Thailand

This letter was mailed to our family and friends back in March.  Please pray for Brandon and the rest of the group, and also me and the boys for the next several weeks.

Dear Friends and Family,

Every other year, Brandon embarks on an international mission trip with a group of students from his youth group.  For the past several years, they have gone to Juarez, Mexico to build homes with an organization called Amor Missions.

For the past 18 months, Brandon has been preparing to lead a group to Nairobi, Kenya this upcoming June.  This past December, the counrty of Kenya experienced its first political unrest and violence in many years.  Plans for the mission trip were quickly evaluated and changed, and now Brandon, along with Steve Allen, a missionary who our church has supported for many years, will be leading a group to serve in Thailand.

Brandon, Steve, and about 12 teenagers and young adults will be going to Thailand for 16 days in June.  They will have an opportunity to see the work that has been established by our missionaries over the past 17 years.  In Bangkok, the group will visit and serve the Siam Church, which Northside Christian Church has helped to support.  Our students will have an opportunity to teach English and share their faith at a local college, and spend some time ministering to the sick at an AIDS hospice.  The group will be working with established missionaries in a town called Pattaya, doing prayer walks through a town whose largest industry is prostitution.  During the final leg of the trip, Brandon and the other leaders and students will travel through Northern Thailand to Ching Rai, where they will be working with an orphanage, House of Blessing.  (This is the portion of the trip where Brandon will be tempted to bring home half a dozen precious little Thai children home to Houston for me to raise...)  They will be doing a Vacation Bible School at the orphanage, and show the children and staff the love of Jesus through serving them.

We are asking our friends and families to please pray for Brandon, the leaders, and the students who will be making this journey.  Pray for their safety in traveling, wisdom for the leaders, and for the students to understand just a little bit more about God's love for them and how to share that with others.

Brandon and Mandy

Brandon flies out this afternoon.  Please pray for the trip participants and the people of Thailand that they will be coming in contact with.  Pray especially for the time they will be spending at the orphanage over there.  In Thailand, international adoptions are illegal, and it is considered socially unacceptable to adopt children.  So there are countless children in orphanages who have little hope of ever leaving.  I know this will be very very difficult for Brandon and the others to experience, so please pray for them!

Thank you to everyone who has financially contributed to this trip.  Your help has been invaluable.  You'll be getting letters and pictures when he gets back!