Introducing the Wanthanakorn Family

 YWAM Ratchaburi would like to introduce the second of the two missionary families that has recently moved to Ratchaburi. Praise God for all that He is doing in and through them, and the great plans that he has for them.

Introducing the Wanthanakorn family

Our family is an Akha family from Chiang Rai. We believe that by the grace of God He has redeemed our families. And He has chosen our families to be the conduits of His love to many who are lost.

Our History

Alee was born into an Akha family that moved to the city when he was a child. Being a mountain boy, he was regularly teased by his friends. Alee felt that he hated being Akha.  He didn't know his worth and tried to commit suicide several times. At the age of 18, Alee had an serious accident due to drunk driving. He spent four days unconscious, and took many months to recover. By God's grace, Alee was able to walk again and when he did he also began to embrace his Akha heritage. He began tospeak Akha, serve with the Akha people and studied the Akha Bible at the Akha Foundation.

Alee loves to worship and bring a visitation to the people for support and walk side by side with them. By using his gifting for brewing and the taste of coffee as a medium, he tells the story of God and conveys His love through the beans.

Bum was also born into an Akha family. Bum's father understood the importance of education for his children and moved their family into the city when she was a child. Bum and her brother were also involved in a very bad accident when she was a teenager. Both Bum and her brother were seriously injured and took a long time to recover. Tragically, soon after, Bum's father also passed away. Bum's mother was suddenly having to support the family alone, and Bum had to find a job to help the family make ends meet. In 2008, God brought Bum back to Him in the most extraordinary way and she fell in love with Him.

Bum completed her Discipleship Training School (DTS) with YWAM in Chaing Rai in 2010. In 2012 she married Alee and Alee completed his DTS with YWAM that same year. They have 2 sons:Sadudee and Manna. The meaning of their children's names is to Praise God for nurturing their family every day.

In 2016 our family received God's calling as a missionaries to go to the unreached.

In this season, God has brought our family to Ratchaburi. We plan to host outreach teams that come to Ratchaburi and help the local church. We can see the grace of God in our lives. It's a very special life, especially for our children. Sadudee and Manna have seen and been touched by God for themselves and learned of His character through a lot of things that happened during the journey with Him. 

Introducing the Piawong Family

YWAM Ratchaburi would like to introduce one of the missionary families that has recently moved to Ratchaburi. We are excited to see the plans that God has for them, and look forward to sharing more of their story with you in the future. 

About the Piawongs

We are a family who among ourselves are very different even in language and culture, but we have one heart to see those who live in Thailand and neighboring countries know and experience the pure and unconditional love of God. 

Our focus is to disciple and pour love into families, children, and youth. Our goal is to one day see these people that we're reaching grow and step out to be leaders in their own families and communities, taking initiative to reach out through the unique gifts that God has given them.

 Our Background

 Noom grew up in a small village in Thailand. When he was in his twenties and after many years of involvement with alcohol, drugs, women and being the leader of a gang, God transformed his life through a YWAM DTS in 2006. He made the commitment to serve God and stayed on staff there in Chiang Rai for another few years.
Karis grew up in Australia and moved to Thailand with her parents in 2007. At the beginning of 2008, Karis did a DTS with YWAM Chiang Rai and it was there that God confirmed His calling on her life for Thailand and gave her a heart for Isaan (where Noom is from and where we ministered through mercy ministries, sports, music and discipleship from 2009-2016). In late 2009 after getting married and moving to Isaan, Noom started a cultural music ministry. The goal of this group was to share God's love with the people using their own unique culture and language. We worked together leading this ministry until 2013, as well as being guardians for a few teenage boys who lived with us from 2009-2012. However, after becoming parents to our first son Eliyah in 2011, Karis started to feel the time was coming for her to start pursuing her dream of reaching out to mothers-at-risk. This slowly evolved into a mercy ministry that reached out to whole families-at-risk. The initial vision was for it to be a home, but it ended up being more of a ministry that reached out to families in their own homes and communities. This, along with training, sports and music, was our main focus until late 2014.

Between 2015-early 2017 God did many things in our hearts by slowly "weaning" us off ministry and helping us to see how much more important it is to have an intimate relationship with Him. He took us on a 5-year journey of travel where we lived in a few different provinces in Thailand, learning how to live in Sonship and learning about what our true passions are. Now, after those 5 years we are now in Ratchaburi where we plan to stay until God says otherwise - and our hearts still beat for children, youth and families. We run the Bridge Ministry with another family who moved with us from North Thailand in 2021. Our heart is to connect/bridge and restore Thais hearts to God’s heart, to each other, and to the nations.

We have three children, Eliyah (2011), Solomon (2015) and Tidah (2018) and love to open our home for teenagers or young adults to stay. At the moment we have a high-school girl from Chiang Rai living with us. We are very passionate about journeying together as a whole family to live in God's love and bring that love to the people of Thailand.