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
