We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a great start to the new year. We had a busy but great Christmas celebration and a great start to our new year. Praise the Lord, my wife’s visa was successfully renewed, which included a pop-in visit from Immigration at our home on Sunday morning before the morning service. Thankfully, with having everyone there, the immigration officers were happy just to ask a few questions and take pictures of my wife with the children. We look forward to continuing to partner together with you all in 2024 for the cause of Christ.
Christmas Outreach and Celebration
One thing we always pray for is that we will be a light and testimony to the people around us. A lady from our church asked Tiffany to help her niece and classmates with an English project. After making an impact on them, her niece told her professor at the technical college they attend about Tiffany. The professor in turn asked Tiffany to help her judge an English speech competition for Northern Thailand. When this professor’s friend, another English teacher who was looking for a native English teacher to come to her Christmas party and teach about Christmas, Tiffany was called again. This teacher was holding a party on December 25 and invited both of us to come and share with over 100 students the meaning of Christmas. Unfortunately, we already had plans. Instead, the teacher traveled to meet us in a local area. We gave her around 100 Christmas comic booklets sharing the Christmas story and salvation message. When the teacher learned that we are Christians, she began asking us questions about our faith. She has been reading the Bible and is curious about our faith. She was so thankful we were able to answer questions that, so far, nobody else had been able to answer. We were able to explain to her and her student, who tagged along with her, about the Gospel and on Christmas day she passed out the booklets to her students. She invited us to come to her school in February. May we encourage everyone to keep sharing the light of our Saviour with everyone they meet.
Throughout the month of December, we had visitors every week and many different activities—Christmas parties and learning of the birth of our Saviour for English students, cookie decorating, and Christmas carol practices. The Sunday before Christmas, we invited many people and held a special Christmas service at our home. Around 35 people came to celebrate our Saviour’s birth. After a meal and some fellowship, our program began. At the draw of the hat, groups or individuals went up front and sang a special or acted out a character in the Christmas story, and prizes were given. We then had our worship service, and I gave a message from John 1, ending with encouraging everyone to bear witness of the Light, like John the Baptist did. We ended our night with a fun gift-exchange game.
Youth Soccer New Year Activity
Soccer is a favorite sport of nearly everyone here, including myself. On New Year’s Day, we rented a football field and held our 3rd Annual New Year’s Soccer Competition among the church youth and their friends. In the future, if possible, I’d love to do this monthly. It is always a great turnout, and the youth really look forward to it. We encourage our youth to bring their friends and tell their friends to bring their friends to come play football for free. We always reconnect with people we haven’t seen in a long time, meet new people with whom we share Gospel booklets and invite to church, and have great fellowship together.
Surveying New Area
It has been on my heart for over year now to start a ministry farther north. After our New Year’s church activities were over, we took a week and traveled to different cities and villages farther north of us. I have family scattered throughout the area who are also serving God. In addition to enjoying some touristy things and getting a feel for the area, I spent a lot of time getting advice and discussing with the family we met in each place about our desire and the need. Upon returning home, three different places were on our hearts. In each place, we have contacts to help us get started. Please pray with us as we continue to search where exactly God wants us to start. In February or March, I will be making a visit up North again in hopes of finding a more exact location for us to begin.
Thank you for your continual prayers and support.
God bless,
Teerapat and Tiffany Phaisarnpiwat
