Two additional bathrooms will make everyone more comfortable and the additional classroom space will also be very useful. There are still a few more items to finish yet but praise the Lord for the provision of the new building at a time when we need it.

Preparations for Christmas

2007-12-15T23:43:00.000-05:00

Our local kids are preparing a Nativity Play, and here they are singing, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" the close of their program for our Christmas Party, Sunday, December 23, 2007.

Sunday School in our new Church Center

2007-12-09T08:08:00.000-05:00

Nearly 40 children are enrolled for our Sunday School Classes now. One advantage of our new center location is it is "off" the main road, and in the center of a community with lots of children. It is a safe walk (or bicycle ride) for most of the children who attend our new center's Sunday School classes. Though our new center is very roomy, we already can use the expanded "youth center" facility which is still being remodeled and expanded. After it is finished, we can divide up our classes into more groups.

Another advantage I have found for the new center is our offices are connected to the building used as our church. When I need a few more pages printed off or something, I only have to step into my office to get it. How the Lord has blessed us with the new center.

One of the favorite things our "kids" like to do is coloring the line drawings from the Bible they are studying. I have lots of coloring book materials related to the Bible stories being taught.

The smiling third grader on the left Miss Tim, is one of our newest believers, and she recently saved enough money to buy her own complete Bible.

Right now, in these few weeks before Christmas, we are preparing for our annual Christmas Party. The children are all excited about participation in a nativity play about the first Christmas written by our single co-worker Miss Kaew, here leading in the explanation of the play to the children.

New Sign Sawang Dandin Baptist Church and Baptist Gospel Center

2007-12-05T21:22:00.000-05:00

"Kris-ta-jak Baep-tis"

God has blessed us with a very accessable and quiet location away from the noise of the main temple and traffic noise. As you can see, we have ample parking and room to expand in the future.

Here is our sign, right on a curve of the road, and very visible from a long ways, clearly identifying our new Baptist Church Center at our new location. In this picture, we are in the "Dry season" and the grass is pretty much "scrub" as it is everywhere here in North east Thailand.

More Kitchen Work - Mom Gail's Pad

2007-12-02T20:04:00.000-05:00

One of Gail's gifts for our Church center is decorating and here is our Christmas tree all part of our holiday here. We used to think, let's not introduce our holidays here, but Thai are already selling and buying the lights and trees to celebrate Christmas -- not knowing the reason. We use this interest to identify with something they are very interested in and preach the gospel. Thai people have lots of holidays too. So this gives our Thai Christians (and some of them are youth) a time to celebrate our Lord and feel like they have something special no one else has, and we do! You should see the eyes of the small children light up as they look at the sparkling decorations in delight!

Here is our nearly finished kitchen with new granite counter tops. Part of our ministry here is entertaining and now that this is our "Church Home" we need the new remodeled kitchen for our church. It is off the multi-purpose church auditorium in an "L" or "7" configuration depending where you are standing. Making it very accessible and useful for our special meetings. Gail and I are feeling more blessed this Christmas than we can remember. Thanks for joining us in praising the Lord for his goodness.

All Classes and Meetings now at new "Center"

2007-11-24T19:25:00.000-05:00

Snack time for our Saturday English Evangelism Class, just before Miss Kaew teaches in our new auditorium.

This is our first week for teaching children on Saturdays.

I was given a projector which was damaged in a car accident and worked poorly. But this week I fixed it just in time for the Thanksgiving program. Now that it is working like a new projector, we showed a video of creation and Christ's birth for our young kids until their parents came. On the new "projector wall" designed for this, the video not only captured the attention of the children but also the parents who came to pick them up! How the Lord has blessed and how thankful we are.

We are still building the new Youth Building and the workers are stopping for their annual rice harvest time now. Many have stopped in to see the new center and are amazed how the Lord has blessed. God has been so good to us.

Thanksgiving and House Warming

2007-11-22T21:47:00.001-05:00

Miss Kaew showing her new lovely home, a place to serve God, provided by the Lord.
How the fire has been a blessing to Sawang Dandin!
November 22, traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We have lots to be thankful for this year. And we are sharing it with our friends, English students and fellow Christians here. Gail cooked up two of the largest turkeys we could find with all the trimmings, including cranberry sauce (now sold in Thailand!) and of course apple pie and pumpkin pie for desert.

This little cute girl is the niece of one of our construction workers.

Mrs. Nari and her brother, from Nong Mek church.

Miss Phat, Miss Kaew, Miss Walangkana, Miss Cheryl all joining in our Thanksgiving time here in Sawang Dandin.

Miss Cheryl sharing and blessing Miss Kaew's new house.

More cooks, make light the work and the best broth in Thailand!

This is fun and delicious

Finally, work being done on the youth building.

Ministry Progress!

2007-11-22T21:36:00.000-05:00

These days our Sawang Danding Baptist Church team is busy in the ministry again teaching English. Here is our "Adult Evangelistic English Class" meeting twice a week studying English Conversation and Bible. Nexts is Miss Kaew, our single co-worker teaching some of the elementary school age children the Bible.

Leadership Meetings and other news

2007-11-09T15:07:00.000-05:00

During the past month, most of the building project was done for the main building (Where our apartment is and the Church auditorium is) and the Parsonage building. We could secure the home well and were able to participate in Thailand field-wide activities during the month of November.

ARFBC and TABWE

This is the Leadership board for the Association of Romprakhun Fundamental Baptist Churches. as well as the Thailand Association of Baptist Churches for World Evangelism (or TABWE)

(Front row) Pastor Phonsak Sukachintanakan, Chairman; Pastor Bualiang Srimukda, Vice-Chairman; Pastor Phairat Prasitnok, Treasurer; Pastor Sakchai Prathesa, Secretary; Pastor Sutorn Khama; Pastor Somchit Jaengprai; Pastor Phairat Senakhun; and Pastor Wirasak Tuchinda. (Back Row) Advisors, Rev. Charles Holms, Rev. Donald Craft, Rev. Arturo C. Inion, and Rev. Kiatisak Siripandorn.

The Association of the Romprakhun Fundamental Baptist Churches is a body made up of elected pastors (front row). and appointed advisiors (back row) for our group of more than 30 churches and gospel centers in Thailand.

This leadership same group of men have been appointed by our fellowship of churches to be the Board of Directors for the newly formed Thailand Association of Baptist Churches for World Evangelism (or TABWE), the Thailand missionary arm of the Fellowship of Romprakhun Baptist Churches, a group of churches founded by the Philippine Association of Baptists for World Evangelization.

Life Camp and Workers Retreat, progress!

2007-10-22T07:57:00.000-04:00

One of our young men, Art, was baptized in the waterfall pool on the campgrounds of LIFE camp. Here are some pictures and we trust you will pray for him. Art has a good testimony and has been winning his friends and family members to the Lord. Pray for him and future decisions for the Lord. Our fellow pastor, Surasit (below right) preformed the baptismal ceremony. He is a full time school teacher but announced this week how he desires to give his life full time to the Lord and "retire" early from teaching. How we rejoice to see true growth among our churches.

We just completed the week of "LIFE" camp (an acrostic for Learning Intensive Free English) hosted by one of our fellow churches in Bangkok last Thursday. We took four vans from our area with students from our local schools and colleges. Our purpose in English camp, of course, is English Evangelism and we praise the Lord for the many presentations of the Gospel during the week through preaching and "buddy time" and other opportunities. Most of the campers have been under the teaching of the Word of God in our local ministries and this is a great time for the campers to be away from family and peer pressure -- it is no wonder that each year up to 75 campers place their faith in Jesus Christ. One of our teens was baptized in the waterfall pool there and at least one young lady, "Bia" trusted the Lord from our area. There are so many blessings to share with you we could write many pages in our Blog.

Of course, one thought that stuck Gail and me as we traveled home after camp, and that is this time we were returning to a lovely nearly completed home and ministry place. What a contrast to the situation we faced when we were traveling home from the annual camp and heard our house was afire. In the end we believe God wanted to bless us in a special way that we never experienced before and he had to test us first. And we can testify that we found the Lord faithful in the hard times as well as the easy times.

Here are some recent pictures of the interior of our facility at the Sawang Dandin Baptist Church:

This is our new "Auditorim" facing toward the entrance and the front windows. Gail is sewing (her hobby!) In this picture you can see the new curtains which really have dressed up the auditorium. The second picture is a a picture of the "living room" which is a corner in the large room.

Below is a snap shot of the newly remodeled two bedroom Thai style "parsonage" recently purchased adjacent to our church building. This will be the home initially for Miss Kaew, our single woman co-worker and her mother. The workmen just finished the interior and exterior today (the yard needs some cleaning up of course!).

2007-10-20T08:34:00.000-04:00

This is an artists conception of the new Youth building, Garage and storage building which will be under construction during November. At first we were thinking about making it housing for Miss Kaew but the new additional property added next door was much nicer and will be a nice "Parsonage" for the future church here. The youth building will now have space for two new bathrooms on front of the building doubling our bathroom space and providing the youth building with new bathrooms. The right door will be the garage and the left door will be outside access for the storage room (Lawn mowers, sport equipment and other items). The large 24 foot by 36 foot center room will be suitable for ping pong tables, English Classes, and other youth activities. It will also have two guest bedrooms usable for Christian youth from other districts who may be studying in our district. The overall structure is quiet large at 45 feet by 40 feet (including the bathrooms). We have recently replaced the entire roof with tile, making the building quiet a bit nicer looking than before.

Remodeling the Additional Property for Co-worker Miss Kaew

2007-10-13T02:15:00.000-04:00

This is a panoramic shot of the new lot adjacent, just purchased as an addition to our church/house center. It is now being remodeled with new floors, ceilings, bathroom, kitchen, bedrooms and a fresh coat of paint. We have agreed with our carpenters to finish this for us while we are in camps and other activities over the month of October. The "Road" we put in here goes through the back of our church/house center. The entire cost will be just over $5,000 dollars. We are especially happy because we are now free of a very messy and noisy drunk neighbor who sold the house and property to us for just $4,500. How the Lord has blessed to make our new property even better today.

Finishing touches, Property expansion, Youth center

2007-10-08T19:51:00.000-04:00

Over the last week, our volunteer helpers from Lapeer, Michigan, Ed and Carol Bowman, helped us with some of the finishing touches which really take a lot of time. Ed designed and assisted in the creation of some new kitchen cabinets, has been renewing our furniture, some of which was damaged during the fire and rebuilding process. Carol and Gail have had a wonderful time, doing things women like to do -- fellowshipping and working together as Carol has used her gifts, encouraging, cooking, shopping, sorting through the jumble of things as we now start living in our new home, and most of all being a friend for Gail. Ed is an employee in the automobile industry, and Carol is a nurse, but they took their three week "vacations" so they could serve the Lord here helping on the mission field. What a blessing!

One of the many help projects Ed helped accomplish this week was the design and layout of new kitchen cabinets (in this picture, still unfinished) made from wood left over from the removal of the upstairs after the fire.

Another pleasant surprise this week was the offer from our neighbor for purchase of land and a small house in an adjacent property at a bargain price of $4,500 dollars, providing more road frontage and additional housing for our Thai co-worker, Miss Kaew and her mother. This house will be a lot nicer housing for them after it is remodeled and will free up the other building (our former garage building) for future use as our youth center, and garage.

This "Youth Center" will provide space for things like additional class rooms, computer lab, game room, and parking for our van. All of this will be rent free facilities for the growing Sawang Dandin Baptist Church.

Joint Meeting in New Auditorium

2007-09-30T18:15:00.000-04:00

Special Music by the Santisuk Baptist Church in our newly finished auditorium:

This Sunday, September 30th, we held our first joint meeting with our two church planting ministries here at our newly rebuilt home / church property. After church we had a nice meal with our guest ministry team, Ed and Carol Bowman who just arrived here to help us with finishing up some projects as well as an encouragement. They shared some in the morning service and enjoyed the fellowship here. We have plans for a ministry filled month in October, including special classes, English Evangelism with the Romprakhun Baptist Church, with the LIFE camp (an acronym for Learning Intensive Free English) May 15-18, sponsored by the Emanuel Baptist Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan and our fellow missionaries and churches here. Last year over 75 campers trusted the Lord at this camp. This year they are expecting 600+ campers. We will be taking four van loads of campers this year.

A week later, we will be participating in the Worker's retreat with our fellow pastors, missionaries, and Bible school students, this year held in Bangkok.

2007-09-21T09:19:00.000-04:00

Our house is now nearly completely painted and we are starting on the garage, storage and apartment building where we slept for two and a half months after the fire. Here is a night picture of the newly painted front.

Soon returning to full ministry in Sawang Dandin

2007-09-17T05:41:00.000-04:00

We did not want to take a "break" from our ministry here, but the Lord has given us a good reason to concentrate on other things while rebuilding and recovery. We are almost ready and excited to go back to work unhindered in our church planting ministry here. Here are some highlights from the last year of ministry.

Our work includes, intensive English Evangelism Classes, oversight of two churches in process -- The Sawang Dandin Baptist Church, the Santisuk Baptist Church, Camps, semenars, and special meetings. Though we were very busy in the time of rebuilding, we continued to serve the Lord leading the two churches here, doing evangelism, discipleship, baptizing believers and meeting regularly as church bodies. In the next two months, there is the annual school term break when we participate in the LIFE Camp, hosted by the Bangkhen Baptist Church, Christian Workers camp for the Romphrakhun Fundamental Baptist Church Fellowship, plus lots of team meetings--we are also planning to take a much needed rest for a few days away from home. Pray for our ministry here.

All tiled, painted and ready to use, almost

2007-09-17T05:00:00.000-04:00

Here is Gail, gracing the new big "Great" room now finished except the door thresholds (being done today).

The woodgrain look floors will make our Church auditorium a lovely place to serve the Lord.

The outside is still needing cement work, painting and we will now be able to finish the kitchen. Electrical wiring is now done.

He Giveth More Grace
(One of our favorite Hymns-and an encouragment through all these days!)
He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added affliction He addeth His mercy;
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father's full giving is only begun.

Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.

His love has no limit; His grace has no measure.
His pow'r has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!
--Annie Johnson Flint

2Corinthians 12:9 "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

Painting and laying floor tile

2007-09-10T07:12:00.000-04:00

And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the LORD God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD. --1 Chronicles 28:20

One of the things that amazes me each day is the fact that we are not just building for ourselves, but this will be a place of blessing for the Thai people here. Many have come to this location to trust the Lord since we have lived here. We believe God will continue to use this place as his "House" for many years to come.

Each day, we get a little more done--it is so encouraging. We are of course tired out from four months of living in the middle of a building project. That is, we have had first hand experience at removal of a burnt out upstairs, eliminating the rubble, inital planning, aquiring help to rebuild, planning and building, and trying to balance a budget and purchasing of supplies and materials at a fair price. Some things had to be planned and "re-planned" as we went.

We had an idea in our minds from the start of what we wanted the building to look like -- but we have had to make lot of changes from then up until now. We were, blessed by the prayers of the Lord's people, to have the Lord supplying, workers willing and able to make the house/future Sawang Dandin Baptist Church, exactly the way we wanted it. The Lord has supplied the funds in amazing ways--His providence! He has strengthened us when we thought we would never make it. God has blessed the work.

Today more interior work was done: Here is our men laying floor tiles and painting the walls. One of my best friends and an age mate here, Mr. Bate (picture at the top of the Blog) has arranged my workers for me, including his son (painting on left), Bate (spackling a window edge), Mr. Phai (a master skilled worker, doing the tile down the middle first) and Phai's brother, Wong.

Our electrical is nearly done, thanks to a young man who has been under our ministry for many years, Matt. (Eating dinner with us in this picture). Matt has done a wonderful job. I also helped him learn a few tricks he never knew about such as three way switches, and so on.

Gail now has her office set up. Here she manages the books. She not only handles record keeping for our team, but for other ministries here in Thailand. Her new desk seems to fit her nook just right. Her old desk was damaged by two break ins before the fire and the fire and water of the fire trucks finished it off.

The Great Room

2007-09-04T11:58:00.000-04:00

This is a picture of the "Great Room" as Gail likes to call it. It now has a lovely suspended ceiling with wooden beams (covering steel girders used in construction). From the ceiling, we suspended decorative fans with lamps provided for by my friends of the Hazel Park Amateur Radio Club in Hazel Park, Michigan. My lovely wife is sitting on our old furniture (we need to replace this, we know!) with two dozen roses given to her today. Soon we will tile the floors with woodgrain ceramic flooring. One of our young men here from our Sawang Dandin Baptist Church is doing an excellent job on our electrical wiring. There is still a lot of little things to do. But we feel we can see the "light" at the end of the tunnel.

2007-08-31T16:59:00.000-04:00

Our first picture is kind of a "polar bear in a snow storm"--which is really a picture of a worker painting my office now almost completely restored (other than furniture). Next week, I get my office back. Horray!!

This next picture is our dining room area, featuring Matt, our electrician, a young man who has been part of our Sawang Dandin church a number of years. We are enjoying our evening meal, with Gail pausing to take the picture, just after a long day and hooking up our ceiling fan, and lighting.

This last shot is a picture of our cluttered "Great Room" or church auditorium, with a completed ceiling other than some finishing work also fiinished today August 31, 2007.

As you can guess we are excited to see how this new facility will be used of the Lord for his glory.

Praise the Lord for the Lord's supply of our needs.

Dining Room area

2007-08-25T20:08:00.000-04:00

The next project on the list of projects is the kitchen dining room area of the house. You can see in this picture Gail standing in the back door by where the dining room will be. Perhaps we will put a suspended ceiling lamp here. Our workers designed the enclousures for the roof supports using artifical wood siding (to prevent termite invasion). The walls of the kitchen (left) still need plastering. We decided to replace them last week since they were twisted and very poorly make originally and did not match the new walls.

Outside nearly finished!

2007-08-17T06:06:00.000-04:00

From the burnt out shell our house was 15 weeks ago, we now have a new, spacious one storey home. While freshly cemented walls cannot be painted for about a month, you can see how nice this house will look from the road on the North side of the house.

The men are now focusing on the interior finishing. There is a lot to do yet. Floors, ceilings, electrical, landscaping and other finishing work still has to be done.

Rebuilding our house

2007-08-12T14:53:00.000-04:00

Plan for Rebuilding - It is now 16 weeks after the fire.
Week one of May 1-5 Return from week of youth Camp on Friday and assessing fire damage.
Setting up housekeeping in the garage building, "the honeymoon cottage."
Week two of May 6-12 Inspection of fire by local authorities, moving all items out of the house (some to storage at our church center) and begin removal of damaged wooden upstairs. The downstairs is made of plastered cement block using support poles and these poles were duplicated and have become part of the new construction. All of the wooden upstairs was damaged and had to be removed. Wood is being kept for future use such as door frames, church furniture such as pews and pulpits.
Week three of May 13-19 Continuation of the removal of the wooden house walls and ceiling and clean up of rubble. Removal of three large trees was necessary to accommodate construction of rebuilding as one storey building entirely out of steel and cement.
Week four of May 20-June 2 Building starts with the installation of 5 new support poles and initial work for footings. Removal of old flooring, drop ceilings, wooden portions of the stairs--no longer needed.
Week one of June: 3-9 Preparing for pouring the new floor cement including laying reinforcing steel mesh.
Week two of June 10-16 Building 6 roof trusses. Week three of June. 17-23 Setting trusses and welding everything in together.
Week four of June 24-30 Roofing the entire structure begun. We are using insulated steel roofing with large overhangs to aid in cooling on hot days.
Week one of July, 1-7 Building cement block walls enclosing the addition, sawing lumber into windows frames, setting windows and door frames.
Week two of July, 8-14 Removal of "interior walls" that had windows. Begining the interior walls for a bathroom and bedrooms. West Soffit and north gable openings enclosed. Front and back doors are hung.
Week three of July 15-21 Finish the back gable enclosure and begining the plastering of walls.
Week three of July 22-28 Our bedroom and bathroom nearly completed. Ceilings started. Continued to plaster inside walls.

Month of August Rains slowed down progress during August. Still, we were making progress plastering all of the interior and exterior walls. The bedrooms and bathroom ceilings were installed. Initial electrical and phone connections were installed and the bathroom and bedroom completed (other than paint). During August we moved our bedroom into the finished bedroom and removed the temporary ceiling in the old office preparing for remodeling these rooms.

August 19, 2007
Rain (which the local workers depend upon for rice planting) continue. More finish work has been accomplished during the last week with just two workers. We have decided to remove the kitchen walls since they were poorly constructed originally (kind of "shaky!" and crooked) and redo the kitchen to make Gail's domain more comfortable and useful.

What is left to do in September and following?
Electrical wiring (lights, plugs, fans, and so on).
Screens, antitheft bars, glass window panes for some of the still unfinished windows.
Remodeling Thai style bathroom.
Ceilings and floors in the auditorium.
Remodeling of Office and kitchen
Painting and trim
Landscaping (this includes clean up and leveling property)
Using up wood for furniture (before the termites get it!)

Another project we would like to do as the Lord supplies, is to convert the temporary living quarters which was our garage and storage building into living quarters for Miss Kaew Petchompu, the single co-worker and her mother who are our helpers at the Baptist center. When this is finished, we can save monthly rent and other expenses of our rental property, which is where our church presently meets.

This future project, while smaller, will mean we will have to install more doors, walls, plaster walls, install new electrical wiring, an additional bathroom and drop ceilings and a new parking area along side to replace the present garage which will be part of the converted

Monsoons finally start in NE Thailand and "Mother's Day" in Thailand

2007-08-07T15:18:00.000-04:00

It has been a realitively "dry" rice planting season so far -- that is, not enough rain for rice farmers to do their fields. We knew if and when the rains really started, we would not have workers coming since they have to get their rice fields planted-something peasent rice farmers depend upon. Well, the news today is, a tropical depression moving into our part of Thailand has brought the rains our workers were hoping for and sure enough, we have had a couple of quiet days here. (See the "Red line" moving west on the weather map). We are happy for them, of course. This storm has been moving closer daily and is now just about a few hundred miles east and slightly north of us. It has literally rained all day for four days now.

Actually for Gail and I it is sort of a relief since we are "over the hump" of the getting the roof and walls up now. With no one here, we are able to take a few days without overseeing a houseful of workers and extra cooking and cleaning needed. Isn't the Lord's timing great! We needed a break. We are enjoying our better situation and there are lots of little things about the house to keep us busy anyway.

Praise the Lord for a dry house in a country where there is flooding all around us. Yesterday we just took a "shopping" trip and relaxed and took our time. We bought some building supplies and tools needed for finishing the house, some grocery items we can't get locally, and looked at some furniture and other things for outfiting our house when finished.

August 12th is Thailand's mother's day. This yearly celebration is HM Queen Sirikit's birthday. We found some nice little gifts for our mothers in our church. Gail found some things she needed for her kitchen. The Bible tells us to honor our mothers (Proverbs 1:8 ff). It is nice to be reminded of the great gift we all have with our mothers.

34 blessed years together

2007-08-05T11:49:00.000-04:00

Saturday night, August 4th, was a happy event for the two of us as we celebrated 34 years of marriage. We invited our co-workers and our good friends to join us in a lovely meal and homemade pie to share our celebration. We gathered very comfortably with nine of us in our new partially finished home (all in our "Great Room" as Gail calls it).

Together we serve the Lord here in Thailand. We trust the Lord for many years service here. Of course, God has used YOU, our supporters, to be a blessing to us and God continues to bless His work here. Today in our newest church, Santisuk Baptist Church, we had truly a full house. Every seat was full, we had two seated on the stairs, and the song leader had to sit on the piano bench during the message. So far the Santisuk Baptist Church is meeting in one of the member's home but perhaps soon they will have to look for a new meeting hall! They have a building fund and perhaps they will have to trust the Lord to expand soon.

How blessed we are to have reared 3 godly children and now have two son-in-laws and a daughter-in-law who are also living for the Lord. To those six, we have added grandsons and granddaughters, making our clan now a dozen.

"Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward." Psalm 127.3

Please pray for us as we continue the house work. The inside is all plastered now and most of the outside is done. We are now in the finishing stage (not "finished" but the items such as lighting, flooring, screens, anti-theft bars, drop ceilings, painting, trim and such).

Gail and I have been sleeping in our newly finished bedroom with attached bathroom. I have moved part of my office into the bedroom while the remodeling is being done on the office and kitchen. How nice it is to know that we are "in" our bedroom after three months of temporary living. God has blessed beyond our dreams and showed us his power to bless those who depend wholly on Him.

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen." Eph 3:20-21

55 years -- Don's Birthday

2007-07-27T14:38:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday!

After a special meal prepared by my Niece, Louretta, the lights went out for a birthday special cake! Here I am "making a wish" and getting ready to blow out two sets of 5 candles. We had some of our church members over a lovely meal and one of the first of many good times in our new chuch center.

While there is still a lot of work to do to finish our new Church/Office/Home center, we are happy to report that we are making regular progress almost daily (we do not allow our workers to come on Sundays). Yesterday was Don's Birthday Party in the "Great Room" as Gail calls it. This room will be our new auditorium, seating about 75 -100 people.

Our old "living room" from the downstairs has been converted to be our living quarters which will be our bedroom, bathroom, and Gail's office. The workers have these rooms almost finished. Drop ceilings were hung and the walls and floor of the bathroom were finished. My office (temporary bedroom) and our kitchen will be next to be remodeled. Our guest room has been plastered and the outside entrance has been finished off.

A large hardwood tree was sawed into planks which will make pews, a pulpit and other furnature for the new center.

What's left? Well, our electrical, lights, plumbing, auditorium floors and the plastering of the walls of our auditorium. That is perhaps a month of work.

Please pray with us for remaining funds and stamina through the continual rebuilding.

Pray for the outreach of our church -- God has given us many opportunites to share Christ through out these days of hard work and recovery from our May 4th fire.

Lots of news!

2007-07-14T08:26:00.000-04:00

First of all, our youngest daughter Hannah (and her husband Seth Rone) just announced the birth of their son, Owen Lee Rone (6:05 AM July 14, 2007). Mother and baby are fine.

Our nephew David and Louretta Landon just returned from a "visa run" in Cambodia where they spent some time with some of our dear friends and missionaries, Arturo and Malou Baste who put them to work in their ministry for a few days as well as showed them around some. They loved it and have lots of stories about their time there.

And our house reconstruction is moving along well. All interior walls are blocked in and ready for plastering. The front gable is finished and one side is enclosed with a soffit closure. Here is a picture of Gail standing in the entrance way (our original front porch). Our house will have one large room which will serve as our church auditorium for our church planting ministry here at the Sawang Dandin Baptist Church.

We praise the Lord for funds that have met the needs as we build. Pray for our future finishing off work -- this takes a long time and there are lots of little things. We still have a lot to do and other expenses such as replacement of furniture for our bedroom, Gail's office and clothing. We are considering how we will "light" the house. Most of the electrical wiring and lamps were damaged during the fire. We would like to get some modern ceiling lights with old fashioned style suspended fans for the "Auditorium" and perhaps some recessed lighting in the ceilings. We are planning on tiling the floor with ceramic tile.

People who know and love us here are making regular visits to see the progress. It will be a nice looking and very funtional building afterward.

And we are sharing our faith with our workmen -- even today we had an long discussion after lunch. Our single co-worker Miss Kaew makes our daily lunches and she is a bold wittness too.

Progress!

2007-07-06T18:18:00.000-04:00

Since we are using old windows and wood from our upstairs, a lot of the wood has to be reworked to be usable.

These are shots of some of our workers and the progress they are making.

Wooden house poles (from the upstairs rooms) are being made into door frames, windows and other usable lumber.

As you can guess, we are looking forward to the regaining usefulness of our house everyday.

Exciting, inside,

front and
back views of the house as progress is being made.

Thank you for support and prayer for our efforts.

Happiness is Air Conditioning in the Rainy Season.

2007-06-28T16:48:00.000-04:00

Progress is having our "bedroom" in the house which was my office on the first floor, which has a air conditioner that still works.

Update: The roof is COMPLETELY on and we have the kitchen, office (or temporary bedroom!) and living room of our former house back, but because of remodeling needed (and no ceilings yet) we are only getting partial use of the house for a while.

How to give to help the Crafts

2007-06-19T08:57:00.000-04:00

Because we were renting and there was no insurance, we are obligated to offer to repair the damage ourselves to avoid a lawsuit and other fines. Recently, my Brother Roy, offered to loan us the money to purchase the property for church property here. The former rental home is being built to accomodate our Sawang Dandin Baptist Church center (we rent another property now).

We did not have funds of our own for this, but a number of individuals and churches have offered to help. We are continuing to work in our ministry in spite of the difficulties.

For those who desire to give a gift through our mission for us, ABWE mission has set up a special account for to raise funds needed for the project of “House Fire Recovery”:

The purpose of this account is as follows:
To settle damages as renters with Don and Gail Craft's landlord (Necessary to avoid a lawsuit). To remove damaged parts of the house and rebuild the home. This includes, labor, building materials, and supplies. To purchase things that were destroyed in the house fire, such as clothing, Gail’s computer, other equipment and furniture.

Tax deductible gifts for those wishing to help Don and Gail Craft, ABWE missionaries to Thailand, can be sent via regular mail to the following address

ABWE, Inc.
PO Box 8585
Harrisburg, PA 17105-8585
USA

Include a note, for “House Fire Recovery” account of Don and Gail Craft. To speed things in processing, you should include this account number "013035".

Or if you have Internet you may give via the www.abwe.org website as follows:
http://www.abwe.org/give/ways_to_give/online.asp

Or you can give by telephone:
Calls should go to Alice Harpster at (717) 703-3484.
If she is not available, you may leave a message.

Tell her you would like to give to Don and Gail Craft Fire Recovery fund and use this account number: 013035