"Notes from our Mission Team, in Thailand since 1991."
"Notes from our Mission Team, in Thailand since 1991."
|
 HOME 
GUIDANCE
MINISTRIES
 STEVE & SAM
MEET THE TEAM [Russ & Tracy Pennington]
|
HISTORY OF OUR WORK (written 1998)
Currently we have lived in Thailand almost 7 years, and have around 30 members in our church. Our team was originally made up of 4 couples who met while attending Abilene Christian University. Most of us were surprised to find God calling us into overseas mission work. At that time during college only 2 of our team were considering full time Christian Service -- the rest of us have degrees in accounting, art, social work, and education. After months of prayer and consulting with trustworthy people we made a commitment to go to Thailand, though, so we decided to prepare ourselves for work overseas by training together for 1 1/2 years in the St. Louis Spiritual Internship. After completing the Internship we moved to Bangkok in October of 1991. Our first year in Bangkok was spent attending language school. We lived with Thai families during most of that time, which really helped us to grow into their language and culture. In the Spring of 1993 we moved to a suburb of Bangkok called Thonburi, which is the neighborhood we currently live in. We began our work here with three different projects: opening a center for teaching English, teaching English at a nearby University, and starting a neighborhood Bible study. That August was when we first began meeting as the Siam Church (Siam was the original name of Thailand). These three projects all continued until the beginning of 1996, when God showed us that He wanted us to concentrate more on full-time ministry in our neighborhood. When that happened, we phased out our University work and English teaching and began working full time to disciple new Christians and train leaders. Two of the original eight team members, Steve and Tina Countryman, moved back to the States in October of 1996. They are continuing to work with Asian people in the States, with their ministry to the Hmong people in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Hmong people are a tribal group from
Laos. We miss Steve and Tina, and they're always in our prayers.
Sheryl Scott joined us in Thailand at the beginning of September of 1997 and went back home in December of 1998. We were very blessed to have her, since she did an excellent job teaching the children. Their current teacher is "Ms. Nika," also known as Nika Maples. You can see some really wonderful pictures of her and the children in the Photo Album.
A CELL BASED CHURCH
Siam Church is a cell-based, or small group, church. The main focus in the church is the meeting of small groups of 8 - 15 members throughout the week. Each group has a leader and an intern. The members of the group
decide the meeting place and time and invite their non-Christian friends to participate. When a group reaches a consistent size of 15 or more it multiplies into 2 groups. The group leader and half of the group members then begin a new group, and the intern becomes a new leader for the other half. New interns are chosen who will be the leaders the next time the group divides. During the group meetings we have a praise and worship time, the Lords Supper, ministry and prayer time, and an application of the lesson that was taught during our weekly "Celebration," which is what we call the time when the entire church comes together on Sunday mornings for worship, praise, and Bible study.
These pages constructed by
Timothy M. Nall