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Grace Baptist Bible Institute
In November we completed a class on “The Glorious Gospel Part 1” where we went deep into the precious doctrines of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit save us from sin’s power, pleasure, penalty, and presence. During this time we also started a five week class on “The book of Acts”. I am thankful my pastor, Brother Bill Lee, from our sending Church, was able to come visit and greatly helped me teach this class!
Also, in November, several of our students and pastors attended a preacher’s conference in Bangkok at a baptist church of like faith. The topic of the conference was expository preaching and it was greatly encouraging to both myself and the men who attended with me.
Grace Bannasan - Publishing Ministry
So many blessed opportunities have come from the publishing ministry here in Thailand. We are striving to flood bookshelves with theologically sound books and push out the Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer books that have long been favorites. We are delivering books to village pastors, churches and local seminaries on simple Baptist Church distinctives and sound theology. In doing so, I have had the opportunity to meet with and discuss with other missionaries and Thai pastors some of the major needs and problems with Christianity here in Thailand. It has been encouraging to meet others who are like minded and find local Thai pastors who are preaching these truths and who are equally encouraged to know there are others who believe like they do.
Through the printing ministry we have built several new relationships with pastors, churches, and other missionaries who are sound in the faith. This is important because it is easy to feel like you are all alone and in a culture where you are in the minority. Being able to encourage one another and share about pastoral training opportunities as well as having the recommendations from others for future bible students who are truly hungry to study the Word of God will be a huge answer to prayer. We are praying about the possibility of beginning an annual conference sometime in the near future where we can gather and have fellowship with these other like minded churches. Please pray with us about this opportunity!
Church and Village Outreach
We continue to meet each week with our small group here at our home for Sunday worship. We have had several new visitors over the past month and we praise God for this and look forward to getting to know them better as they continue to return each week. One visitor is a Thai Buddhist that a bible student named Ahker witnessed to as he was going on his evening walks. He has come back to our house a few times to read the Bible with Ahker. Please pray that the seed of the Gospel that has been planted would bring forth fruit to the glory of God!
In December, we were finally able to visit a few villages. We want to personally thank those who handmade hats and sent them with us. The families in these villages were very appreciative!
One of the villages we visited was the home village of my interpreter, Long. His father is the village Shaman (witch doctor) and his family is strongly animistic. He has an Aunt in the village who is Christian and there are only a handful of other believers in this village who meet together regularly. When we were there, Long took the opportunity to ask if we could go in the church building to pray with a few of the believers in the village. While walking up to the church building, his family asked if it was okay to come. Not only did they come but they sat and listened to this young man preach! We were both SO thankful for this opportunity! Up until this moment, his family didn’t even want to hear a word about Christianity but that day they stayed and heard a strong presentation of the Gospel. Praise the Lord! Please pray with us for the Lord will so work in them to bring about true faith and repentance!
Thanks to your generous love offerings, we were also able to put together bags of foods for an entire village here in Chiang Mai. We are so thankful for the opportunity to serve the people here in this way and we thank you for your on-going prayers and support for these people. They have so little, and although the gift of food is only temporary, it is a big help each family during this time.
Family
We are so thankful to finally have visitors! In November we had my pastor Bill Lee and Bro. Ricky Cash come visit us. Pastor Bill helped with the Book of Acts in Bible class while he was here. I’m so thankful the students got to meet him and learn from him. It is always good to have Bro Ricky visit us as well. He is such an encouragement as well as a co-laborer in the medical side of the work here. This particular part of the work has had many setbacks because of COVID, and it was good to discuss with him some possibilities for the future in regards to doing medicine.
We also have Brittany’s parents with us in December and January. They have been a blessing and encouragement to have here! The kids really have missed their grandparents and it has much needed.
For HIS Glory,
Matthew Villandry