At the beginning of 2022, we started recruiting full-time team members to serve with us in our online evangelism and discipling ministry. We prayed that God would provide financial support for our teammates and this year we have seen God's answer. We finished at Pathumthani Church on July 15th, and we now have a team of eight self-supporting volunteers. Nid, Mac and Joom post Bibles and prayer leaflets to new believers every day, even paying for the postal costs themselves. They work as life insurance agents and sell insurance online. Maxya, a clothes designer and an online business owner, is also volunteering with us. She helps design the prayer leaflet and is helping to create a teaching e-book.
Another volunteer name Vivi is an elderly single woman who has invested her time in learning video editing so she can help us in the future. She is now typing dialogues from our videoclips and passing them to Maxya as Word files, so that Maxya can create an e-book. And Joy, a Thai citizen living in Spain, helps to translate our newsletters from Thai to English. Another volunteer is To, a life insurance sales agent, who collects testimonies and posts them daily in an online group. We also have Chucky, a Thai American English teacher helping with computer programs and taking care of the safety of all our online work. These volunteers and our family of three work perfectly together.
Every day between 10 to 15 people who are interested in knowing God come to talk to us, asking us to help them pray and connect with God. Because of our group chats, teaching and e-books, they are coming to know God personally. We now have an online meeting with over 420 Buddhist believers who are walking with the Lord. We also have another meeting online with 875 lost Christians who turned back to the Lord. And 4,740 of them as ONE DAY YouTube followers. That YouTube channel so far as 286 videos. The Nok Mariaya YouTube channel (for Buddhists) with 320 videos has 6,940 followers.
At the beginning we only had one discipleship group for Buddhist people interested in knowing God. But later many lost Christians joined the group. Creating disciples together between Christians and Buddhists is very difficult because Christians' questions and problems differ from the ones of Buddhists. Therefore, we decided to separate them into two groups. Over one year ago Rayya, who was a Buddhist, was miraculously cured in just one second from depression that she had been suffering from for five years. Since then, God changed her life and she now leads a Buddhist discipleship group for us. Thus, we can dedicate to minister to a group of lost Christians. We serve the Lord together and she is someone who really has a heart for shepherding the flock.
"I took Nok's prayer leaflet to my sister and asked her to pray and to accept God. My sister read it and believed. Then she prayed for her pigs and chickens. Her pigs grew fat and health. The chickens grew stronger. I'm glad I attended the evangelism training, which made me realise that everyone can pray and lay hands on someone. God is with everyone who believes. This training makes the light brighter. It helps people around us who still don't know God begin to know Him. I believe that my sister, my brother-in-law and my whole family have found salvation."
"I have a friend who is a medium. It's very difficult to lead her to salvation. But now I'm following Nok's advice: To be a friend and spend as much time as possible with her. I talked to her about her life as a medium. She didn't want to be a medium anymore because it was so expensive - she had lost hundreds of thousands of baht. When she told me that, I asked her: "Do you want to get out of this situation?" She replied that she had already tried many times, but each time she got sick. I then asked her again: "Do you really want to get out of this situation?" She said again that she wanted to leave because she couldn't bear the annual cost of the ceremonies of worshipping the grandfather hermit spirit that has been controlling her. I then lead her in prayer to welcome Jesus into her life as her Saviour. When she finished praying, she felt relief, light, open and at peace. She said it was like she had an indescribable amount of freedom. I taught her to pray thanking God for three essential things that He does for us every day. After two days, she called me and said that she took down all her idols and sacred objects. She felt the urge to smash them all. I took her to bury it all. Now she comes to join the fellowship at my house every Sunday. I thank God very much that now some neighbours also come to join us. We cook food and talk about God. My husband helps to give a lift to the neighbours who haven't got a car. Moreover, my son also helps playing guitar in these meetings. I am very happy to serve God.
Thank you very much Nok for your training that has changed my life and helped me to become a servant of God. This is a miracle!"
"I have been very stressed about my son's situation. He has been addicted to drugs for over ten years and to alcohol for about seven years. He is 26 years old. Last March he was caught while driving drunk and could get sentenced up to one year in prison and fined up to NZ$5,000. I was very stressed and went to talk to my Thai neighbour named Pee Or.
She then recommended that I list to Nok's video clip. I listened to it and began praying and talking to God more than before. In the past I didn't have the strength to pray. Now I often listen to Nok's video clips. They really inspire me to talk to God more and more. At that time, my son went to court after being jailed. The court finally sentenced him to home detention with an ankle monitor for four months and his driving license was taken for 9 months. I felt relieved and wanted my son to accept Jesus too.
My son grew up in New Zealand, so I asked for an English prayer leaflet from Nok and gave it to him to read. After that he started praying to God. After 4 months, he was allowed to remove the ankle monitor but he still has to go to court regularly. The last time he went to court he told me to look after his god in case he was going to be sent to prison. Now I was worried not only about him, but also about taking care of his dog which would not be accepted by my landlord. I talked to God about my feelings about having to take care of all my son's problems and now even his dog. I was struggling but only 10 minutes after I prayed, my son called to tell me that everything was over. He doesn't need to go to court anymore.
I was then crying and thanked God very much for His help. The teachings from Nok have changed my life. In the past, I had very little faith but now I have more than 100%."
Thai people live in darkness without hope. The government and the country's leaders have no answers for them. Only Jesus Christ can give them a new life, truly bring them out of darkness into the light. Please pray for all those we have shared about in this newsletter.
Thank you for your financial support, for your prayers, for your love and care for our family. We will see the greatness of God together and we will see rapidly growing numbers of Thai people receiving salvation in His time. In just one day God can make a generation abandon all their gods and idolatries, and another generation will worship the one and only true God, our Lord Jesus Christ!