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

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

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.

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

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

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.