December 2023 Prayer Letter

Written by Karl Dahlfred on 30 November 2023.

DOWNLOAD PDF - DECEMBER 2023 DAHLFREDS PRAYER LETTER

Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you everyone who has been praying for us as we’ve been settling into Chiang Mai and starting ministry here. Cooler weather has arrived in northern Thailand and Thai people are reaching for their jackets as we turn off our fans and A/C. Boxes are still piled up around our house, but we are settling in and getting started with ministry.

Getting Started at CTS

The new school term at Chiang Mai Theological Seminary (CTS) began in early November and I am now my fourth week of teaching. It has been a lot of fun to get into the past with my Thai church history students every Wednesday morning and I am just keeping up with prepping for Intercultural Communication on Friday morning, a course which I have not taught before. My classes are very small and sometimes I only have 1 or 2 students in the classroom, with the rest on Zoom. Prior to Covid, all teaching at CTS was in person but the world has changed now, for better or worse. On the one hand, it is wonderful that Thai brothers and sisters from distant parts of the country can zoom into class and benefit from a biblical education that would otherwise be very difficult to access. But on the other hand, online only education misses out on valuable interaction between teacher and students, as well as among students, that happens before and after class and around campus. How can I and other teachers at CTS best disciple and guide students whom we only meet online? Please pray for CTS, for both faculty and students, as we seek to equip Thai believers for ministry in the world today.

Hybrid Zoom / In-Person Classroom at CTS, waiting for students to arrive

“Christmas” in Thailand

As we head towards the end of the year, one of the strangest things that I’ve noticed in Thailand is the sheer quantity of Christmas decorations being sold at stores here. Thailand is ostensibly a Buddhist country, so who is buying all this Christmas stuff? I asked this question in Thai on Facebook and both Thai and foreign friends replied in unison that Thai people love any reason to celebrate. And Christmas decorations are fun! In many places, both east and west, Christmas has turned into merely a fun, secular celebration but even so, the natural interest of Thai people in Christmas is an open door for sharing about Jesus. Many Thai churches take advantage of that opportunity in December, holding evangelist events in churches, schools, shopping malls, neighborhoods, and more. Pray for us and for Christians around Thailand so that we might be bold in sharing about Christ this month that people may have The Hope and The Joy that the world cannot give.

Christmas Decorations for Sale at a store in Chiang Mai, Thailand

We have Thai Christmas tracts and are ready to go!

Getting to Know Chiang Mai Grace Church

After visiting a handful of churches, we’ve decided to worship regularly at Chiang Mai Grace Church, led by Pastor Jed. At Jed’s initiative, Karl and Jed have started to get together on a weekly basis and we are looking into how we can get to know the church better and serve ministry needs there. Each week there is simultaneous translation of the worship service (via headphones) into both English and Chinese. Karl has begun helping with translation from Thai to English as a ministry to the non-Thai speakers at church. Did you know there are more than 80,000 mainland Chinese in Chiang Mai? This city is very solidly Thai but there is also a huge amount of diversity, not only because of the many tribal groups in northern Thailand but also because of Chiang Mai’s location as an international crossroads and destination in southeast Asia. Pray for God to move among the many peoples represented in Chiang Mai.

Kids Update

Our kids have started studying Thai language in earnest and we are hoping they will be able to get some basic conversational fluency in order to feel more at home in Chiang Mai. We also pray that they will gain some good friends here.

Thank you for praying for us and the Thai people. Wishing you a joyous advent and Christmas season!

by Christ's grace,

Karl & Sun Dahlfred