Holiday Fun

For the last five weeks we have been away from home and living out of suitcases. For three and a half of those weeks we were in Bangkok attending meetings. For the middle ten days we escaped to the beach ... our favourite hiding place in all of Thaialnd, Prajuab. OMF's wonderful holiday home there, complete with beach, pool, meals, laundry, library and videos is a perfect get away for us as a family. The kids treat it like a second home and have usually planned their whole holiday before we even get into the car. This year was no exception! Ten wonderful days of rest, relaxation and happy family memoried left us all refreshed and ready to go again for the new term

Praise God for this wonderful provision for us as missionaries. Beautiful creation and wonderful mission home managers all help to make a wonderful holiday
Praise God too for time to reconnect as a family and to enjoy uninterupted time together away from the pressure of the Youth House ministry.

Evangelism Training for Staff Team

October 22-26 the CTSM staff team joined us in Bangkok for a week of evangelism training. This time we were also joined by four TCS national staff. As well as bible studies, prayer and training we also had lots of fun making TexMex together and relaxing over ice-cream! The finale of the week was to go out together to a local night market to put into practise all we had discussed - tracting, surveys, preaching, testimonies, free literature, music and drama all enabled local people to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Praise God for his goodness to us during this week as we led and encouraged others to think about evangelism.

Pray that our team will be able to pass on what they have learnt to their students in the coming weeks as each Youth House looks at ACTive Evangelism in the book of Acts and as we gear up for the big evangelistic opportunities at Christmas.

N'New ... our Thai son!

In Thailand family and community are important. Our househelp is much more than a cleaner ... she and her son N'New are a part of our family! They came to us after being abandoned by P'Nok's husband. Nok can not read or write but loves God and is a faithful part of our team. They rent a single room next door to the Youth House where they sleep each night but during the day they work, eat and relax with us. N'New is as much a part of our family as our own three kids.

Pray for Nok as she raises New by herself
Pray too for New that he will grow to know and love God for himself
Pray for us as we receive them into the family that we will truly demonstrate the love of God to them and provide a safe place for them to grow in their faith

Happy Birthday Bethan Ruth!

September 11 Bethan Ruth turns 4. On Saturday 8th September we enjoyed a family celebration with her Swiss friends and special uncles and aunties joining for lunch. When asked what she wanted to eat for her birthday lunch she chose fried fish with garlic, rice and vegetables ... with icecream and chocolate cake!!

Happy Birthday Bethan Ruth!

Staff Training

Three times each year we meet together as a regional staff team for ministry training. Theses weeks are a great opportunity to get to know each other better and to pray for one another as well as thinking through important ministry issues.

Pray for us as we organise and lead these weeks.

Pray for us too as we write the training materials.

Pray for helpful bible input as well as healthy discussions on ministry skills.

Pray for strong relationships within the team as we work together across different cultures and languages.

Pray that these weeks would truly equip student workers for the ministry God has called them to.

Central Thailand Student Ministry Team 2007

This year there are 8 staff on the CTSM team.

Pray for Peung and Off working in Lopburi with Caroline Ringrose

Pray for Kerri-Ann and Julia working in Naresuan University, Phitsanulok

Pray for ourselves and Bob (Trained to Serve Apprentice) working in Nakhon Sawan

Pray with us for more student workers to reach the 0.25 million student of Central Thailand

Life for three McClean Kids in Asia

Our kids love living in Asia. They get up to all sorts of exciting things and are constantly surrounded by loving big brothers and sisters, aunties and uncles.

Matthew is now a very grown up 5 1/2. He attends Thai school each morning and then is homeschooled by mum each every afternoon. He loves maths and dinosaurs!

Bethan will soon turn 4 and is our 'princess' girl. With her curly blonde hair and big blue eyes she stops the traffic everywhere we go. She is also going to 'Fun School' every afternoon and right now is learning to write her name. She loves anything pink (!) and princess-like.

Joshua is our gorgeous, completely cheeky and monkey-like 1 1/2 year old. He gives us heart stopping moments on a regular basis but also knows how to charm the neighbours into giving him free sticky rice and drinks! His favourite words at the moment are "Look!" "Naam" (Thai for water!) and "Luv Uuuu!"

Please do remember to pray for our kids as they grow-up in Asia
Pray that they will grow to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ for themselves.
Pray that they will continue to appreciate the rich experiences they are gaining.
Pray that they too will have a love and heart for Thai people as they grow up.

Finally, one very special prayer request for us as a family. Matthew’s Thai school have kindly agreed to allow both Matthew and Bethan to attend the school full-time with personal tuition in Maths and English (using UK curriculum) from May 2008 if we can find two English speaking teachers to work at the school! Teachers will need to be able to teach either Maths or English at primary level and be willing to commit to 1 year initially. They would teach our kids for 1 hour each day in either Maths or English and then work along the other teachers in the school to teach Thai children studying in the bi-lingual programme.
Please pray with us that the Lord would call two people to this very special job in the next months. It would be such a huge answer to prayer for us as a family, removing the responsibility of home-schooling from Ann and enabling the kids to integrate fully into Thai school without losing the level of English and Maths they need for returning to the UK in 2010.

Life and Ministry in Central Thailand

We live and work at Nakhon Sawan Youth House, a three storey shop-house which acts as a drop-in centre for the students as well as being our home.

Here is a snap-shot of our life and ministry on a daily basis

Pray for:
On-going bible studies at the Youth House (Tues, Thurs, Sun)
On-going evangelism and bridge building (Interactive Club on Wed, English on Thurs)
On-going Buddy Groups on three campuses, led by the students (Thurs, Fri)
Regional Staff Days (Sept 17-19)
TCS National Staff Meetings (Sept 24-28)
Pray that we would run well to the very end of term (Sept 30)
Pray too that, as numbers increase at regional events, we would not lose the personal relationships with students that have been a hall-mark of the ministry until now.
Pray with us for more workers. In recent weeks we have seen that the fields truly are ‘white unto harvest’. Pray with us for ‘the Lord of the harvest to send more workers into the harvest field’.

LOOK! camp Aug 3-5

One of the highlights of this term was the evangelistic camp at the start of August. Six years ago we had 15 students at our first camp, this year there were 90 students from five towns and cities! Particularly exciting was the fact that over 60 of these students were not yet believers! Praise God for a very special opportunity to spend two days living together sharing not only fun and games but also the Gospel. Three times during the weekend the students sat in small groups and studied the life of Jesus Christ.

Give thanks with us for God’s faithful provision in enabling this camp to go ahead. Praise God too for students who expressed a willingness to follow Jesus Christ.

Many others also asked to study the Bible when they returned home and staff are now following these students up. Pray for perseverance and for God to reveal himself to these students.

Pray too for Christian students from Uthai (40 mins from us) and Banphot (30 mins from us) who are beginning to consider the possibility of having their own CUs in their towns.