December 2011 Prayer Letter

Click to download the McClain Family December 2011 Prayer Letter

Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,

Merry Christmas from our family to your family and may we be faithful in proclaiming the reason for Jesus Christ was born; was to die, be buried, and rise again which paid the penalty for our sins. 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

We are very thankful for your emails, calls, and prayers for our family and for Thailand during the flooding. In late July the flooding started in parts of northern Thailand and went through the central part of Thailand and flooded several major cities like Ayutthaya, Nakon Sawan, Bangkok, and other areas around these cities. Alot of these areas are still flooded, many major factories have been completely flooded for months, thousands of people are without employment, and over 600 people have died from the flooding.

Also in October the mayor and the city government of Bangkok held a ceremony at a major shrine to ask the god of the river to spare Bangkok. Then on November 27, Chiang Mai held an annual celebration of Buddha’s enlightenment 2,600 years ago with people making merit and giving offerings to 12,600 monks for the flood victims.

When I read about the 12,600 monks coming to Chiang Mai, I started thinking, praying, and asking God to send at least another 126 Bible Believing Independent Baptist Missionaries who are either sent out from Churches here in Thailand or will come from Churches in other countries to start 126 more Bible Believing Independent Baptist Churches throughout Thailand with the purpose of obeying God in evangelizing, discipling, and teaching the believers here in Thailand about their obligation to reach Thailand and the World with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I also started thinking about what could be done now during this critical time to get the Gospel to as many of the people of Thailand as possible and I thought about 2 things.

First, I thought about Television and there are 2 religious groups that have television stations in Thailand and there are other religious groups with television programs. Therefore I know it can be done and there is a Creation to Eternity video in Thai that could be used for this. But we currently do not have to finances to pursue this. 

Second, I thought about the Gospel newspaper articles that we are currently helping Pastor Srithone with but I did not know if there were any nation wide Thai newspapers. I have found out that there are about 5 daily national Thai newspapers. We are praying that God will enable us as soon as possible to start putting a Gospel article in one of these newspapers either weekly or bi weekly and then we will follow up the people who respond. Pastor Srithone is currently contacting these newspapers so please pray that God will open the door for us to start this and that He will supply the necessary finances for this.

We are very thankful for your prayers about our visa situation: Our visa situation was fixed on September 30^th and all of us have the same visa now. Our visas are valid for one year then we will renew our visas for another year. We now are waiting on the final paper work to finish the application process for our work permits. Lord willing we should be receiving our work permits in a couple more months.

Thank you for continuing to pray for our Thai Language Studies: Last Saturday we were able to take the Thai Language Equivalency Test and it was very difficult because of the amount time they gave us to finish each section. We were surprised to hear the teachers that administered the test even say the test was difficult. We will continue our language studies next week and will finish the remaining curriculum which also includes a Thai Biblical Language Coarse.

Thank you for continuing to pray for our English Students: About 2 months ago we were considering to stop our Friday night English classes because for several Friday nights in a row we had no students. But God has given us more students that are pretty faithful to come to all of the classes. This Sunday we had 2 new adults from the neighborhood start coming. I am currently trying to find a Bible study that is already in English and in Thai that I can use as part of the English lesson in class and then send the same lesson but already translated into the Thai language home for the students to finish at home. Please pray that the Lord will help us with this and will continue to work in the lives of our students.

Please continue to pray for our family: That we will continue to have good health, for Ruth and Rachel in their homeschooling, our continuing Thai language studies, for our everyday road safety as we will be traveling to different meetings and have to do some more traveling to finish our paperwork for our work permits in the coming months, and for God to use us in seeing more Thai people to be saved and serve the Lord with their lives. 

For the Millions of Untold Souls in Thailand,

Brian, Evelyn, Ruth, and Rachel McClain

Prayer Request Answered!

We wanted to thank everyone who prayed for our friend’s visa situation. They received their new visas on Friday.  Now there is only one more process to be completed and that should be finished in 2-3 months.  Then they will only have to renew their visas etc after one year. Please continue to pray that our visa situation will be completed with no problems in October.

Thanks for your prayers on our behalf,

Brian, Evelyn, Ruth, and Rachel McClain

September 2011 Prayer Letter

Click to download the McClain Family September 2011 Prayer Letter

Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,

We want to thank you so much for your continuing faithful prayers and support for our family to minister here in Thailand. In our last prayer letter we asked you to pray for several situations and we wanted to update you on these situations:

The election in Thailand: Thailand held an election for a new Prime Minister in July and the Thai people elected their first woman Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. She is the sister of a former prime minister who was ousted through a military coup in 2006. So far the political situation in Thailand is stable. Please continue to pray that it will remain stable and the members of the newly elected government will have a chance to hear a clear presentation of the Gospel.

Our Missionary Visa: Also in July we were able to go outside of Thailand and receive our missionary visa. But the situation with the government offices involved has not been solved therefore I received the one year visa that I was supposed to receive but Evelyn and the girls only received a 3 month visa which expires on October 13, 2011. I have already submitted all the new forms needed and we have been told to wait until we receive the necessary documents from the Department of Religion to get this situation worked out. Please pray that we will receive these documents before their visa expires on October 13 so we will not have to go out of the country again to get a new visa for them.

If you receive this by email, we also have a friend that is in the same situation as we are but his family’s visas expire this Monday and as of today they have not received these documents. Please help us pray that they will be able to get their visa situation worked out without having to leave the country to apply for another visa.

Our Thai Language Studies: Last Thursday we started studying for the government Thai Language Equivalency Test and we will be preparing for this test for 3 months and Lord willing we will be taking it in December. This is a group class so please pray that the Lord will continue to give us good health and that the Lord would work out our visa situation where we will not have to miss our classes. After we take this test in December we will continue our language studies and will finish the remaining curriculum at the language school which also includes a Thai Biblical Language Coarse.

Our English Classes: The school vacation is over and our school age children are back in school so we have not had many students for our Wednesday or Friday night classes but our Saturday and Sunday classes have been stable in attendance and we continue to have new adults and children come to the classes. Please continue to pray for these adults and children as we continue to teach them the Bible, that they will continue to come to the classes, will be saved and serve the Lord with their lives!

Please continue to pray for Ruth and Rachel in their homeschooling, our continuing Thai language study, and for several members and attendees of the churches here that have not been faithful to the services and that the Lord will give us the wisdom and language ability to encourage them in their walk with the Lord.

For the Millions of Untold Souls in Thailand,

Brian, Evelyn, Ruth, and Rachel McClain

June 2011 Prayer Letter

Click to download the McClain Family June 2011 Prayer Letter

Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,

We are excited what God is doing through your faithful prayers, and support! Thank you for your partnership with us!

A family back in contact! In April, Harman Rutledge who is a missionary to Thailand was at the mission revival of one of our supporting churches and met Mr. Jack and Nit Crouch who are members at New Hope Baptist Church. During the mission revival Mrs. Crouch told him how she lost contact with her family over 30 years ago and wanted to know if he knew anybody in Thailand that can maybe locate her family. Brother Rutledge put us in contact with the Crouch family and we had an address and some information about where Mrs. Crouch lived over 30 years ago. During this time through the newspaper ministry of Wiengping Baptist Church here in Chiang Mai, Mr. Deng responded to one of the newspaper articles and shortly after asked Jesus Christ to forgive him of his sins! Pastor Srithone found out the first time Mr. Deng came to church that he has lived in Chiang Mai his whole life and asked him to help us locate Mrs. Crouch’s family. Within two days Mr. Deng was able to located Mrs. Crouch’s family and we went to visit them on Saturday. While there I was able to tell them that their oldest sister asked us to locate them and I told them that their sister several years ago asked Jesus Christ to forgive her of her sins and I invited them to come to church. Then on Sunday her youngest sister and her niece came to church and that evening at their home asked Jesus Christ to forgive them of their sins! Then about 3 weeks ago Mrs. Crouch along with Mr. Crouch made her first trip back to Thailand in over 30 years! Please pray for her mom who is 70+ in bad health and not saved, for her relatives who are not saved, and for her sister Wandi and her niece Nok for spiritual growth.    

Our English Classes We are excited that we have several students that are faithfully coming to English class every week which is giving us the opportunity to teach them about the true and living God, Jesus Christ and several of these have also been staying for the church services. During one of the classes Evelyn taught the children that God created everything and also taught them a song about it and when one boy was leaving he said it is not true that God created the world because my mom told me that no one created the world. Praise the Lord he is still coming! Please pray that nothing will stop these children from coming to class because as Romans 10:17 tells us So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God! Almost 2 weeks ago a family saw the English classes for free sign, came to class, and stayed for the service. Last Saturday the husband started asking me about my life and I was able to share with him some of my testimony and last night was the first Wednesday they have come and I started teaching the creation story as part of our class and they also stayed for the service. Please pray for these adults and children that they will continue to come to the classes, stay for the services, and will soon be saved, then surrender their lives to the Lord and will serve Him!   

The Wiengping Baptist Church has had several visitors coming to the services over the past couple months and some have started coming faithfully. Almost every week we have responses from the newspaper Gospel articles and since April we have received 16 new contacts. We are also working on taking some of the most responded to Gospel articles and making a customized tract out of them for the church to use. Please continue to pray for the followup of these people and for God to continue to work through the ministries of the church.

The current situation in Thailand Thailand is getting ready to have elections on July 3. In the past several weeks there has been some political violence which could increase the closer the elections are and even after the elections. Please pray that the political situation of Thailand will not hinder the evangelization of the people, the Thai churches, or the starting of new churches throughout Thailand.

Our Missionary Visa Last month we were told that our missionary visa was being filed with the last government office and on average we should be receiving it in about 3 months. We have heard that there is a current issue between the government office that is asking for the visa and the government office which issues the visas. Please pray that this issue will be resolved soon and will not affect us when we receive our missionary visa.

There are still several short-term mission opportunities We believe there is an open opportunity for a single person, a family, or someone who is retired to come and volunteer to teach English at a school that is near the church in Lampang for 5 days a week for a school year. This will give access to over 1,000 students that go to this school with over 900 of them living at the school. For a single person there is a potential to live at the school and have total access to the students. There is no need to have a college degree in Education or English as long has you have some teaching ability.

There is also an opportunity for a group from a church to come and help us have an English camp during one of the Thai school breaks. This will give your group direct contact with Thai youth and a chance for God to work through you.

If any of you would be willing to volunteer for either of these opportunities or want more information about them, please contact us. Our email address is mcclains4asia@gmail.com and our USA phone number is 704-747-8837.

Please continue to pray as Ruth will continue another year of homeschooling and Rachel will start in August, for our continuing Thai language studies, and for us to have continued good health and safety here in Thailand.

For the Millions of Untold Souls in Thailand,

Brian, Evelyn, Ruth, and Rachel McClain

March 2011 Prayer Letter

Click to download the McClain Family 2011 Prayer Letter

Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,

Thank you so much for your expressions of love to our family, prayers, and faithful support and we are excited to tell you that God is Blessing in 2011!

Our student visa was renewed! In December we asked you to pray that our student visa would be renewed and it was renewed in January for another year! We also finished all the paperwork for applying for the missionary visa here in Thailand. We have been told that the paperwork for the missionary visa will go through 3 government offices before we will receive our missionary visa. Please pray that there will be no problems or delays and that we will have the visa before our student visa expires in January 2012.

Our first converts in Thailand! In December we asked you to pray for Khun At who lives in our neighborhood that started going to church with us. This was the first time in her life of 50+ years that she has ever went to church and she has went with us to church almost every service. On January 30^th after the service she asked Jesus Christ to forgive her of her sins! Please pray that with our limited Thai we will be able to help disciple her, for her spiritual growth, and for the salvation of her family.

In February we were able to preach for Missionary Enrile Badua at the Bangkok Baptist Church during their first Missions Month. This is an Independent Baptist Filipino Church that is reaching out to the thousands of Filipinos working in Bangkok. I was able to teach on Missions during Sunday School and preach in the Sunday morning service. When the invitation was given 5 people asked Jesus Christ to forgive them of their sins!

Newspaper Outreach We have been able to help Pastor Srithone expand the newspaper outreaches. Since December we have been able to put Gospel articles in one of the oldest and largest newspapers in the province of Chiang Mai every Saturday. This newspaper prints 50,000 copies and is distributed throughout Chiang Mai and Lamphun provinces. Most of Pastor Srithone’s contacts come from the articles that we are able to put in various newspapers, magazines, etc. Alot of times people have kept the newspapers, etc and have later reread them and God works on their hearts through these articles and they respond. So far around 5 people have responded with the youngest being a college student and the oldest was a 70 year old man. Please pray as we are trying to followup on these people and for God to continue to work through these articles.

Lanna & Wiengping Baptist Church We have been able to help the Wiengping Baptist Church in Chiang Mai with building their first building. On January 30, 2011 several churches and visitors from the area came for the dedication service of the building. Just this month Evelyn and I have started teaching conversational English at the church and have had several new adults and kids attend. Please pray that we will see these adults and kids saved and serve the Lord with their lives. I also was able to give my testimony in Thai at Lanna Baptist Church about 2 weeks ago for the first time.

Mission Opportunities At the Lanna Baptist Church in Lampang on average over 15 students from a nearby school have been coming to church and several of them have made professions of Faith. We believe there is an open opportunity for a single person or a family to come and volunteer to teach English at this school 5 days a week for a school year. This will give them access to over 1,000 students that go to this school with over 900 of them living at the school. For a single person there is a potential to live at the school and have total access to the students. There is no need to have a college degree in Education or English as long has you have some teaching ability.

There is also and opportunity for a youth or college or church group to come and have an English camp during one of the Thai school breaks. This will give your group direct contact with Thai youth and a chance for God to work through you.

If any of you would be willing to volunteer for either of these opportunities or want more information about them, please contact us. Our email address is mcclains4asia@gmail.com and our USA phone number is 704-747-8837.

Please continue to pray as Ruth is homeschooling and Rachel will start in August and for us to have continued good health and safety here in Thailand.

For the Millions of Untold Souls in Thailand,

Brian, Evelyn, Ruth, and Rachel McClain

December 2010 Prayer Letter

Click to download the McClain Family December 2010 Prayer Letter

สุขสันต์วันคริสต์มาสจากประเทศไทย

Merry Christmas from Thailand

Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,

We want to thank each of you for your sacrificial Christmas cards and gifts to our family and for Ruth’s birthday cards!

October was the 3^rd month for the 12 Question Campaign at the New Life Baptist Church and the question of the month was do we know that the Bible is the Word of God? Since the church started this campaign several people have sent in the response cards and 2 women have came to church because of this. Please continue to pray for the Thai people that are receiving these each month that the barriers for them to receive Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour will be removed.

Before we arrived in Thailand one of our plans has been to learn from and be apart of different churches while we are in language school. Since we have been apart of the New Life Baptist Church for almost a year we recently started helping Pastor Srithone Kongkaw at both the churches he is pastoring which are the Wiengping Baptist Church in Chiang Mai and the Lanna Baptist Church in Lampang. This is helping us with our language skills and is opening up more ministry opportunities.

In October the Lanna Baptist Church celebrated their 10^th anniversary and last month Pastor Srithone baptized 2 young men named Khun Boy and Khun Boat. At the Wiengping Baptist Church several people have professed Jesus Christ as their Saviour. Please pray as they grow in their new life with Jesus Christ. The Wiengping Baptist Church is currently building their first church building please pray that God will continue to supply the funds for the completion of the building.

Recently we were able to get our neighbor named Khun At to start going to the Wiengping Baptist Church with us. Khun At has been going with us for the past 3 weeks and please pray as we witness to her and for her salvation. Pastor Srithone is giving me the opportunity to give my testimony in Thai please pray as I am working on translating it into Thai and preparing to give it in a few weeks.

This month we have applied to renew our student visa and should be receiving it in January which should give us the student visa until January 2012. We have also applied for our missionary visa and our application has begun the processing stage. Please pray that our student visa will be renewed and that we will have our missionary visa before January 2012.

For the Millions of Untold Souls in Thailand,

Brian, Evelyn, Ruth, and Rachel McClain

Happy Thanksgiving

From Your Missionaries in Thailand

Brian, Evelyn, Ruth & Rachel McClain

September 2010 Prayer Letter

Click to download the McClain Family September 2010 Prayer Letter

Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,

สวัสดีครับจากเมืองไทย Hello from Thailand! This is some of what the Lord has been doing here in Thailand.

Since we are going to language school 5 days a week we go door to door almost every Saturday. It has been the rainy season here in Thailand and it has rained almost every Saturday for over the past 2 months. Most of the time we have been able to dodge the rain and still go out.

The New Life Baptist Church that we are attending had revival meetings in July and 2 people profess Jesus Christ as their Savior! Also Mr. Thep and Mrs. Pat that we met while going door to door has been faithfully coming to church and are going to join the church upon the baptism of his wife Mrs. Pat. The church scheduled a baptism service at the river but it was rained out and then rescheduled it for the next Sunday and it was rained out again so the church will have a baptism service at camp next month.

This is the 2^nd month of the 12 question campaign and each month we are giving out 3,000 newsletters to the neighborhoods near the church. Last month the question was “Is there absolute Truth” and this month “Is there a real God that we can know.” As we are passing these out we have seen people start reading these right away. Please continue to pray that God will use these questions to penetrate the souls of the Thai people with His Word.

We have been in language school for 7 months and we have studied:
The 44 consonants of Thai which are divided into the low class, mid class, and high class.
24 of the Thai vowels which are divided into the short and long vowels.
We are currently studying the tone rules that go along with these vowels.
The Thai language has 5 different tones which are the low, mid, high, rising, and falling tones and many tone rules to go with them. We have studied the tone rules for the low, mid, and high class consonants with long vowels, the final consonant tone rules, hoo naam tone rule, consonant clusters, and just started studying the stop final consonants and the tone rules that go along with them.
We can read and write some sentences and are learning new words weekly.
Please pray as Evelyn, Ruth, Rachel and I continue to study the Thai language.

We have been witnessing to our current language teacher named Jen with the little Thai that we know and have given her the God’s Story DVD, and the 2 newsletters so far. Sometimes she seems sincere and other times she is saying that Buddhism and Christianity is about the same. Please pray that God would open her blinded eyes with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We also just started homeschooling Ruth and please pray that everything will continue to go well with it.

For the Millions of Untold Souls in Thailand,

Brian, Evelyn, Ruth, and Rachel McClain

June 10 Prayer Letter

Click to download the McClain Family June 10 Prayer Letter

Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,

We have been in Thailand for 5 months and want to share with you what has been happening.

Many of you know that political protest started once again in March and ended in May we thank the Lord for keeping us safe from being caught in any of the protests and rioting that happened here in Chiang Mai. Thank you for the phone calls and emails asking about our safety and praying for us.

In our last prayer letter we asked for you to help us pray that the Lord will give us fruit from passing out tracts to every house and everyone we see. As a result of your prayers and support:

1. Several people have mailed in response cards from the tracts.
2. Last week we gave tracts to a group of teens hanging out and playing soccer. When we came back one of them was trying to ask us about the tract. While we were trying to understand what he was asking, it started raining and he had to go before it started raining heavier because he was on a motorcycle. We asked him to send in the response card to find out more. Please pray that he will send in the response card so we can send him some Bible material and have contact with him.
3. In one of our email updates we asked for people to help us pray for Mr. Thep and his wife Pat that we meet also while passing out tracts. Since we first meet them, they have came several times and for the last 3 weeks in a row they have been coming to the church we are attending.

At the New Life Baptist Church that we are attending we have been helping with a 12 month campaign. Each month will have a question of the month that will build one upon another and present the Gospel to the Thai people. Once everything has been designed and printed we will be passing out the question of the month in a newsletter which will give the question and invite people to come to a special meeting where the question will be answered from the Word of God. Please pray that God will use these questions to penetrate the souls of the Thai people with His Word.

Just last week we were right behind 2 major wrecks and was told that a women died in one of the wrecks. Driving is often dangerous because people pass each other whenever and wherever they want and expect you to move out of the way no matter what. We have been told that driving will get more dangerous during the rainy season which is usually from July to October. Please continue to pray for our safety and thank you for our birthday cards and gifts, continuing faithful monthly support, and your prayers.

If you have not already, please visit our blog site at www.mcclains4asia.wordpress.com and sign up for our email updates.

For the Millions of Untold Souls in Thailand,

  Brian, Evelyn, Ruth, and Rachel McClain

Prayer Request Praise!

We want to thank each of you that helped pray with us for Mr. Thep and his wife Pat that they would come to church on Sunday. They are a Thai contact that we made while visiting two Saturdays ago.

The Lord heard our prayers and we were able to follow them up on Saturday and Mr. Thep said for sure we will be there on Sunday. Then on Sunday they were at the church we are attending for Sunday School and the Morning Service. After service they asked if we have a Wednesday Night Service.  They have not been going to church recently so continue to pray that we will see them added to the church and serve the Lord here. 

Thank you for being co-laborers with us as we serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!