Missions Moment – Thailand

Terry Gibbs, Wycliffe Bible Translators

Thank you for your prayers and financial support this past month. Things in the department has been keeping me busy as usual. The current outlook for students completing their Thesis work is 4 this Fall Semester, 3 for the Spring Semester and 5 for the Summer Semester. So, it’s evened out a bit which is nice. I had to replace 2 of our 3 UPS power systems since they no longer correctly transferred power to our desktop computer when the main power went off. This happens during a storm or when Payap needs to do repair work. 4 days ago I was able to help 1 of the 4 students finish the formatting process and it’s off to the printers, so everything should be completed for him next week. But the remaining 3 student are cutting it close, and must finish everything by Dec 8. I needed to work on a notebook computer that was overheating, so I had to disassemble it to get to the fan. I had to remove every single screw (15 of them), then remove the main board and then remove the fan from the heat sink. Then I could use my can of pressurized air to blow out the lint. This took 3 hours. There are some notebook computers that have a small removable door over the fan on the bottom of the computer, then this whole cleaning process only take 2 minutes. Computers are like cars, it’s always nice to find one that was designed to be worked on, and not just designed for ease of manufacturing.

 

Field Reports

“We have completed writing 26 short Bible stories for use with the B people. We need to finish a few more before we return to New Zealand for the graduation of our son from college.”

“We continue to work with the M people and are looking for ways to connect with other M people who live across the border in another country.”

“Typesetting of the N New Testament is nearly done. The final Bibles will be printed in Korea, then the dedication ceremony will follow that”.

 

Some prayer items are:

“Work in a nearby country is not going well due to civil unrest”.

“There needs to be more funding for literacy training for the KW project”. “Pray for unity of several churches in a large region”. “Human trafficking in the place we work is an ongoing problem”. “Several new translation projects are preparing to start”.

 

Around Town

I was walking down the sidewalk next to two lanes of one-way traffic, and I noticed a girl who had stopped and was looking at her iPhone. So I stopped, she looked up, and I said where are you from. She said I’m from the U.S. and I said oh so am I. I asked “are you here on vacation” and she said “no I live here”. I said “oh, what do you do”, she said “I help distribute wheelchairs – my parents used to live here”. I said “oh, distributing wheelchairs is a good Christian thing to do”. She said “I don’t believe in God”. I said “Oh really – but you must know about Him. Look at everything around us. God has made everything”. She again stated “I do not believe in God”.  This did not seem like a good time to have a long discussion, so I walked away.

A Thai lady and her daughter were walking down the street. I caught up with them, talked to them for a minute or so, and gave the lady a tract.

I talked to 2 Chinese girls who said they were from Beijing. I said I had been to Beijing, Shanghai and Kunming. I gave them a tract which they accepted.

I met a guy and girl. They were from South Dakota. I said Ah Ha, you have come for the nice warm weather. They smiled. We talked for a couple of minutes and I gave them a tract.

I met a guy from Australia. We talked for a few minutes and I gave him a Tract which he seemed to be quite interested in, so I also gave him a small booklet which is summary of the New Testament.

When I take public transportation (the red Songthaew), I usually give the guy a little more than the fare and also include a Tract along with the money.

I met a young guy and his wife while walking along a sidewalk, I offered them a Tract, but they declined. Shortly after that I met another couple who were also from Spain and they also declined the Tract. I later met a guy from France and he also declined. Later I met a girl from England, we talked a few minutes and she accepted the Tract.

I was walking past a hotel and saw an older man and his wife sitting on the steps out front. I walked up to them and said “I don’t think a train will come by here”, they both smiled. I asked them what country they were from and he said Denmark. I said “not many people come here from Denmark, it is such a small country”. Then I said I was from the U.S. The lady said oh in a very sad lowering of her voice (I could sense that she was commenting on the politics in the US) so I immediately said “well, we tried”, they both laughed. I asked what they were waiting for, and he said they were going Trekking up North in the mountains to a Hill Tribe village. I said oh, Mae Rim. We talked a bit more, I offered them a Tract, which the man seemed quite interested in.

Later on I met a man and his wife who were from Austria. I said to them, that they were the first people I had ever met from Austria. I gave them a map and pointed out a few things, then offered him a Tract in English, which took them several seconds to figure out what it was about, then she said BeeBell and were interested in reading it.

 

Local News

The huge news item this month was the cremation ceremony of the late king who passed away a year ago. Construction of the 30 acre site took a year to complete and cost 90 million dollars. Many Thai people traveled to view this event. The close-in area was limited to 100,000 people being there, with another 150,000 being just outside of the area. We’ve all been wearing black this month in honor of this king whom all of the Thai people loved and respected.

Thailand is a country of 70 million people, 93% of whom do not believe in God, and will be eternally lost.