This month in Thailand our team is doing Unsung Heroes. Our ministry is to hear hearts, document visions and empower hopes of missionaries around Thailand. In the process we also seek out those potential ministries that future World Race teams could serve with and we create the initial contact between these ministries and the Adventures in Missions office. It’s a month of intimate reliance on the Lord and the fruit is beautiful. Here’s a highlight of our first week in Thailand.
Our story begins with Tammy and Wayne Brown. If I had only three words to describe them, they are thoughtful, passionate and invested. But they are much more as well. For 20 years the Browns lived in Florida and impacted many lives through foster care. They felt God calling them out to the nations and for a time they participated in many short term missions around the world. But still God laid it on their hearts to do what seemed impossible: move around the world and completely trust God to care for the medical needs of their youngest daughter, Rebecca.
As it turns out, God knew exactly what He was doing when He called the Browns to Bangkok, Thailand, where people travel from around the world to receive excellent medical care. He continued to miraculously open door after door for them until they found themselves running the Asia Pacific Student Abroad Initiative (APSAI).
Meanwhile, before we even landed in Bangkok my teammate Katherine had been in touch with Charlie, a buddy she’d known through playing roller derby in Colorado. Charlie moved to Thailand 2 years ago for work and became involved with derby here in Bangkok.
Katherine and Charlie with the Bangkok Roller Derby team
Now, it just so happens that Tammy’s older daughter Amanda plays derby back in Florida. Through roller derby Tammy was connected to Charlie and through Katherine Charlie connected us to Tammy! And so Wednesday we found ourselves out to lunch with Tammy at a little Thai “ranahan” (restaurant) down the road from APSAI. Wild!
APSAI is a semester abroad program that recruits students from several major Assemblies of God Universities in the United States. Students from any major are welcome, and through APSAI students are given a rich foundation in the philosophy of missions. In addition to their online coursework they have Thai language class, missiology class and ministry every week. Some ministry opportunities include teaching English, serving in the church, and spending time singing songs and playing with disabled children at a local school. Tammy estimates that 1-3 people are receiving Christ every semester through the relationships built by the cohort of students, and a third of the 44 students who have come through the program in the last four years are pursuing active involvement in missions. The cost difference for students between a semester at home and this life-changing semester in Bangkok is just the price of the plane ticket!
The APSAI dorms can accommodate up to 18 men and 18 women each semester
APSAI has room to grow and continues to seek to pour into more students in the semesters to come. Be sure to keep Tammy and Wayne in your prayers as they impact the next generation for Christ, both in Thailand and the US.
Our new friend Tammy Brown
May we never lose our wonder of this great earth and the God it proclaims.
