Last month I visited our property at Ban Den. A beautiful 2.5 acre parcel with another 2 acres sports field accessible. Best of all, it is only a few minutes from the Sahamit Christian School where God has been moving. Yes, I am talking about Thailand!

Let me tell you how it all began...Several years ago our evangelism team was having "zero" success in a certain district. Hard would be an understatement....this district was granite rock cold to anything to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Wirichai, our district leader, suggested taking one of the short term teams from the USA in for an evangelism crusade.

Sixteen Gringos from Albuquerque....A great team from Albuquerque accompanied us to this remote village. Excitement was high.....for about five minutes anyhow. A few minutes after we arrived we were told to get our trucks off the temple property....and we were told Christians were forbidden to use the toilets at the temple grounds. Even though it was the only flat piece of ground to park on, we complied and got our trucks out and began using the bushes instead of the toilets! The villagers were literally hiding from us in their huts and behind trees.

Darkness Was Settling In - Where Would We Sleep....Wirichai informed me there was one "friendly" family here that was glad to see us. I checked out the hut and estimated we might get 3-4 of us in there if we tried real hard. Then word came that a group of men were getting drunk, sharpening their machetes and planning on slashing our tires and smashing our windows. I pulled Wirichai aside and asked him why in the world did he bring us to a village like this? His simple reply, "I thought we wanted to evangelize the lost." I guess that is what you get for hanging out with a true evangelist!

"PRAY" Was the Word That Went Out to the Team....God heard our prayers and a miracle happened that night. The entire village ended up coming out to be ministered to....except for the guys getting drunk and sharpening their machetes. That is another story that I will have to finish later. We opened a medical clinic, we prayed for people, we did games and balloons for children and we even gave all our blankets away that were supposed to be our covers for the night.

A Door Was Opened That Would Not Close...We found an inroad to this district; their children needed education and they were far from decent schools. Six months later we opened the Ban Den Children's Home. 2-3 children per village were selected for an opportunity for a quality education. The kids came; the kids lives were blessed, the parents saw the change and many families and villages have opened to the Gospel as a result.

The Ban Den Home is a Success Story....We have been in temporary, borrowed facilities for six years; it is time to get on our land in our own facilities.  Our goal is to occupy by May 2012. It is going to be a Big Miracle, but we serve a Big Miracle Working God! We invite you to join your faith with ours as we see this project completed for the Glory of God.

Breakthroughs are happening on every side....Thank you for being a part of that. It is truly a privilege and an honor to represent you in foreign missions. Thank You for all you do to help us.

God Bless You Richly,

Charlie and Cathy

PS: A site map for the Ban Den Children's Home Project is available if you would like to know the details....simply send us a reply email asking.