ONE RECORD AFTER ANOTHER!

Transcription

1 MARTIAL LAW Early Monday morning (May 20), martial law was declared in Thailand. 18 times since 1932 a coup has been attempted (some succeed, some fail) in Thailand. The Thai military insists this is not a coup but simply an opportunity for all protesters and politicians on all sides to pull back and start again. The military will try to draw the leaders from the many different sides together to try to forge some kind of plan for how to end the crisis that has gripped the country since November. What affect does marital law have on us? As of now, none. Reports of violence? Since November when the protests first started, 28 protesters have been killed and more than 700 wounded but reports that indicate that Thailand is strife-torn or that lead one to believe that there are guns and tanks, grenades and bombs exploding everywhere are greatly exaggerating reality. The military has stepped in to try to bring some order to the past 8 months of political chaos. Currently, the Thai government is crippled. The Prime Minister dissolved the House of Representatives late last year and called for elections to be held February 2 making her the interim leader of a government with limited powers. Due to protests, many who wanted to run for office could not even get to the designated places to register their candidacy and on election day many voters were denied the opportunity to vote. Citing those reasons, the courts nullified the results of the February election a few weeks ago. The Prime Minister (who was still leading the interim government) was removed by a judicial ruling earlier this month along with some of her cabinet members meaning the interim government had to be led by a different interim "head" (not even called prime minister). With escalating protests and seemingly no way to move ahead, the military invoked martial law to try to find a way to bring some order back

2 to the country and the government. Some time will need to be given to see if the military is successful in reaching their goal, perhaps as long as 6 months. Pray for peace and a way out for the government, the protesters, and for all Thai. ONE RECORD AFTER ANOTHER! This has been an amazing two months of ministry. In March we had almost exactly 500 students at our Ladprao and Ladkrabang centers combined. The April session was nearly identical. Those two months the numbers were boosted by nearly 100 grade school age children taking classes during their summer vacation each month. With Thai schools starting mid-may, we don't offer children's classes and many jr. and sr. high school students don't come to study English with us either since their school work takes priority. We expected numbers this month to settle back to the high 100's or perhaps even the low 200's at Ladprao and 40 or 50 with us here in Ladkrabang (all great numbers). But imagine our surprise when calling our Ladprao center early on Monday night and finding out that 400 are registered for classes there this month. Ladkrabang starts next Monday and already we have over 70 signed up for classes with another 5 days to go. This month will easily break the single month records for attendance in our adult English programs at both campuses. This month we have 11 Oral Roberts University students serving at Ladprao and 3 others from Bethlehem in Minneapolis serving at Ladkrabang. That would normally be plenty of short-term workers, but we had to add at least one more teacher to help at Ladprao, a Pakistani lady who has been attending our Sunday night English worship service the last couple of weeks. (You can read more of her story, or actually her father's story, in a book sold on Amazon called The Peanut Butter Man). We re all delighted that we have so many students these last 3 months! The atmosphere in the centers is electric. But we can never lose sight of what is really important in all this. It isn't that we have a lot of students or that we are doing well financially or even that we are popular. All of those things would be top concerns in secular companies. But those 500-student attendance figures each month indicate an opportunity to share the gospel with an increasing number of people. Or, put another way, at the end of the week if all we've done is taught a lot of English but haven t helped our students know Jesus better we are simply wasting our time. Jesus warned not to store up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal but instead to store up

3 treasures in heaven (Matt. 6:19-20). What s true here at SES is also true no matter where we work or what we do. If all we do is make a lot of money or become famous but don t help anyone know Christ, we've stored our treasure in the wrong place. We've emphasized the wrong thing. Please pray that we don t focus on the wrong things, don t live for the wrong goal(s). May God grant us wisdom to keep proper focus at all times and not lose sight of what is really important. Please pray for more teachers for our July and September sessions. We have 3-5 teachers here each of those sessions. Write if you are interested. We can generally process people quickly if they are diligent to get the applications and references back to us. 1ST THINGS 1ST Our main goal cannot be just large numbers of students. We really want to see people's lives impacted and changed by knowing Jesus. Two weeks ago, we had our nearly annual Family Camp where 4 of our new members were baptized. Three were men! At least 4 more weren't able to attend camp and are in line to be baptized in July at our Friendship Camp. We praise God for this even more than the large numbers of students coming to our classes. Pray for good preparations for our annual Friendship Camp July 11-13, for good activities, good talks that challenge our friends to consider Jesus and who God is. LADKRABANG OUTREACH We are nearly at the end of our one year of ministry here in Ladkrabang, near the main Bangkok airport, filling in for our colleagues on home assignment. It has been a very good year. Our whole family has enjoyed being here. The ORU team that just arrived at the Ladprao campus helped us put on a "Santisuk in the Park" outreach for our Ladkrabang students last Sunday. A total of 42 people came including exactly half (21) from Ladkrabang - both students and members of the church here. They heard a couple of excellent testimonies from our two staff guys, sang a bunch of crazy songs with Bethany, saw two evangelistic skits done by the ORU team, had some delicious burgers and chips, and played some fun games. "A good time was had by all" - and more importantly, another portion of the bridge was built between our students and God. They are now much more inclined to want to come to something in the future including our big

4 Friendship Camp in July. Pray for our move back to our own house June 7, for the transition here from us back to the couple that started this ministry, and for both couples to integrate well back into their original places of ministry. COMING SOON... This phrase is one that most Thai understand since they see it all the time at the local theaters. It isn't always used correctly ("I go to America coming soon") but they know the phrase indicates some kind of change is in the works. So also here. Since September last year we've been working on a plan for a significant expansion of our ministry into downtown Bangkok. It looks like almost all the main preliminary pieces are now in place. We're anticipating a new outreach English center and church ministry to begin in the Silom area, the business district right in the heart of downtown, just after the first of the year. We'll have a Thai director (a first for us) and as always, this means another church will be planted. We'll have more details about this in future editions of Cabl . Please pray we can find a suitable building to rent to begin January 1, CHURCH CHALLENGE I'll be sending out details to our US churches in the next few weeks about a new way to help us meet the needs of an ever increasing opportunity to see Bangkok and Thailand won to Christ. In a nutshell, the plan is simple. I'd like to challenge each of our supporting churches to focus on one month of the year to send short-termers to Thailand. Suppose September is the month chosen. Perhaps in February then, the church would creatively promote the idea of church members coming to Bangkok in September. Over the course of the next few months, there would be some regular special prayer events scheduled to encourage people to pray about coming. The church would make special efforts to raise funds for short-termers going and if no one from the church ended up going, the funds could be made available to someone else going from another church because this would be a Thailand focused promotion not just that church. Finally, the person or team from the church would go with the whole church behind the person or team to encourage them as they go. This should not in any way hinder individuals or people outside our supporting churches

5 from coming. In fact it should help them go too as people from many different places will be praying for people interested to go. Luke 10:2 The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields. NLT Thanks for reading and thanks for praying! Copyright 2014 Steven & Nopaluck Cable, All rights reserved. You receive Cabl either because you served at Santisuk English School or you requested we add you to our list. Our mailing address is: Steven & Nopaluck Cable 153 Ladprao 115 Bangkapi, Bangkok Thailand Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences