Wednesday 13 Apr
Liz and Glenn share how their new intitiative is opening new opportunities.
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"Hi, I'm Glenn and I'm Liz, and we live and work here in Northern Thailand with the Ethnic Thai people.
At Baptist Mission Australia, we're all about people. Our role as intercultural workers is to find new ways to connect with people and meet them where they are. But how do we do it?
Well, it's years of motivating ourselves to go deeper and deeper into our language learning, it's dropping plans at the last minute to attend an invitation to a ceremony to help a neighbor out or to go to a funeral, or a wedding, or even just to go and check out how the rice is going. It's teaching English at the local primary school.
It's balling up the sticky rice in the palm of your hands before you dip it into chili sauce. It's learning who wai's first to pay respect to the other person. It's being willing to step out of our comfort zones time and time again, knowing with every win we will likely make mistakes.
One of the ways we felt God was calling us to step out this term was to open an English Language Center.
Opening an English Language Center was really in response to our neighbors often asking us to teach their children English. After almost a year of planning, preparing and waiting in early 2022. With the blessing of our village head and local mayor, we opened 'House of Light'.
We are so thankful that we've seen God's favor over at all. Our Saturday English classes are full and we have a waitlist that continues to grow. We're planning to expand our timetable and schedules as we continue to get positive feedback from families and students who are waiting to attend.
Recently, we had a visit from the grandfather of one of our students. He just wanted to let us know how thankful he was that we had given the opportunity to his granddaughter to come and study English with us.
He told us that they had very little money and wouldn't ever be able to afford to send her to study English in a city. He said that she loves attending the classes, and she told him that she feels safe and loved. He went on to say that she felt like that because we could speak their language and he trusted us because we were known in the community.
So we'd love for you to pray with us over this new ministry. Pray that as it continues to grow so will our capacity to connect and build relationships with man.
And that as we meet people where they're at, we will have the opportunity to share the good news of Jesus with them.
We also just want to thank you. Thank you for being the senders, the supporters and the prayers. We couldn't do this without you!
If you would like to know more about how you can partner with us at Baptist mission Australia, we'd love for you to get in touch. And hey, if God's telling you that maybe you should go come and teach English with us here in Thailand. We'd love to hear from you. Bye!"
This is just one intercultural worker update video that has been produced for May Mission Month! Explore more here >>
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