Hi All,
An update on the Penningtons is in order! My father-in-law often tells me that an entrepreneur works to develop value without regard to present resources (Did I get that right Jack?) So, I am going to tell you about some of our entrepreneurial efforts. Working in Northern Thailand as missionaries/teachers pioneering (you might say entrepreneuring) a local missionary/international school, our ultimate desire is to see evangelism happen, churches planted, and people served. Long ago God challenged Julie and me to use our training and experience in the field of education to consider how we evangelize through learning institutions. We have spent our years in Thailand at various Thai universities and schools in order to share Christ with Asian students. Presently the Lord has challenged us to partner with Chiang Rai International Christian School (CRICS) to develop what was a small missionary family home school co-op known as the Family Learning Center (FLC) into a fully registered international school in compliance with Thai government regulations. Julie supervises the elementary program and teaches in the school half days. Our two older children attend the school while our youngest son, Jak, attends a local Thai preschool in the mornings to strengthen his Thai language. We are asking God to give us another child, and are currently waiting on adopting another child through the Thai government system. Recently I spoke to our social worker and she encouraged me that the Thai government is beginning a new program developing connections with private agencies that will assist them in, among other efforts, finding the right little girl for us. She asked me to wait for another month for more information, and she sounded quite positive. Please pray for the connections between these agencies and for our social worker to find our little girl. But enough about us, I really want to tell you about the school…
The potential for community impact through FLC/CRICS motivates all of us who work here. Uniquely exciting about this opportunity is the promise that a teacher can come here with no knowledge of the Thai language, commit to only one or two years of teaching, and still make a life-changing and eternally significant impact. Wow! Many missionaries take years in missions training courses along with language and culture learning before they get the go ahead to enter a community at this level. Yet, our teachers impact the lives of the Northern Thailand community every day in the classroom. How? The impact points are many. We educate students from various cultures who will be future church and community leaders both in Thailand and beyond. We educate children from missionary families and thus facilitate service to the community through the love of Christ in our families’ various missions. We introduce Christ to our Thai students; many have accepted Jesus as their Lord and are influencing their families. And of course Jesus is always working and impacting this community in new ways that surprise all of us.
All of this is wonderful. However, we cannot continue our efforts to serve the servants and leaders of this community unless we have great teachers. This is our primary challenge, and this is where your church community may have a role in Northern Thailand. What possibilities exist in your church to help our community impact Northern Thailand, Burma and Laos?
Consider with me some options that would allow church members to be introduced to our community for short-term commitments of a month or two up to long-term commitments of one and two years. Short-term assignments could range from substitute teaching or short courses, athletic camps, library projects, science fairs and outreach trips with the students.
For long-term commitments, we are specifically looking for two types of teachers (Really, any skilled teacher is desired, but these are two areas that work really well.) First, might your church community encourage young singles or recent college graduates to take a few years and spend it in a place like Thailand? Kind of a "Peace Corp" program out of your local church community. What if young people caught the vision of serving abroad for a stint before they got into their long-term career path? What if your community was dedicated to financially supporting part of an effort like this? (partial funding might be best, challenging new graduates to grow through fund raising efforts). This could have profound implications for your church's mission program and the overall worldview of the church.
As for the second possible type teacher, right now we have some teachers from the Baptist Denomination, International Ministries who have previously taught many years in American public schools and now are spending some of their retired years teaching in Thailand. Could your church be a part of challenging retirees (especially from education fields) to spend some of their retired years making a difference in Thailand? Our retired teacher volunteers routinely comment on how FLC/CRICS is a refreshing place for veteran teachers to use their years of skill and experience in small classrooms with well-behaved students who are highly motivated to learn.
Our school is made up of Nazarenes, Baptist, the Brethren, and Presbyterian churches, as well as many other international Christian missions and groups such as OMF and MUPS. Your Church or denomination could also be a part of this opportunity to make a difference, and I have yet to mention the gospel impact our teachers have on Thailand when the classroom teaching is over for the day.
Of course funds for our project are also necessary. Many churches give generously to help this school serve missionaries, yet financial backing is only a part of how a church could connect with this project. Quite frankly, we want your lives. We want other lovers of Jesus joining in on the blessings and challenges of this work.
Now that I have given you the fire hose of information about this vision and our dreams, what is God saying to you in this? Could we continue this conversation by email or phone?
My email: brent@flcschool.com our school principal’s email: ruth@flcschool.com
Here are some relevant web sites for our school…
FLC/CRICS school web site: http://www.flcschool.com/
FLC/CRICS fund raising web site: http://sites.google.com/site/flcfundraising/
Thanks for reading and considering all this. I appreciate you and your community.
We will be in the states this summer and would love to connect with possible volunteers.
Peace of Christ,
Brent, Julie, Ben, Kate and Jak
