My wife and I went to visit my family in the village I grew up in for New Year’s. We had a wonderful time, and I was given a special opportunity to preach at my dad’s church for their New Year’s Day service. Several times my dad has asked me to come preach, but I’m not confident to preach in my own language of Lahu. For New Year’s, I preached in Thai, and my brother, who was visiting, translated for me. What an encouragement it is to see my dad still faithfully preaching and teaching God’s Word.
New Church
In our last letter, we mentioned the need for a place to hold services. The whole month of January and into February, we were searching for a place to rent. It was starting to seem unlikely that we would find a place, but meeting on the porch of a family we know in that town was becoming less and less ideal. Sometimes the family had visitors, and the environment was very distracting. We are so excited that we have found a place that we can begin meeting in starting next month! Lord willing, we will open Charity Baptist Church in March. So many doors are starting to open, and I’ve especially have been reminded about being patient and waiting for God’s perfect timing.
Special Baptisms
Four teens, whom my wife and I met about two to three years ago and have been teaching and discipling, finally decided they were ready to be baptized! We had a special lesson to go over everything baptism entails and why we get baptized. This also went into helping them further differentiate from their old culture and traditions to their new culture. The two teen boys both had strings tied on their wrists, which is connected to the tradition that they’d be protected from the spirits. Wrist tying is wrapped up in tradition and beliefs. After understand-ing that as Christians and followers of Christ they are free from that, they both cut the strings off and threw them away. The baptisms were held at a nearby waterfall, and some of the locals gathered to see what was happening. Hearts are being softened. Please keep the people of Thailand in your prayers.
Needs and Prayer Requests
While my wife and I were in the U.S., we mentioned to some of the churches we visited about our need for a truck. We have raised about $3,000 and are trying to raise another $4,000. Each time we travel into the mountain villages, we seem to come back with something wrong with our old car. The areas we go into aren’t ideal for a car. The truck will also be used for picking up people for church. If any Sunday school classes, families, or churches would like to help us with this, we’d greatly appreciate it. Also, please be in prayer for the new church we prayerfully hope to start in March and the things we need to get everything up and going.
Thank you,
Teerapat and Tiffany Phaisarnpiwat
