Key Person: Prasert Taksin
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Our last visit in person was in December 2023 when we were able to spend a few days with Prasert and her team. The last few years have been a time of rebuilding after being unable to run Top Kids in-house and a huge amount on internal migration due to COVID restrictions. This migration was particularly noticeable in the migrant worker communities where Top Kids focuses.
They have been operating from two locations in urban areas with high density housing. In both places the general setup is the same, with the ground floor set up for ministry and bedrooms upstairs for living in the community.
Renovations in Tung Song Hong have been completed and the place is looking wonderful. The larger and more usable space downstairs is now more practical for teaching larger groups and church meetings, with the upstairs rooms also better able to be used than was previously in place.
Pao and Pupea have been a real blessing to the ministry and have a huge heart for kids. We were privileged to watch them in action, connecting with children in their own way and being able to draw out shy kids to engage with the learning and community. This young couple have previous experience with running a café and there is a hope that they will be able to one day open a café in the downstairs area of one of the houses to make use of the space during the day when Top Kids is not running as well as to assist the ministry in becoming more financially independent as it grows.
On our last night we had dinner at Prasert’s home, with Chuenjit and other friends who are involved in ministry. They are all lovely people in their own right, and their desire to serve their people in a humble and God-honouring way is apparent.
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The recently renovated buildings have been put to good use with many kids in the neighbourhood regularly attending the Top Kids sessions.
Prasert has been leading a very busy outreach programme during December and January. Several teams have been in play running the community-based programmes which are open to all children in the neighbourhood. Families of the children often attend as well, and so are exposed to the same message while they get to know the staff.
The quality of the programmes is evident as the children and young people regularly invite their friends to join in as well.
In the same way, the responses of the local people to Prasert and Pao and Pupea as we walked around the area illustrate their good standing and connections in the community.
Church is held every Sunday with the children involved in every service, and there is also an outreach into another nearby community.
Prasert has also run a training camp in Children’s Ministry which included outside people coming to assist in the teaching.
From Prasert:
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While I was on a trip to a beach near Bangkok I was walking early in the morning when I met a boy KP who was also visiting there. While talking with his parents we found that we lived in same area and that the boy went to school with some of the children from Top Kids. He started coming along as well and has now become a Christian and never misses a meeting.
B lives with his grandmother and eleven others in a very small house. We noticed that he wasn't going to school after the holidays and after providing him with a uniform and supplies for school he now attends regularly. We are helping him to get back to the standard that is required by the school.
This is the story of a boy named AL (right) who lives in the Tung Song Hong area:
AL lives with his father – he has never seen his mother – and was terrified of ghosts. He accepted Jesus when he was eight and said that he is not scared of ghosts anymore. He also said that he did not want to follow in his father’s footsteps selling drugs but wanted to follow Jesus 100%.
Last year he stopped going to school because of a family problem but this year we have been working with him to get him back into school. We have bought him a school uniform and Pao and Pupea have been training him to serve in the church because he is so earnest and teachable.
There are many like AL and we do what we can to help them with the resources we have.
Top Kids has been working in the Tung Song Hong community for many years now and Prasert has established a reputation here as someone who is reliable and has the best interests of their children at heart.
Pao and Pupea seem to be inheriting that mantle as they now live fulltime in the same community, and their hard working and lively engagement is making new friends for the ministry.
The second location is also well visited, though with a different feel to it than Tung Song Hong. It is a largely residential low socio-economic area with ubiquitous adjoining houses and close living environment but also with a lot more through traffic than Tung Song Hong. This is the proposed location for the small café, an idea that would also help to develop a wider reach into the community as well as build a higher level of trust with the adults there.
Prasert is also involved in other ways in the community, regularly visiting bedridden elderly people to care for and pray with them.
Top Kids is going through a period of growth at the moment (and we pray that this will continue!) but this comes with its own challenges. With the exodus of families from the area when they were not able to work, many of the adults who supported the ministry also moved away and it is difficult to run a consistent programme without help.
Several of the regular helpers who now come are young people who have come up through the programme themselves, and this is a testament to the effect that Prasert has had in their lives. They do also have other commitments, from work to study, and there is a need for more helpers to assist consistently.
Pao and Pupea have come on board and are proving to be very capable but are currently supported out of existing funding which is stretched. They are keen to explore the café idea to help the Top Kids programme become more self-funding as it develops.
Inflation continues to be an issue in Thailand, especially in regard to food, and there is some uncertainty in the broader community around both the economy and political stability.
Thanks for:
• The growth of new connections with both children and adults
• Pao and Pupae who are making a difference in the lives of those they teach.
• The acceptance of the staff in the communities in which they are living.
Pray for:
• Continued growth in faith of the children and that they will share the love of God with their families and friends.
• Self-funding opportunities to enable the ministry to better support itself and their community, and to have the resources to make the most of new opportunities.
It is gratifying to see that Top Kids and the House of Hope have continued to bounce back from the devastating blow that the pandemic and subsequent restrictions had on the ministry.
Pao and Pupea are a lovely couple who have come with a lot of enthusiasm. Their involvement in the leadership of Top Kids will help to grow the programme and ensure its continued success.