Christmas 2011

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, 
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. 
It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. 
And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. 
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. 
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. 
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” Dr Seuss

What does Christmas really mean? It certainly doesn't come from a store - although in many parts of the world today, you would think otherwise. In Thailand, the Christmas trees are already up in the stores. Dancing Santa Clauses with fake snow, reindeer and twinkling lights. Christmas really does mean so much more than all of that - and each year, we take the month of December to bring the real meaning of Christmas to people in Thailand.

This year we will be hosting a number of Christmas parties - in the Burmese community near to where we live, in the local prison - and possibly in a Karen village and a school. We also always help to facilitate many other Christmas parties run by other people and churches. This year will be the second year in a row that the churches in Ratchaburi will gather together to hold an evangelistic Christmas event in Ratchaburi town and we are excited to be a part of it.

Would you like to help us to give a special gift to a Burmese or Karen family this year? Would you like to help us to bring hope to one of the inmates in the local prison? We know that Christmas is so much more -will you help us to bring the message of light to those who are walking in the darkness?

Please pray for us this December. If you would like to make a donation towards any one of the Christmas parties, please contact us, or give online here.

Identity and dreams - Camping trip Nov 2011

Identity and dreams. Finding ones identity in Christ and dreaming God's dreams. This was the theme of our third camping trip this past 18-20 November.

In beautiful surroundings with new and old friends, the kids enjoyed a special weekend of fun and games, and learning more about their Savior. 40 kids - from Thai, Burmese and Cambodian origin and 40 adults from many different nations supervising! 

Thank you so much for those who helped to make this camp happen.

 Our prayer is that each of these special lives will grow closer to God. Will you pray for them too? 

Burmese love Thai people

Today many of our Burmese friends took the day off from work to come and help with the sand bagging effort. These people live from day to day, relying on every days pay, and they only get paid for the days that they work. They love their Thai neighbors, even though sometimes the sentiment is not mutual. We truly love working with such special people!

Before the work begins

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The kids came along too!

Lending a helping hand - sand bags for flood prevention in Bangkok

Trucks to transport the sand bags to Bangkok and surrounding areas

Some locals filling sand bags

The principal of the Christian school in Ratchaburi came with some of his staff

students from the Technical school in Ratchaburi helping out

Thousands of bags - so far there are around 200,000 to be filled. The Government is hoping for up to a million bags to be really effective in preventing the floods, but so far there is not enough of a budget. 

One of the local pastors 

closing the bags 

Moving the bags into the trucks to be transported to where they are needed most

feeding the volunteers

A local pastor with his family and some church members

pastor and his wife

A pastor and a church elder

Noiy - YWAM Ratchaburi

Husband and wife from Kenya lending a hand

Noiy with the Senator in charge and directors of various government departments

Lords tents camping 3

“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true” Lyman Frank Baum

There’s something so special about being with someone as one of their dreams comes true. Working with the community of Burmese children in our Rice Seeds Program, we have been able to not only encourage them to dream beyond what seems possible, but also to be with them as they have been able to live some of those dreams out.


Encouraging them to dream beyond their community at first was extremely overwhelming for most of them. With parents who are laborers on a building site, many things seem completely out of reach to the kids. We started small – asking them if there is something that they dreamt of that they would like to do. They wanted to go camping – in tents and sleep in sleeping bags.

 With the help of a number of wonderful sponsors, we saw that camping trip happen and loved hearing stories from the kids of how they slept all night in their sleeping bags (in the sweltering heat of the Thai summer), because it was their dream, and it had finally come true. The kids spent 2 days doing all sorts of activities - including learning to make their own food inside pieces of bamboo. Most importantly, each of the kids had a chance to learn more about the God who loves them, and thinks that they are truly special – special enough not only to be allowed to dream, but to see those dreams come true. God loves them no matter what their background is or what their parents do.

On the18-20 of November we will take a group of kids camping once again. This will be our third camping trip with our Rice Seeds kids. On our second camping trip (last November), we joined together with Kings Kids Thailand, and ARK international. ARK brought some kids that they work with, mostly from slum communities in Bangkok. ARK will be joining us again for our trip this November, as will Baan Chu Jai, a social development center for teens in crisis.

 We will be travelling to Kanchanaburi for this particular camping trip and have been so blessed to have been given the location for free for the weekend. We do however have other costs that we need to cover (food/transport etc) with a total of around 80 people attending (40 children and 40 adults - staff and volunteers making sure everything runs smoothly).

We love that our Rice Seeds kids are coming with us again, and we are excited about what God is going to do in their hearts during the camping trip. We are also thrilled to have more kids joining us, all from different and difficult circumstances, but none any less special to God. 

We look forward to being a part of more kids dreams coming true. Would you like to have a part in helping to make this happen? We need to raise around 30 000Baht to cover the basic running costs of the camp and we certainly will be needing a lot of prayers (especially at this point that there will be no flooding anywhere near the campsite as there is a lot of flooding in central Thailand at the moment.)

If you would like to make a donation, you can do so online here. Please make sure to specify that the donation is for "The Lord's tents camping 3".

If you would like more details as to how you can pray, please contact us: ratchaburi@ywamthai.org

Freedom in prison

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom”  2 Corinthians 3:17

It seems odd to think that one can be free while one is in prison. Almost like the ultimate oxymoron. The amazing thing about God’s grace though, is that even while your body is being held captive – your spirit can still be free.

 On the 27^th of September, YWAM Ratchaburi, in conjuction with the Ratchaburi Central Prison and the Siam Dream Center, held a concert for one thousand prisoners. There has been an incredible openness to the Gospel amongst the inmates from the very first time that we began visiting the prison and on this day, while the numbers were much larger than we have ever had the chance to meet with, the level of openness was the same.

Inside the prison, there is very little opportunity for the prisoners to express themselves. Music, dancing, sharing, laughing – those are things that they may remember from their lives outside. Things that were taken away when they lost their freedom to the walls of the prison for whatever crime it was that they committed. The concert gave them the chance to have a small taste of those things once again –to remember some of the joys of living.

During the concert, a friend of ours shared a message about the value of life. Another shared his testimony about how God set him free from a life of drugs and then another shared the message of hope that is in Christ Jesus. He invited the people to close their eyes and place their hands on their heart and ask Jesus to come and live in them and change their lives. As we watched more than half of the thousand people did as he directed them to do. 

We don’t know where most of them are at, and what they will do with the knowledge that they gained about the God who loves them – but we do know that on that day hearts were visibly touched as tears flowed from the eyes of many of the prisoners while they prayed. They may not be free to walk outside of the prison walls, but where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom – freedom of spirit, freedom to hope, freedom to be a new creation, freedom to be a child of God no matter what you have done.

To be free whilst in prison – perhaps it’s an oxymoron, a contradiction of terms – but that’s what the God of grace is all about. We rejoice that none of us deserve grace, but that through Christ Jesus, God has made it available to each of us, if only we would believe. Amazing grace indeed!

Our fellowship of one hundred men in the men’s zone of the prison will continue, and we will start a fellowship in the women’s zone this November. Please pray for us as we seek God for guidance as to how to best meet the spiritual needs of those inside the prison. If you are interested in supporting or coming to join the prison ministry in Ratchaburi, please contact us.

Prison ministry - anti-drug campaign

In the local prison in Ratchaburi, the prison warden tells us that around 50% of the prisoners who are released from prison, commit further crimes and return to the prison. For some of them, after having been in prison, they are unable to function in regular society and purposely commit crimes in order to return to what they have known inside the prison. For many more, nothing life changing occurred in the prison and they are still the same person, with the same problems and the same way of dealing with them as they were when they went into the prison. A group of men in the Ratchaburi prison however have found hope - hope in Jesus Christ who has made them a new creation. The old has passed away and they have been made new.

We have been teaching the Bible to around 100 men in the prison for almost a year now. One hundred men that come to study the Bible - they want to change - they do not want to leave the prison the same as when then entered it. They have seen the light and they no longer want to live in the darkness.

While a hundred men in a prison studying the Bible is an amazing story, we have felt for some time that this is not all that God wants us to do there. There are 4000 prisoners in this particular prison and we want to bring the message of the Gospel to as many of them as we can.

Along with some friends of ours from the Siam Dream Center in Bangkok, we will be running a Christian anti drug campaign in the form of a concert inside the prison on the 27th of September. The prison is allowing 1000 prisoners to attend - 500 men and 500 women. We are thrilled at the opportunity and excited about what God is going to do on that day.

The event will cost us around 10 000Baht (US$330). If you would like to have a part in helping us bring the Gospel to these men and women, please contact us. If you would like to make a donation online you can do so here. Please make sure to specify that the money is for "prison ministry".

We know that this is a significant event that could change the lives of many of the prisoners forever. God loves each one of them no matter what they have done - His grace is enough for them.

Forever changed by His love

"I will never be the same again

I can never return

I've closed the door

I will walk the path

I will run the race

And I will never be the same again."

This morning I watched six men give their lives to the Lord in the local prison. My heart rejoiced with them as they made the choice which will ultimately help them to find what it is that they have been striving for - the only thing that can fill that empty place in their hearts.

We had the chance to speak to some of the men who have been believers for some time. They spoke from their hearts of what God was doing in them  and it was truly beautiful to hear.

Often when people think about a prison they have preconceived ideas of what kind of people they will find there. It's easy to say that they are sinners, because their sin just happened to be punishable with a prison sentence. My sin however, while usually not against the law,  and often not even visible to other people, is still sin. And that's where God's amazing grace blows me away - He loves me, and each person that I met in the prison today, no matter what we have done. And His arms are wide open just waiting for each and every one of us to say "I am a sinner. I need You in my life."

One of the young men stood up at the end of the meeting to share something that was on his heart. He had had a friend's name on his heart. Someone that he wanted to share the Gospel with, but who happened to be in another zone of the prison. For days he had wanted to go and share of God's love with this man, but was not allowed to. Then, last night, that man took his own life. He encouraged the other men in the group to share of God's love while they still had time to - that we never know when our last chance will be. 

And we really don't know, but may we live each day sharing His love as if it were our last chance to do so.

Walking the path. Running the race. Never again to be the same - forever changed by His

love.

Burmese Community Pics

Some Great new pictures of the Burmese community that we work in. Pictures courtesy of Clifton Jang and Brian Lew.