In some of the hardest places to be a Christian, workers like Caitlin are sharing the hope of the gospel through our pioneering Faithful Witness programme.
For the past two-and-a-half years, Caitlin’s been serving as part of a multi-ethnic team team in Ayutthaya, Thailand. She currently works alongside a Thai family serving a small church plant that seeks to reach out to the local community and to disciple believers.
“The Faithful Witness initiative exists to launch multi-skilled, multi-ethnic teams in communities around the world with limited or no access to the gospel,” she explains.
Sent by Euston Church, London, where she previously served as a student ministry trainee, Caitlin is using her skills to serve in a campus ministry at a local university, engaging with students and sharing the gospel with them.
“I’ve been going onto campus on and off since we began our ministry here and trying to get to know students. It wasn’t going anywhere, partly because of language barriers, and partly because of the difficulties of trying to go in alone.”
But God’s perfect timing led to a breakthrough that helped transform the ministry. One of Caitlin’s colleagues, Kanya*, decided she wanted to get involved with supporting the campus ministry. At the same time, the Campus Crusade team from Bangkok decided to make Ayutthaya one of its outreach branches. With the help of the Bangkok team organising events like a Valentine’s Day celebration, Caitlin’s been able to continue conversations with some of the students she’d met during previous university visits.
Through these opportunities, student Mai* made the decision to put her trust in Jesus. It wasn’t an easy decision to make. While it’s not against the law to follow Jesus in Ayutthaya, it’s a cultural and social challenge. Some of Mai’s friends were taken aback that she wanted to follow Jesus and asked if she was sure and knew what she was believing in.
But previous encounters with Christians and opportunities to read the Bible together shaped Mai’s commitment in that moment, which is an encouraging reminder how God can use gospel interactions stored in people’s hearts in his perfect timing.
“We’re praising God for graciously allowing us to meet Mai at this point of her journey and pray she and Kanya will soon be able to start working through some discipleship material together,” says Caitlin.
With everyone working together, the outreach on campus has been much more effective and gained a lot more traction, and it’s an exciting area to see how God will work in the future.
Please pray
- that God’s Word would increase and multiply on campus and for the hearts of many to turn back to him. Pray for more workers to make this possible, and for the administration involved;
- for God to be glorified as people are brought to personally know and worship him as disciples of Jesus Christ;
- for Mai, as she explores Christianity and members of the campus ministry team walk alongside her.
Interested in serving with Faithful Witness?
Gospel seeds are being planted in nine least-reached communities around the world by Faithful Witness teams of workers sent from 22 different nations. However, we still need new workers willing to follow Jesus to the hard places and cross barriers with the gospel.
Email [email protected] if you’re interested in serving, or have any questions, and visit the Faithful Witness website to learn more about the impact our teams are having in Thailand, North Africa, Mali, Chad, Nigeria, East Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia.
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*names changed.