Preparing For Christmas

On Saturday the 13th we will be having a Christmas for children in Myanmar. My family have been working with the children over the past few months and we decided to give them a good Christmas meal and some gifts. The children very very rarely have a decent meal so we plan to give them one this weekend. The children will be doing drama and playing games. The children in Myanmar have desperate needs. So many of them lack proper education and oversight. Believe with us that we make an impact this weekend. We appreciate your giving towards this event this weekend. There will be about 120 children at this event...some will have to come by a van we are renting. Any contributions can be directed to the address on the blog make sure you mention my name as well as that the gift is for the children. Thank you very much!

Thanksgiving Service

This past month I was able to minister in two different thanksgiving services in a couple of Ahka villages. I had no idea that these small villages celebrated thanksgiving. In many ways they celebrate the same way we do with a big thanksgiving dinner. The only thing I missed was Turkey dinner. Both of the services I was able to minister in, I ministered on the power of a thankful heart.

Pictures Of Land Project

Just an update with concerning the project with the land. We have done quite a bit of landscaping...and will have to do some more especially with water drainage, and the filling in with some dirt on the front side of the property. The project has taken more finances than I would have thought. Of course this is all a learning process for me. I have been getting some good advice from some of my friends here in Thailand who have developed their own properties. The property is roughly about 2 acres in size. Thank you for helping us in this endeavor.

October 2014

This past month was quite a busy month for us. I had the honor of ministering again at "Kingdom Bible School" which is made up of mostly Burmese student. The subject was on servant leadership and it gave me the opportunity to review this subject from another viewpoint. Also I crossed into Burma with my father in-law and brother in-law Samuel. We ministered in a couple of different Ahka Baptist Churches in the Shan State. The churches have a wonderful heritage and I look forward to ministering again in their churches. On the third Saturday of the month we crossed again to minister in another church. But the message was on "thanksgiving" as they were celebrating their "thanksgiving." Their holiday resembled ours at home in America as they gave thanks for their harvest season as most of the harvesting for rice was completed during October. Also during this month wife Elizabeth, my son Jeremiah and myself went to Nong Khai Thailand. I needed to take my son across to Vientiane Laos to put a new non-immigrant visa in his passport. My wife stayed in Thailand during our two-day trip into Laos and my son handled the trip much better than I had thought he would. As for the property we put another $1700 into the landscaping of the property. This project with the land is costing a more than I had initially thought...but it will be well worth it when we finish. Thanks so much for all the prayer, support and encouragement!

Grateful For The Past Year

This past month delivered me some good news. The news is that I have a new visa here in Thailand. This visa allows me to stay here without leaving the country but also allows me to leave at least once a month with a multi-entries. Having to leave the country every three months can be quite expensive. Now I will be allowed to cross to the Burmese side of the border. This past month my wife and I ministered in a local Burmese fellowship. I am really proud how my wife has stepped up and is preaching the gospel. God has great things for Elizabeth. Also in the first month of September I attended our Asia Summit meetings. It was a great success...lots of good preaching and inspiration. Dr. Al Purvis and the team in Sriracha Thailand job hosting the conference. It is almost a year since we have been here and we are grateful. We have really been stretched financially. We have purchased additional land, had it registered and also have had some of the land landscaped. Believe with us to move forward quickly....Thank you very much.

Teaching Together

This past month my wife Elizabeth and myself for the first time taught together. We taught on the subject of faith at a local Bible School with mostly Burmese students. This is the also the first time that my wife had the opportunity to interpret for me for an extended period of time. The founder of the school has asked me if we could come back and do a couple more classes for him. I know that as I sow into other ministries God will have others sow into ours. My wife has also had the opportunity to minister over on the Myanmar side the past couple of weekends. Unfortunately I will have to wait for about 2 months as my being reviewed for a 3 month period. After the 3 month trial period I will be able to cross to Myanmar and go to other countries on a multiple entry visa. God is making a way for us...but patience has been required on our part.

Schumacher Family

Just wanted to update you on the family. We are still located in Mae Sai Thailand and we truly like the area that we are in. As for Jeremiah we have him in Kingdom Kids Childrens Care during the day. They have a wonderful staff and I am truly grateful for that (hopefully they are also teaching him Burmese). Jeremiah is really growing fast. Most people when they see him think he is 5 or 6 years old. In reality he will be 3 years and 9 months at the end of June. Because of some of the new visa laws in Thailand numerous families have left the country. So some of the young children that played with Jeremiah are now gone. We are believing that God will bring in some other children to Kingdom Kids. The weather here has been extremely hot and humid and we put in a new air conditioner last week. I could no longer stay awake until 2-3 Am every night, I was getting very exhausted. My wife, Elizabeth and her sister Sarah had an outreach to the Children last week a few miles outside of city Teckiliek, Myanmar. It was great as they had about 40 children. They will be doing this on a weekly basis during the summer months. Believe with us that having these outreaches to children will help bring families back to the church. The village they are ministering in has a rich Baptist heritage but many of the families have completely stopped going to the church. We feel this is a first step making our ministry known to this village. Here is a picture with my wife in the village outreach and a couple pictures with Jeremiah (He loves rides on the motorbike with his auntie or with his daddy!).

Kathmadu Nepel Ministry Trip

While the land was being leveled, I took a trip to Kathmandu, Nepal. Prem and Lalita were former Bible students of mine and I promised that if they started a school that I would come and teach and minister for them. Wow what a great trip. I flew from Bangkok to New Delhi and then on to Katmandu on the 4th of May. For the next two weeks I ministered on the Gifts of the Spirit. Prem said this would be a perfect class to end the school year as the students were getting ready to go back to the villages that they had come from. Along with the daily classes I was able to go with the students on the outskirts of Kathmandu and witness with them to the locals. Right now Prem and Lalita have eight bible students and they are excited to bring the Gospel message to the outermost parts of Nepal. I saw wonderful change come into their lives from the time I first got their to the time I left two weeks later. I certainly look forward to returning to the ministry base in Kathmandu, Nepal in the future. The last time I had ministered in Kathmandu was with Pastor Greg Runyon. Pastor Greg always seems to make those trips memorable trips. Here are some pictures from this trip and of course one pic that I took of Mount Everest from the airplane.

My Trip To Myanmar

During the month of April I was able to cross into Myanmar and attend the 50th anniversary of a Christian Village. This was a great experience for me. The village was settled by the Ahka in 1964 as a Christian village and people came from all over Myanmar to attend the celebration. Two weeks later I was able to minister in the Church and as the first missionary to ever attend the church! The people from the congregation said, "we have never heard these things before." I ministered on your connection to God, your connection to people and your connection to the church. I trust they were blessed by the message as my brother-in law translated the message for me.

Update On The Purchased Land

Here are some pictures of the land that we had leveled this past May. It turned out to be a bigger project than originally expected but God was faithful. Actually the land looks very good and we feel blessed to have this land for future use. The next step will be putting some fill in dirt on the south side of the Land. The step after this will be getting a wall put up around the property. The proper paper work with the government also took a little longer than expects (al more money) but that has also been accomplished. Thank you so much.

Philippines March 2014

This past March I had the opportunity again to minister at Victory Church the Philippines in Fairview Metro Manila. Wow...what a great time. Pastor Rich and Pastor Ning Conte have done such an outstanding job building this local church and others like it in the Philippines. During my time their I ministered in the local church and two other churches as well as the night bible school on Mondays and Tuesday evenings. The thought kept going through my mind that God wants His Glory in the local churches. As we believers allow ourselves to be transformed by His power, God's strength and power will be poured our in the our midst. I also had the opportunity and I should say most of my time was ministering at the VCA Bible school which was held in the afternoons from 1:00PM to 6:00PM. This is the second year in a row that I have had the opportunity to minister in their local bible school and the Victory Church in the Philippines is definitely building disciples to impact their nation. On the Saturday before I left the Philippines I ministered at the closing session of the men's conference. I was so blessed to see all the men in Love with God and His Word! What a dedicated group of men.

Cold In Thailand

This past Christmas season was the coldest that I could ever remember here in Thailand. We live on the border in the north of Thailand so it usually has cooler evenings and mornings, but this was really cold. We have no heaters so we used charcoal in a big clay pot in the evenings and mornings. This was our first Christmas here and we are looking for many more in the future on the Burmese side. In the evenings we had groups of local Ahka people come to the house and sing Christmas carols (usually a little late around 9:00PM). Singing sounded great, but I did not understand what they were saying. After struggling for about three months we did find a good day care for Jeremiah. Although we do have the time for him at home...we felt the need to have him around other little kids.

In late February I will be crossing the border again to look at some of the land we plan to use for the growing of crops. The crops will be used for the supporting of pastors in their villages. Just this past month we had pipes buried in the land to bring water to the area. This will all take sometime as their is some legal work with the current government that must be done (measuring of the land, clearing the land, title deed, etc...), but we believe it will be worth it in the long run. We hired some workers from the village where my Elizabeth's cousin Solomon is from. Here are some pics of them going up the mountain with water pipes. Feeding this group of young men was very easy...just get them a couple of dogs! Not sure I am ready for that...Anyways this coming March I will be going to the Philippines to minister for Pastor Rich Conte. I am always excited to minister for these guys as they are a very excited easy group to minister to. We want to thank you for your continued support. Tom, Elizabeth and Jeremiah

Nehemiah said, "Let Us Rise Up And Build"

Nehemiah said in chapter 2:17, "come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach." Myanmar (Burma) is now in the process of rebuilding it's nation and we are positioning ourselves to be a part of building a new generation of leaders in Myanmar. Part of that process is having land and having a training center in Myanmar. Right now we have the land but it needs landscaping and a wall around it. Inserted here is a couple of pictures of a wall that we would have to put up around the land, and a picture the type of landscaping we need to do. I want to thank everyone who has already given to this project. The landscaping is something we would like to do as soon as we can as we are now in the dry and hot season. "So let us rise up and build."