Go Cho May 2021 - A New Wave of ... Students!

Prakhampee Learnnn Website

We were not prepared for the wave of new students who signed up for the 2 Bible courses offered on our Prakhampee (Bible in Thai) Learnnn (yes with 3 ‘n’s) Online Bible School in the last month since we started advertising the courses.  Over 160 students registered and new students were signing up each day.

Now this created a good problem in that we did not have enough mentors for this massive influx of students.  The courses have been set up so that each student is assigned a mentor who will review their answers for each lesson and engage with them with appropriate questions.  The initial 7 mentors were not enough and an SOS email was sent out to all our Thailand missionaries and partners to ask for help in being a mentor to these new students.  This email was passed on around the world to missionaries who had retired or returned to their home countries.  We have been able to more than double the number of mentors within a few weeks with missionaries past and present, as well as Thai staff and Christian volunteers.  

The 2 Bible courses currently available are a “Bible Overview” course and a “Life of Jesus” Course using the Jesus Film.  We are also in the process of preparing courses using the Bible Project videos which provide a background and overview of each book of the Bible.

The vision of our Digital Media and Internet Evangelism Ministries is: 

“From Online to Offline Discipleship” 

We want to begin an online relationship through facebook or through our online Bible School where discipleship can begin with interested and engaged non-Christians, “seekers” and newer Christians.  However, we recognize the importance of connecting these “seekers” to local disciplers and churches so that the discipleship process continues in person rather than stay online.

Thailand Media Network Meetings

 

This is the Thailand Media Network, a Christian network which aims to collaborate and help each other in various Christian media projects.  The network meets once every 2 months in Chiang Mai.  We have the meeting at our different organisations and this time I hosted the meeting at the OMF Mekong Centre.

This month we saw the preview of the new movie, "Soul Prison" which looks great.  It will be released in cinemas in Bangkok and Chiang Mai later this year.

I shared a video from the Bible Project Thai. 

Bible Project Thai

I am the local project co-ordinator overseeing the team that is taking the BibleProject videos from English into Thai.  We have finally been able to launch the first two video after a series of unexpected setbacks some of which may have had a spiritual element to it.

We have a team of 5 Thai illustrators and animators, as well as a language adviser, translators and voice artist team. 

There are 73 videos to complete in the Read Scripture series, 9 in the Luke-Acts Series and potentially others in their 140+ video collection.

You can view the BibleProject Thai youtube channel by clicking on the link. 

May God use these videos for his Kingdom for many years to come.

EFT North 50th Anniversary Celebration

EFT North 50th Anniversary Celebration @ Mae Jo University

On 4-5 November, the Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand (EFT) in North Thailand celebrated their 50th year anniversary in Chiang Mai.  The EFT is one of the 3 major Evangelical church councils in Thailand, the Churches of Christ in Thailand (CCT) and the Baptist Convention being the other two major ones.  

David Yonggi Cho was invited as the keynote speaker.  I set up a booth to promote The Bible Project Thailand, the Prakhampee and Know God facebook pages.

My booth at the EFT North 50th Celebrations

They were hoping for 3,000 church leaders to attend.  I'm not sure if they reached this number or not.  On the first night I stood at the door and handed out flyers and I gave out at least 500.  I hope that the 2 days at the booth would have helped in getting the word out about these 3 internet Christian resources.

Prakhampee (Bible) Facebook Page Ministry

Prakhampee Facebook Page

We have been in Thailand 12 years and we couldn't have imagined the different types of ministries we ended up being involved in.  We started out in church planting, then teaching at a Bible school, leadership of missionaries and now into Internet Evangelism and Digital Media ministry.

Our involvement in the latest ministry in Internet Evangelism and Digital Media, started when one of our workers running this ministry was going back to their home country and a person was needed to takeover.  When this need was discussed at our leadership council meeting, I was the leader with the least number of missionaries under my leadership and had more time than the others.  Not only that, when I heard about the ministry, I felt that this ministry must continue and if there was a extended time with no one leading this ministry then the previous 7 years of work might go to waste.  So I volunteered to take it on, even though I did not have any prior experience in this ministry.

So from July, the plan was to spend 75% of my work hours on this ministry and 25% on my leadership responsibilities of other missionaries in North Thailand. 

There are several aspects to the Internet Evangelism and Digital Media Ministry.

1. Prakhampee Facebook Page  

This page encourages people with daily Bible verses and encouraging messages as well as short Christian video clips like from the Jesus Film.  As far as I can see, it has the largest number of "Likes"(117,000+) and "Followers"(122,000+) for a Thai Christian facebook page.  We hope to develop this page by adding courses and articles to help Christians grow as well as introduce Jesus to those who do not know about Him.

2. The Bible Project Translation

The Bible Project is an organisation that has produced over 160 amazing videos with topics ranging from "How to Read the Bible"; Themes of the Bible and introductions to the books of the Bible.  We in partnership with Campus Crusade and Create Thailand have been translating these videos into Thai. We have almost completed the first 10 video and are slowly working through the rest.  These video will be a great resource for Thai Christians and those wanting to know more about the Bible.

I have been given the task to develop our team and build on this ministry and by God's grace it will have a growing impact on Thai speaking people around the world.