Last year we felt that it was time for a change of direction in our ministry among the Karens in Way Te Loo. We had been running DTS’s for Karens for five years. It had been five good years, but we saw that most of our students were in need of a more solid foundation before going through a full DTS, and we also saw that it was getting harder and harder to recruit students. We evaluated and sought God for His direction. We all felt that it was time to stop running the DTS for a while and change the way we disciple this people group.
During the last year, while readjusting and developing a new direction and slightly different vision, it has become really clear to us that there are three groups we are to focus on: families, church leaders and youth. We are now ministering to these three groups by arranging seminars for married couples and church leaders in addition to mini-DTS’s. We also visit villages, schools, teach the Bible and mentor people and couples individually. We hope that working with people on these different levels can make a great impact. We also believe that as we are ministering to people this way, we might be able to help build a stronger foundation so that we will have a group that is ready to go through a full DTS in the future.
We are really excited about what we have seen so far in the seminars and other kinds of ministries. Here are some reports from the last months in Way Te Loo.
Marriage seminarsA new ministry at our base is to focus on families. We want to see strong families, healthy marriages and content children. The first step for us to see this happen has been to arrange marriage seminars. The three seminars we have held so far have been great. The couples get some good tools they can use in their marriage.
For many years we have been dreaming about doing more to strengthen the churches in this area. Now we finally got to start our first church leader training. We invited pastors and church workers from the villages around where we live.
We had such a great time. God did some wonderful things in our midst—revealing much truth. We had good talks on the old covenant as opposed to the new. As most of the Karen churches are traditional churches, many things were new to them. Some are very excited about the new truths they have learned, others need to go home and process what they have been introduced to. This is something we want to continue to do.
Two months ago, our team in Way Te Loo talked about the vision for our ministry and what we want to see happen in the coming years. One of the things we talked about was unity among the Christians and the different denominations. We decided to work towards meeting with pastors in the different Karen churches for regular prayer and our goal was to get started by July 2010. But God’s ways are higher and better than our ways.
One day in December, a missionary from one of the Karen congregations came to our house and invited us to a meeting. A lot of pastors were gathered to receive information about a TV-campaign with Billy Graham here in Thailand. The missionary that came wanted the group of pastors to get together the same afternoon and talk about how we can reach every village in this area by working together, and so we did.
We had our second meeting January 9th to make the big decision: do we want to stand together both in prayer and in ministry or do we want to continue working separately like before? Very few people arrived at our YWAM base here in Way Te Loo, which was the location for the meeting. At first we all thought it would be a fruitless meeting where we wouldn’t be able to make important decisions because the main leaders hadn’t arrived. But a few minutes into our meeting some of the key leaders in the area showed up, and the talk we had became very positive and fruitful. The result of this meeting was that we will meet together regularly for prayer and we will also look into the possibility of doing some outreaches together. What a breakthrough!
God has been working in both our hearts and other leaders’ hearts to bring His plans for the Karen church to pass. God’s heart truly is for unity in the body of Christ, standing together fulfilling the great commission instead of wasting time and energy disagreeing about trivial issues. The last months’ events have really showed us how God is at work and that He can do much more than we could ever hope for.
YWAM Way Te Loo
PO Box 157
Mae Sot, Tak
63110
Thailand
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