Matthew 11v12:
"From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force."
In this update on life I'll be sharing about the Trailblazer DTS. A Discipleship Training school with the heart to reach the unreached. with a willingness to go where no one wants to go. Going for the sake of the Kingdom of God. To proclaim good news to all and bring an invitation to a new life.
This is a very delayed newsletter and I'll be sharing about the most recent DTS that happened from September 23rd 2023-February 23rd 2024. I'll be sharing some stories about our missions trip to Thailand!
SO MUCH happened on our outreach so I'll try here to summarize some great stories and I'll definitely be leaving lots out because I'd have to publish a book if I wanted to tell everything.
Thailand
You might be thinking to yourself "why the Bible verse at the top of this post?". At the start of this school I felt God was speaking to me that we will be doing work similar to John the baptist, who would make paths in the wilderness for Jesus to
come in. As we had traveled over 24h to fly from Albania-Thailand, we proceeded to take a 16h overnight bus directly the next day. We were in Bangkok for less than a day and already leaving to go to the south of Thailand, some of the most unreached areas of Thailand.(Thailand is in the top 10 of unreached nations in the world).
Going to the unreached of the unreached.
As we were on this bus this verse popped into my mind Matthew 11v12:
"From the days of John the Baptist until now
the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence,
and the violent take it by force."
I felt like God was wanting to say, "for the Kingdom of heaven to advance in this nation your team will need to be violent". Violent in the sense that we need to be ready to do hard things, lay down our lives out of love for God and His people in Thailand. Loving people well and willing to put others above ourselves. Desiring so much that we share the love of God that we put away our preferences. This 16h overnight bus ride after traveling over 24h to come to Thailand was a great way to start this.
Nakhon Si Thammarat
In this city we we're able to be the first Western team to come and minister in partnership with Ywam Nakhon Si Thammarat. Other teams from Asia had come before but not many. So naturally as we were a DTS with a calling to go and share about the Kingdom of God where not many people were, we felt it the perfect place to be.
The ministry we did in this city ranged from putting on Christmas services at multiple different churches, teaching English to children and street evangelism. Like I previously said I could write a novel about what God is doing in Thailand and how encouraging it was for the team and myself to partner with God in this nation. For now I'll share a story from Nakon Si Thammarat.
Fishers of men
It was a beautiful sunny and HOT day (as per usual in Thailand, averaging +30c and 100% humidity) in Thailand and we were heading to a finishing village about a hour hour drive from the city. The local church had been praying for this area for a LONG time. They had one believer in this whole village who opened her house for the church to come, worship, pray and invite people in to hear about the Gospel.
We arrived and had this time of worship with many people from the village as well as people from the church. After the worship time we left to go house to house to share about the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. We left in pairs of two going with a translator from the local church. Arriving at the first house and a woman welcomed Tristan (the student I was evangelizing with) and I in warmly. The translator then looked at us and say "okay go on", meaning okay tell her about Jesus now and what He has done for her on the cross.
I began to get to know her a little bit first then went on to share about the Good News! As I was sharing I noticed her eyes beginning to water and as I was about half way through sharing the translator started interrupting me by saying "she's ready, she's ready". I was shocked because I hadn't even shared the whole Gospel and this woman with tears in her eyes was so eager to accept Jesus as her Lord and saviour. This was humbling for me as the realization hit that I was so used to rejection during sharing I didn't realize she was ready to receive from God. Tristan and I prayed for her to receive Jesus as her Lord and saviour and also for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The peace & joy of God came upon her that day and she said she felt a real change. She had stomach issues that she felt also starting to heal. Incredible. We we're able to give her a Bible as well in her own language, she is unable to read but after talking with her husband he committed to read the Bible to his wife so she could grow in understanding. We connected her to the local church and is now growing in a living relationship with God. If this news of one person entering into the Kingdom of God wasn't already the best news for us, we continued on from their going to two other houses and seeing salvation at every house.
That day we as a team divided into four teams of two, going into an unreached village of fishermen families. When we all came back together within the time of us going house to house evangelizing we had seen FOURTEEN SALVATIONS. Speechless, every person is connected to the church who is committed to raising up a church in this community and discipling them. This was an amazing thing to witness and be a part of.
Taptawan
The second half of our missions trip! This village is home to a gypsy tribe that used to live nomadic on the ocean but then through circumstances with the government they were forced to settle. The village itself has no born again believers so we were coming into a completely unreached area.
We were working with an english learning centre where through teaching english they share about the Gospel! This is an incredible ministry and we were so blessed to be a part of it. So many children's lives are being changed through the work that they do there. As I said previously I could write a book on our experiences in Thailand but for now I'll also just share one story of our time their.
A joyful awakening
One day we had planned to go to a close by local village, more remote than the place we were currently staying at but still the same local gypsy community. We had prepared a children's program to run there with games, some worship, a dance and then a message to bring it all together.
During this whole program we put together there was a local teenager trying to sleep in on a Saturday. Our program awoke him and instead of trying to go back to sleep he had a strange feeling that he should come and see whats going on. So as he came to check out what all the noise was about he found our team! We were able to share about Jesus to him for the first time every in his life. He was shocked! Never hearing about the gospel before.
Imagine, living life with no hope, no idea of what happens after you die, not feeling safe or seen. Then one day you wake up from a bunch of noise in your village and you hear about the message of the gospel for the first time ever! That there is only one true God. A God who loves you, created you and desires to be with you.
Being raised in a buddhist nation they have to work so hard for some sort of salvation, something that isn't certain and depends all on your works. Having many gods to pray to and worshipping idols, hoping that something will happen. Hearing about God who desires to be in relationship with you, and about God who sent His only son Jesus to come make a way for you to be in relationship with Him, removing your sins as far as east is from west.
This young man was SO excited to hear of the gospel and after hearing this he joyfully lead us and some kids of the village to a nearby waterfall to swim and enjoy a natural waterslide. The next day he was in church and now he is connected to a local church with the availability to be picked up and go.
I pray you are encouraged in hearing about how God is working in Asia and in the world!
In closing
On February 23rd 2024 my assistant leader and I were privileged to graduate 14 amazing students from 8 different nations from the Trailblazer DTS! Each student having the commitment to be a missionary where ever God has called them to in their lives.
It was an absolute pleasure and blessing to be able to lead this school. God taught me so much from this experience and I'm so grateful for everything I got to be a part of in seeing His kingdom come, His will be done on earth as is in Heaven.
And more exciting things are on the way!!
Blessings, Lucas
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