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Grace Baptist Bible Institute
In April we celebrated graduation with the students here at GBBI. It’s been such an honor to train them and now to watch each of them go back to their villages and lead or serve in their local village churches. We will take a short break before we accept new students again so we can finish getting the property set up for another 18-24 resident bible students. We have received a great deal of interest in the Bible School over the past few months and we are thankful for the new facility the Lord has provided that will allow us to open up classes to more day students as well. Due to the larger classroom we can now accept around 35 non-resident students for each class! We appreciate your prayers as we plan class schedules, prepare our property for an additional 20+ people and, and begin interviewing and planning for the next group of men. Later this year there will be some extra expense as we prepare. Please pray the Lord will provide!
Grace Bannasan
Urgent Prayer Request - There is a great need for bibles here in Thailand! You can buy them at any of the countries three Christian Bookstores but most people who genuinely want them can’t afford them. A “cheap” bible costs 400฿ ($12). A single meal here can be had for less than 30฿ so in a society where people live financially from day to day this is a very expensive item that many just don’t have the luxury to afford. We are thankful to have one church who regularly gives towards the purchase of Bibles but the need is great! We have set up a website where people can request one free bible and can also download other free Christian ebooks and tracts. However, with our current budget we are currently only able to give out about 25 free bibles each month. As you can imagine those go quickly! Please pray about this need with us and consider how you may be able to help us get Bibles into the hands of Thai believers and all those interested in reading His Word.
Grace Baptist Church - Doi Saket
In May we officially began meeting in our new building! It is such a blessing to spread out a little and not worry each Sunday morning about whether we could fit everyone that might attend. The new building has room to comfortably fit about 80 people and we currently have nearly 30 attending services each week. We just finished going through the book of John together in April. In May I began teaching a series on “What the Lord’s Churches Believe”, which goes over basic theology. We have regularly had 6 Thai Buddhist attend each week, so I have been keeping it very simple and they keep coming back. They also each gladly took a bible and are starting to turn to scriptures during the service. Please pray the Lord would do a mighty work in them! Also, there are 3 Thai men, two were students, that desire to continue their training within the church here. Please pray the church would one day call one of these men to pastor!
Additionally, the church is planning to host a couple of different Bible Conferences later this year. One specifically on preaching and the other on the True Gospel. Please be in prayer about both of these with us!
Language Study
While the Bible School is on break, Brittany and I have both gone back to study Thai full time. Covid threw a wrench in our studies and then we were not able to study again full time because of the open door with the Bible School. Now that we have a break for a bit, we will both be studying 4-6 hours each day in class and private tutor settings. We ask you to pray for this specifically as the language here is, quite simply, a beast. Our Thai teacher, who is a Christian, mentioned to us last week that she has been a Christian for many years but has never really read the Bible (most Thai christians haven’t) because she doesn’t know where to begin and her church doesn’t have anyone that can just sit and read through it with her. I believe the Lord providentially put her in our path to encourage us and help push us to learn this language so that we can spend time with people like her! She was literally crying out for someone to just spend time with her in the Word. If that isn’t incentive…I don’t know what is! Those who know me well know that I am not gifted in language. But God can, and I trust will, give the ability, so that when I can one day preach in Thai, He will receive all the glory! Please pray!!
For HIS Glory,
Matthew Villandry
A few additional photos from the past couple of months....