YWAM Ratchaburi Office Building

On the 9th of March 2007, YWAM Ratchaburi started renting our office building. Almost 5 years later, we are still renting the very same building.

It has been a blessing to have such a wonderful place to host teams and volunteers, and we have been especially blessed by the fact that the rent is very cheap and has never increased in the 5 years that we have been in it.

We feel that it is time that we begin to look at buying a building in the same block, rather than continually renting the one that we have been in for the past 5 years. The housing complex is currently fixing them up and buyers get a newly renovated building as opposed to one that is in dire need of quite a lot of repair (like the one that we currently rent).

After 5 years of teams and volunteers passing through Ratchaburi and graciously sleeping on the floor, in the searing heat of Thailand with only one ceiling fan per room, we would like to be able to have a place of our own that we can make our special place of blessing for teams.

Teams and volunteers work really hard while they serve with us - loving the poor, the young, the old, the imprisoned, the foreigner, and the persecuted in Ratchaburi. They serve the local church and work alongside the local government. They come with hearts to be a blessing, and to show the love of Jesus to the people in Ratchaburi province and the surrounding provinces.

To buy a new building, it will cost us 1,500,000Baht (US$50,000). While this amount seems impossible to us, we know that if God is in it, nothing is impossible.

Please believe with us for this building - that many more teams may be blessed while serving here in Ratchaburi!

Prison DTS - To know Him and make Him known

To know God and make Him known. Simple. True.


But what does it mean for someone who is a believer, imprisoned for something that they did before they knew anything about Jesus Christ? Can they still know God intimately? Can they make Him known?


The answer can be found in Glory Church – located inside the Ratchaburi Prison in Thailand. Many believers gather together to worship God every week. The prisoners themselves run the service. They speak passionately of their efforts to share the hope that they have found in the Gospel with their fellow inmates. The church was started by the inmates a short while after YWAM Ratchaburi had been running a church-like fellowship around once every month.

YWAM Ratchaburi has been ministering in the Ratchaburi prison for almost 2 years now. Initially a small group of believers attended, but the group grew really fast, with people giving their lives to Jesus every time the YWAM group came to visit. Apart from the church style fellowship that YWAM runs in the prison on a monthly basis, YWAM also organizes concerts to be able to reach more of the inmates with the message of the Gospel – with more than 1000 inmates being allowed to attend at a time. After one such concert it was reported back to the YWAM team that “Christian fever” had taken over the prison – it was all anyone could talk about.


Where would you go to grow more in your faith if you were in a prison? If you were one of the leaders of Glory church inside the Ratchaburi prison, where would you gain more teaching? How would you learn more so that you could help the other disciples to grow?


This June-August, YWAM Ratchaburi will be bringing a PDTS (Prison Discipleship Training School) into the Ratchaburi prison. We will be opening it up to receive 50 inmates - 50 inmates who have the opportunity to touch the lives of 4,500 men and 1,000 women while they are inside the walls of the prison, and countless numbers once they are released.

We are looking for staff  to be able to start the school. We need people who have completed their DTS and have a heart to disciple others. If you have completed your DTS and are thinking about staffing a DTS somewhere, please contact us to see if you could be a part of this amazing opportunity to help men and women of God grow.

We need sponsors who will come alongside us to help these 50 inmates to see this P-DTS become a reality. The running costs of the DTS will be around 230,000Baht –for 50 inmates that’s only 4,600Baht (US$150) per inmate. Would you be interested to sponsor one of our brothers or sisters to do their P-DTS? You could be a part of their story – helping them to live each day to know Him and make Him known.

 

Christmas is love in action

Christmas is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas.

Dale Evans

Five years ago, God put a vision in our hearts for YWAM Ratchaburi. 'YWAM Ratchaburi exists to see every generation in Ratchaburi touched by the love of Jesus'. A vision so broad, but yet so evidently in His plan for us as we look back now at all the different areas that He has lead us to minister to over the past five years. It was evident even in the short span of one month as we ran our yearly Christmas outreach over the month of December.


In the nine Christmas parties and three days of Christmas carolling that we were involved in this past December, we were able to reach out to Burmese laborers, a Karen Hill Tribe, patients and staff in the Ratchaburi hospital, churches and the communities surrounding them, people at the famous floating market in Ratchaburi, government officials, prisoners, schools, and people in Ratchaburi town.


Rich and poor. Well known and unknown. Young and old. Thai and non-Thai.  God loves them all and opens doors for us to minister to them. He truly is amazing and we'd like to thank Him for allowing us to be a part of His plan here. May every generation in Ratchaburi truly be touched by His love. To God be all the glory!

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