The Big Give

We are really excited to share this month about something we get to be a part of this year. Cove Church does a major fundraiser every December that focuses on a specific cause and commits to fundraising $250,000 devoted to organizations fighting for these causes.

This year, Cove selected Human Trafficking. We were honored to speak at both campuses about Pattaya, Thailand as well as how people can get involved and be a part of the solution by partnering with the Blessing Home program. Feel free to do your own research on Walking Street in Pattaya.

Cove splits the donations by giving 45% to the A21 Campaign, 45% to the WellHouse, and 10% to Cove mission partners, including our ministry.

It is really nice for us to be a part of a movement with multiple organizations all working towards promoting a positive change. There are many amazing organizations that are out there fighting against trafficking in so many ways. I first heard about A21 about 5 years ago from Christine Caine at a Passion conference in Atlanta. I didn’t know then that I would one day get the chance to be a part of the Blessing Home and help to keep kids from being trafficked in the sex and drug trades. I feel really blessed to be joining Thailand Methodist Mission and moving to Pattaya.

All of these organizations work in different ways. The A21 focuses on “Reach, Rescue, and Restore” on an international level.

The WellHouse is a local Alabama organization that provides a 24 hour call help line, rescue efforts, and restoration for women who have been sexually exploited in Alabama.

And of course, the Blessing Home program of Thailand Methodist Mission protects children by providing scholarships to keep children safe and in school. Watch this video to learn more about the Blessing Home in Pattaya where we will be living and working. If you would like to give and provide money to scholarship children in Thailand, please click the "Donate Now" button on the right and it will take you to our donation site on Qgiv. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Changes to Online Giving

We want to start off this November blog post with something we are so thankful for. We have now raised $30,000 and are 1/3 of the way to reaching our fundraising goal for before we leave for Thailand! Thank you all so much for your donations, support, and prayers!

You may have noticed a few changes in the donation page on our website. We have been using the online giving platform “Just Give” which was recently bought by the platform “Just Giving.” This new platform unfortunately did not give us as many donation options including how to designate funds.

So now, we have a new online giving platform called “Qgiv.” If you see on the right side of this blog, you can click the exact same button that says “Donate Now” and it will take you to our new giving platform. Here is an image of what it will look like when you click this button.

As you can see, it has “Thailand Methodist Mission” and our logo.

Now, you can select to donate now, set up recurring donations, or set up a pledge so that donations will be processed on a later date. Your donations can be done one time or recurring weekly, every 2 weeks, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually.

Under the “Designated Giving” drop down you will see our names as an option. You can give by credit card or give your banking information.

As always, you can still write a check to “TMM” with our names in the memo line and mail to:

TMM

P.O. Box 56

Mannsville, KY 42758

We will still have the “Just Giving” online giving platform through the end of December and you can still use it for giving to the ministry through the end of 2017. If you have been giving recurring donations, please cancel the donations through Just Giving and set up recurring donations through Qgiv. We are unable to transfer your recurring donations for you. Thanks to everyone who has been giving the automatic/recurring donations. Having dedicated mission partners means so much to us.

It is now the holiday season which is a time when many people are looking to give to an organization that is really making a difference in the community it is serving and sharing the gospel with people who have no access to hear about Jesus. Please share with your family and friends about Thailand Methodist Mission this season. We are of course a 501c3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible. We at TMM are so blessed to have an AMAZING volunteer board so that we don’t have any administrative costs and all donations go to the ministry and missionaries. We have just printed our new missionary cards we will be giving out with all of the new information on the back.

Thank you so much for your support! Happy Thanksgiving!

Learning the Language

Although David and I will be enrolled in a Thai language school when we get to Pattaya, we really wanted to get a head start. We quickly learned Thai is much harder than we originally thought. Thai is a tonal language and it is nearly impossible to try and teach yourself. We couldn’t even find a Rosetta Stone or similar computer program that would teach it. Thankfully, TMM missionaries in Thailand sent us materials to help us get started, but we wouldn’t have been able to use it without the help of our friends, JJ and Suwit.

A few months ago, we didn’t have any Thai friends here in Alabama. I called around at our local Thai restaurants to see if anyone would be willing to help us learn the language. The owner of Phuket restaurant called me back and we set up a meeting. I told him about our ministry and upcoming move to Thailand and he was so kind and volunteered to teach us for free until he could find someone to teach us weekly. Suwit had already taught his sons Thai and taught us out of Thai book for preschoolers. He was so nice and patient with us; Thai language has not been easy for us to learn.

Suwit introduced us to JJ after a few weeks. JJ is a physical therapist from Thailand who is in the process of switching over her licensure to the United States. She teaches us Thai for an hour each week and then we help her study for her TOEFL and GRE exams for an hour. Suwit has allowed for us to keep meeting at his restaurant each week for lessons and of course we always order delicious Thai food.

We just completed the alphabet and have a very, very long way to go but we are really enjoying learning the language even though it has been a very humbling experience. We honestly look forward to it every week now and love spending time with JJ.

JJ teaching David

Practicing Thai Handwriting

The preschool book we used to learn letters and numbers

Thai Alphabet