Overseas
Paul & Rattanaporn in Chiang Mai
In March, we brought Paul & Rattanaporn down to visit Chiang Mai. They were able to stay at the Ban San Faan children’s home. We encouraged them not to look at the beautiful building but at the quality of love and care. Ban San Faan means ‘House of Fulfilled Dreams’, so called because when the children came to the home, their dream was to have a family – and now they are a family! We took Paul & Rattanaporn to visit a large fish farm as we are exploring the possibility of establishing a fish pond at Hoay Maw.
For more information, see here.
Fresh Vision at Hoay Maw
In our recent visit to Hoay Maw we were encouraged to find that Paul has fulfilled his intention to tell the children with “families” that they cannot return next school year unless they pay for school and care costs. When we first started helping at Hoay Maw there were 184 children. There are now 55 children at the home and a further 7 at Joseph’s house.
It was satisfying to see the potential of improving the quality of life for these ‘true orphans’, although also very sobering that most of the children who have left will now receive little or no education due to the pitiful or nonexistent provision of education in remote villages. The family backgrounds of these children also embrace a range of challenges including severe poverty, abusive step-parents, parents with HIV or AIDS, in prison, or with addictions to drugs or alchohol - however - as much as we would love to see care and education provided for all of these children, Hoay Maw do not have anywhere near the adequate resources for this level of provision at the present time.
We have come to a point where we would like to be able to explore a way of establishing a level of regular support for the home in order to provide a stable basic income. We would value your prayers that we would have wisdom regarding the best way to achieve this.
For more information, see here.
Please Pray
● Give thanks and pray for continued development at Hoay Maw.
● For wisdom to know the best way to achieve a regular, basic stable income for Hoay Maw and for God’s provision.
● That we will be able to orchestrate the move to a new house coinciding with our visit to UK.
Love and Blessings
Adrian, Jenny, Tom, David & Jessica
For more information, please visit our website www.ajoliver.org
April 29th, 2008
Powerpack in Thailand
In January we were privileged to have a visit from Heather Thompson of Powerpack children’s ministry. During her stay Heather did training for Bible students in Mae Sae and a training day in Chiang Mai for 50 International and Thai children’s workers. Heather’s teaching included how to encourage children to be ‘God Chasers’ and ‘Nation Shakers’.
For more information, see here.
Staying On
January 31st was the deadline for re-enrolling the children at Grace International School for a further school year. The whole family were united in our decision to stay on in Thailand. We will probably stay on for a further 2 years as it would be difficult to return half way through GCSEs.
“Good News for Modern Wa”
The printing of the Wa Bible has been delayed in order to allow further checking of the text. Four Wa Pastors have convened in Mae Sai.
Their aim is:
- To replace old Wa and Lahu words with newer Wa words as the language is developing.
- To use central Wa dialect. (There are possibly as many as 900 Wa dialects.)
- To simplify some text that is overly complex.
Literacy is very low among the Wa people and there is little Wa literature. The Wa Bible will be used to develop materials to increase literacy.
For more information, see here.
Progress at Hoay Maw
Pastor Joseph has handed over the running of the home to his son Paul and daughter-in-law Rattanaporn. The younger couple are doing a good job in managing the staff and children.
They are aiming to focus on children who have nowhere else to go.
They have no regular money for food and so in the new term, children who have somewhere to go will be asked to contribute to food and school expenses if they are to return. The piglets are growing and the smaller mother is pregnant again. A new crop of mushrooms is growing (thanks to ACC Christmas money) as well as bananas and other vegetables. We have begun looking into a fish pond project.
For more information, see here.
‘Transformers’
A good team has been established for the children’s work at the church here. Last Sunday we had a special mission academy for the children to learn how to lead others to Christ.
Three Thai children became Christians!
Please Pray
- For raising up and training of children’s workers in Thailand and the surrounding nations.
- For the successful completion of the “Modern Wa Bible”
- For continued development of the management at Hoay Maw and the potential for future regular support.
Love and Blessings
Adrian, Jenny,
Tom, David & Jessica
For more information, please visit our website www.ajoliver.org
March 18th, 2008
Click here to see video message to our friends at Arun Community Church.
April 23rd, 2007
Life in Thailand is not all hardship and suffering - this is the beautiful Maengathot Reservoir about 1 hours drive North of Chiang Mai where we are working as missionaries.
We (the Olivers) moved out to Chiang Mai, Thailand in August 2006 to help with an orphanage of 184 children in the far North of Thailand.
We are not your typical missionaries, in that we have not been to Bible college, and do not like Bible bashing. In fact, we are both software engineers (write computer programs) - we had to resign from our company in Worthing, Eurotherm to come out here. We are using our software skills to work remotely for Eurotherm (contract) and for a PDA software company in Israel called SBSH to fund ourselves while living out here.
We felt God’s opportunity to come and serve the people running the orphanage. God has really blessed us since moving out here, the biggest blessings being to see the quality of life at the orphanage gradually improving.
People have asked what it was like living through the coup in Thailand - well, I tell you, we really did scrape through by the skin of our teeth. Read for yourself how we suffered here!
November 17th, 2006
