Thank you for praying for our D4D Trip to Santa Cruz and Cochabamba, Bolivia from November 13 – 24, 2025! It was a great trip, and I want to share one Saturday morning with you.

 Would you like to meet a “ripe,” ready, eager-to-learn whole life discipleship team? Just as a mango matures to the place it is “ripe” and ready to pick and eat, so a team can be “ripe” and eager to learn. I’m going to share from our three-hour visit to the Cochabamba team.

 What makes this team ripe?

• They are organized and used our time together well.
• They know their lessons, and instead of only studying the first required eight-lessons have gone much further than we expected. We love their initiative!
• They shared how their current lesson of Resource Mapping had taught them about their local community including which languages their neighbors speak.
• They are using the lessons, like “Seven minutes with God” on how to organize a quick daily devotional study with their families. One man lives in a home with 12 people, and his grandkids ask him, “When are we doing our Seven Minutes with God today?”
• They are an eight-person team and have five small groups in their homes where they are facilitating the lessons with their families and some neighbors. We haven’t yet asked them to do this! They are taking the initiative!
• We came ready for a devotional study, but they had one already prepared!
• We tested their level of teaching in an adult learning style where facilitators ask questions to guide the group, instead of the prevalent rote-memory education system including preaching and most teaching they are used to. They have room to grow in this area, and now that they know what we are looking for I’m expecting to see some growth. We will also do a full workshop in Adult Learning and Bible Telling next year.
• We got in one lesson on making Personal Development Plans so they can better apply lessons they are learning to their lives. Their level of participation in this lesson shows that Antonio has been using adult learning methods and they are eager to participate.

I have coached some good teams, and Gary Hipp has coached even more. We both felt that this is the ripest team we have ever encountered this early in the process. This was Rodiz Chambi’s first coaching trip, and he said, “Now I know what a ‘ripe’ team looks and feels like!” I am excited to coach this team along with Rodiz and Pablo, giving them an excellent example as they help us coach other teams in the Santa Cruz area. By God’s grace, their eagerness to learn, along with the transformation we will be seeing in their lives, families, church and community will be a valuable foundation to grow a whole-life, disciple-making movement on!

Back Row left to right: Marcario Salva, Rodiz Chambi (coaching with Gary Hipp and David Thomas) Pablo, Rolando Vasquez. Front left to right Veronica, Isidora Chipana (Marcario’s wife), Pascuala Aruquipa, Bernardo Mendoza, and kneeling on the floor Pastor Antonio Mamani (D4D Team leader). They belong to the “Iglesia Vida Para Todos,” a Friends church in Cochabamba.

I included this picture here with their names because some of you like to pray for these people by name. Your prayers make a difference! Thank you in advance for investing prayer in their lives. It is my privilege to coach this group, and to focus your intercession in the place where it is going to have a great impact. Thank you for joining us in prayer!

The Lord bless you!
David Thomas

Planting whole-life, disciple-making movements

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. Psalm 67:1-2

The post David Thomas | December Update first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

  

This Christmas season, we celebrate Jesus, “Light of the world!” We remember, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it!” At the very beginning of creation, “God proclaimed, ‘Let there be light, and there was light!” I am so grateful God continues to command his light into the darkness, the chaos, the barrenness of our lives and world. Now, his promise is, “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea!” May God make “His light shine in our hearts so we can know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Christ Jesus,” this Christmas season!*

I am grateful for the privilege of taking a sabbatical from June – October this year. Debby and I celebrated our 30^th anniversary! Our first two grandkids were born. I enjoyed being available to invest in relationships with our children. As far as my personal growth goes, three main points stand out: I rest in his love (my place of identity), I host his presence, and I submerge everything under his blood.

I am grateful for all of you who pray for me, and support me financially. If you have a need you would like me to pray for, please let me know. I have several ongoing requests I am holding up before Papa, pressing in for healing and breakthrough in his perfect timing.

If you are not on my monthly financial support team, I invite you to ask Holy Spirit to see if he would have you join us. The button below will take you to my online giving page!

May you be blessed this Christmas season!

David Thomas

Planting whole-life, disciple-making movements

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. Psalm 67:1-2

* John 8:12, John 1:5, Genesis 1:3, Habakkuk 2:14, 2 Corinthians 4:6

The post David Thomas Lightcome End of Year Newsletter first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

Dear Friends,

I am excited to announce that EFM is allowing me to take the next four months as a sabbatical switching my work focus from my ministry to growing in my primary relationships with God, my Debby, and my children. I have come to realize that I have held my ministry and my calling over my family. What a gift to understand this and to have the next months to turn this around. God led Adam into an amazing calling of ruling the whole earth, and they worked hard together naming the animals; fully understanding them, and learning how to steward them. Yet in the middle of all this fulfilling work, God said, “It is not good for Adam to be alone!” Adam first of all needed a deep, intimate relationship with God, then a deep intimate relationship with Eve, and out of these two primary relationships would flow the rest of life; including his calling and ministry. So, I am taking this time to bring my Debby and our kids and their families back into the right, high priority in my life.

I love the grace of this time to lay down my calling, my ministry, my intercession, my D4D teams and projects, and to focus on becoming all that Papa has created me to be. I also physically need this time to fully recuperate from a nine-month parasitic infection.

All my Discipling for Development teams are in good hands. Gary Hipp is leading the Bolivia D4D team with amazing people from the US, Mexico, Chile, and Bolivia. Scott Purser with Navigators USA is leading our amazing Thailand D4D team accompanied by Ronald Mazune working with Navigators Uganda, and also our former D4D coach for our team in Rwanda. Our various Rwandan D4D teams are currently led by Nsabimana Tertullien along with Gerard and Augustin. EFM is also progressing well on its Luke 10 Initiative of starting at least 5 new fields with 10 new missionary households by the end of 2025. I am free to take the next four months to release, rest, recover, reflect, renew, and re-establish my priority relationships, refocus, realign, and at the end of my sabbatical time re-engage in the amazing ministry God has given me.

I am including two videos I took in Thailand this last January- February 2024 trip. The first video is a one-minute view early in the morning above our special Discipling for Development village of JaSoPa (above). The second video is six minutes long and is for those interested in praying with me over JaSoPa village. I pray “Let Your Light Come!” as well as pray through the Lord’s Prayer and Isaiah 61:1-3 (below).

Thank you in advance for praying with me for a more intimate and trusting relationship with Papa, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit through this sabbatical time, as well as for some wonderful growth in my relationships with my family! Pray also for the full restoration of my gut health and physical strength!

I won’t be sending updates until it is time to reengage in four or so months.

Bless you!

David Thomas

Planting whole-life, disciple-making movements

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.” Psalm 67:1-2

The post David Thomas June 2024 Lightcome Newsletter first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

David Thomas | Whole-Life Discipleship

Have you ever asked what your ROI, your “return on investment,” will be? As missionaries Debby and I invested twenty years of our lives in Rwanda, and many of you invested prayers and financial support right alongside us. What is our ROI for that twenty-plus-year investment?

I got to visit Rwanda this past January, and I was amazed to see how much has changed in the culture of our Friends churches over time. I remember as a young missionary in the late 1990s and early 2000s how church leaders would come to me asking for help. Some couldn’t pay for their kids’ school fees. Others couldn’t pay for family medical expenses. I remember some of their children dying from things like malaria. Most didn’t own their own homes. Many leaders felt it was the responsibility of the mission and the national church to provide for their needs. This was a weight beyond the resources of our family, the church, or EFM. It was too heavy for me to carry.

On this trip, I noticed how much has changed over the years. With a deep trust in God and a “nitwe tubikora (we will do it)” mentality, Rwandans have taken responsibility for overcoming many of the barriers they faced. Many leaders have bought land and built their own homes. Three pastors showed me the land they bought and thousands of trees they’ve planted for their retirement. I got to talk with our superintendent Aaron Mupenda whose leadership in the last ten years has been instrumental in helping stabilize the church and pastors in particular. Every pastoral family now has quality health insurance. Most have some stable income from the church and also have family businesses to supplement this income. Many leaders are saving together, as well as loaning to each other.

Our Discipling for Development leaders actively demonstrate homes and lives that steward well the resources they have been given. Groups of leaders from the denomination’s executive council down to local savings groups meet together regularly encouraging each other to follow through on their families’ holistic, personal development plans.

Pastor Gerard took us around the countryside within miles of his church of Rugarama, where we toured four new church buildings. Pastor Vincent with his wife Bernadette of Burera Friends invited us into their new home. They have six children, four in high school and two in university. They pay for all of them to study! He is a farmer and an amazing pastor motivating others to follow his example, and stewarding well all God has given them.

What is our ROI (Return on Investment)? From my vantage point, from this recent trip, as my Dad says, “it is the normalness of God’s kingdom,” which is “way beyond all we could ask or imagine (Eph 3:21)!”

As we look forward, what an amazing privilege we now have to invest in future mission fields through our Luke 10 Initiative through prayer, time, and finances! Rwanda is now one of our partner yearly meetings actively planning to send missionaries to South Sudan, and we might have the privilege of partnering with them in this venture! Our ROI from past investments keeps on growing, and the ROI in our current and future Luke 10 Initiatives is full of potential.

 “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!” Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21

David Thomas

Download this month’s full prayer letter here…

The post May 2024 Prayer Letter first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

David at home in La Paz, celebrating the sun shining on Mount Illimani after days of his mountain being hidden in the clouds!

Trip to the cities of Santa Cruz, Cochabamba & La Paz Bolivia | February 27 – March 11, 2024

Trip Purpose:

After our Discipling for Development team purchased tickets for this trip, we learned that Food for the Hungry-Bolivia was no longer able to continue a coaching relationship with us, so this trip has switched from the original purpose of exploring and deepening our relationship with FHI-Bolivia to holding a one-day vision casting workshop for 50 participants coming from former FHI-Bolivia church connections. Food for the Hungry is hosting this last workshop for us in Cochabamba. In Santa Cruz, we will connect with Rodiz and Stefanie Chambi as well as with Pablo and Karen Peñaloza. Pablo’s church in Santa Cruz is the only committed church so far, so we will be getting to know them and their context better. I will also connect with Friends Church (INELA) leaders to see if they might want to include some churches in the Discipling for Development process along with us.

Other team members will be flying out on February 28 and back on March 8.

Stefanie and Rodiz Chambi are walking with their baby Eden Rose with Cintia Huayhua walking between them. David Thomas is standing on the right with Pablo Peñaloza. These are the key people we are mentoring.

Praises and Prayer Requests:

• Praise God for good relationships with leaders working for Food for The Hungry and Compassion International, even though they have not been able to continue working with us. Some leaders have taken up our offer to personally disciple/coach/mentor them. Pray for these relationships to be a blessing to these leaders and pray for grace for them to grow as Holy Spirit leads them.
• Pray for God’s favor, blessing, and grace to rest on us as we connect with key leaders God has led us to mentor: as we get to know Pablo Peñaloza, his wife, Karen and their six children, and his local church setting in Santa Cruz. Pray for a deepening relationship with Rodiz and Stefanie and baby Eden Rose. We will also see Cintia Huayhua who has a good discipling relationship with Merri Lee and Judy.
• Pray for health, strength, energy, excellent Spanish, and good communication with all those participating in the one-day whole-life discipleship vision casting seminar (Wednesday, March 6) with church leaders invited by Food for the Hungry – Bolivia. Pray for safety in travel for all those coming (often a day’s drive from their cities).
• Pray for favor for me and Rodiz as we meet with various Friends (INELA) church leaders to see if they would like to participate in our Discipling for Development coaching with a few key churches they would like to see adopt whole-life discipleship.
• Pray for me. I am learning to be continually centered, grounded, and rooted in Christ’s love. I know that I am his “beloved ‘huios’ (son, heir, family representative), that Papa is pleased with me, (that he trusts me), that his delight rests on me.” (Luke 3:22) Pray for these truths to root deep down in all aspects of who I am.
• Pray for my Debby to have a strong sense of Papa’s presence with her and pleasure in her as she is alone while I’m gone. Pray for all the grace, favor, Holy Spirit insight, and wisdom she needs in her leadership roles.

I am grateful for many of you who keep up with me on these trips and pray for me. Thank you! I pray God’s blessing flows into your lives in every way! If there is something you would like me to be praying for that you are facing, please let me know. I have several ongoing requests I am holding up before Papa, and I am trusting for healing and breakthrough in his perfect timing.

If you are not on my monthly financial support team, I invite you to join us! Ask, Holy Spirit to see if he would have you join us. There are four ways to give:

• Online. Visit https://catalog.friendsmission.com/thomas. You’ll be given the opportunity to indicate whether you are making a recurring or one-time gift.
• Credit Card. This may be given online (as stated above) or by calling the EFM office (303-421-8100) to give your information to a live person.
• Automatic Bank Transfer. Download the form here and email it Debby McElroy (EFM Bookkeeper) at debby@friendsmission.com. Please note that ACH payments are processed on the 10th or 25th of the month.
• Check. Mail a check to EFM, P.O. Box 771139, Wichita, KS 67277. Make sure to mark your check “Thomas Support” and note if you will be giving on a recurring basis (monthly, quarterly, etc.). Pay to the order of “EFM.”

David Thomas

Planting whole-life, disciple-making movements

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.” Psalm 67:1-2

The post David Thomas: Join Me in Prayer for My Trip to Bolivia (Feb-Mar 2024)! first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

Thank you very much for praying with us over this trip. Our Discipling for Development coaching week was productive. My favorite part was visiting JaSoPa village, where we spent the night and also observed an excellent lesson with a root-cause analysis on garbage in the village. We were especially impressed with the high participation and excitement of the villagers as they talked about the negative aspects of trash and then the root causes of this problem.

This is their eighth root cause study. They have been studying the negative results of problems in their village, and the roots of these problems. Today happened to be a physical problem. It was encouraging to see in their discussions how they are integrating all aspects of life, spiritual, social, physical, economic, etc. as they seek to better understand their context and as they seek to find the key areas they want to problem-solve in a discipleship process in the next couple years.

Enjoy experiencing this moment with us, and thank you for your ongoing support of this work!

Check out this video to see a quick glimpse of what we do on these trips! 

Bless you!

David Thomas

Planting whole-life, disciple-making movements

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.” Psalm 67:1-2

The post David Thomas Prayer: A Post Trip Report from My Trip to Thailand February 2024 first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

Chiang Rai, Thailand | Jan 24 – Feb 8, 2024

 Trip Calendar

For this prayer update, I’m going to include Scott’s prayer guide for this trip. It gives an excellent short history of our work with The Way Foundation in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Enjoy!

Thailand Trip – Purser Prayer Guide

Dear Friends,

Twenty years ago, David Kibbe, an American math teacher in Bangkok, saw the need in northern Thailand to begin a pastor and evangelist training program with a vision for training indigenous leaders in Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos (the Golden Triangle region). As he met with Lahu leaders, he learned that often church leaders were unable to articulate the gospel and had few resources and methods to study the Bible. Furthermore, he saw a clear need for discipleship and a vision for reproducing disciples (2 Timothy 2:2).

David and his wife Marilyn moved to Chiang Rai and began a small pastor and evangelist program among the Lahu. By 2012, the Kibbe’s son, Ben, also became a missionary to Thailand through Evangelical Friends in Ohio. Ben was instrumental in working with key Lahu Christian leaders to establish an official Thai ministry called The Way Foundation. The three-pronged purpose of The Way Foundation included the pastor and evangelist training program and also added a focus on planting new churches and focusing on holistic discipleship within Lahu villages. In 2016, Ben’s wife, Charity, a nurse, visited Colorado Springs (along with several of her prayer team members) and attended Discipling for Development’s initial ministry course called, “Foundations for holistic ministry,” a focus on using empowerment methods, whole-life discipleship and available resources to advance the Kingdom of God.

In 2017, The Way Foundation invited Discipling for Development to begin training their team in Chiang Rai, northern Thailand. They invited David Thomas, a missionary from the Evangelical Friends Mission, to be the liaison between Discipling for Development and The Way Foundation. David had effectively used the Discipling for Development method of ministry during his years in Rwanda. In 2018, David invited me (Scott) to form a small team of two to help coach the Lahu team through the five phases of Discipling for Development (preparation, exploration, mobilization, empowerment, and reproduction). Each year we make two or three visits to Thailand to coach, mentor, and train the team as they seek to disciple their communities in the hills of northern Thailand. About once or twice a month we also Zoom with two key leaders (Yosapa and Mana) to maintain relationships, talk about their work in communities, brainstorm together, and consider how to stir up the team towards love and good works (Hebrews 10: 24).

On this trip, David Thomas and I will team up to coach the team as they continue through what we call the mobilization phase. The mobilization phase is working with a community to help them identify and discover their strengths and obstacles and ultimately decide for themselves what areas they would like to receive training in to help their communities thrive. In the past few months, Yosapa and Mana have been traveling every other Sunday to two different Lahu villages and have been helping two small churches through this process. Recently, it has involved taking topics that the communities have selected such as a lack of Bible training or struggles with planning or problems between husbands and wives, and going through a “root cause analysis” process. What are the core roots of these types of struggles? As they continue to do this, they ultimately will develop a curriculum of topics they want to receive training in to help their community. As we meet, we will go through their conclusions based on their research.

Right: Yosapa and team members discussing barriers to their development in JaSoPa village’s ‘candy-wrapper vote’ in September 2023.

The last time we were with this team was in September 2023. On this trip, in addition to helping the team through the mobilization phase, we will follow up with a training we did on coaching methods. We will also get updates on how the Discipling for Development team (YoSaPa and Mana) is doing and work together with them in thinking through the next steps and training for the coming three months. Here are some specific prayer requests:

• In the words of 2 Timothy 2: 1, “be strengthened by the grace [power] that is in Christ Jesus.” We hope that insights in coaching this team will come from God, and not from our own human wisdom and strength. We don’t just want good ideas, but to know that God is the one who is empowering us all through the Holy Spirit.
• For health, energy, and strength throughout the two weeks. On short trips like these, it feels like you are only just recovering from jetlag by the time you come back home again. On our last few trips, we have experienced some levels of sickness. It is also very common for translators and other Lahu team members to experience various kinds of sickness.
• To be the aroma of Christ. The apostle Paul writes, “Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Corinthians 2: 16). But we want to spread “the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere” (vs. 14). Please pray that Christ would be central in all that we do.
• To abound in every good work. “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). Often, we don’t know the full situation of things until we meet and begin sharing with each other. As mentioned above, we want to hold on to God who gives this grace for all times and all situations.

Thank you for praying through these areas as you think of our team in Thailand.

Warmly in Christ,

Scott

From David:

Scott and I will also participate with EFM’s field director Dan Cammack and former EFM missionary to Thailand, Ben Kibbe, along with The Way Foundation leaders as they seek to strengthen their relationship. They will be looking at how TWF and EFM can work well together in promoting the growth of God’s kingdom throughout the Lahu peoples with Bible training, leadership development, church planting and whole-life discipleship. They will be looking at the unique challenges of church planting in their context. We will be looking at how EFM can best partner with them to encourage them to be and achieve all that God has called them to.

Thank you-all for praying with us on this trip!

Bless you!

David Thomas

The post David Thomas Prayer Update: January 2024 Trip to Thailand first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

I’m in Musanze, Rwanda with my Discipling for Development team. We have two days of coaching together this Wednesday and Thursday in this first week of January. I made a short video to introduce them and invite you to pray with us for these special days of coaching.

• Pray I will listen well to Holy Spirit and to what Brad, Augustin, Gerard and Tertullien have to say.
• Pray I will have the wisdom and insight needed to respond with excellent coaching questions to the priority issues my team chooses.
• Pray that our being together will be a synergistic boost of encouragement and Holy Spirit insight for future direction.
• Pray that I will hear what Holy Spirit wants to say! Growing in my sensitivity to Holy Spirit and to quickly obey is my priority.
• Pray that my Kinyarwanda language ability will rise back up to a strong level quickly!
• I preach on Sunday, pray I’ll discern and put together the message Holy Spirit wants me to bring.

Thank you so much for supporting me in prayer! Your prayers make a difference!

May you be blessed in every way in this new year!

David Thomas
Planting whole-life, disciple-making movements
303-717-4519

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.” Psalm 67:1-2

The post David Thomas January 2024 Prayer Assignment first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

David at home in La Paz, celebrating the sun shining on Mount Illimani after days of his mountain being hidden in the clouds!

Trip to the cities of La Paz and Sucre, Bolivia, November 24 – December 9, 2023

Trip Purpose:

We will facilitate a coaching workshop for three days of our first week for Food for the Hungry (FH)– Bolivia leaders including a few leaders from other ministries. This will be held in La Paz close to FH’s national office. The second week in Sucre we will facilitate an Adult Learning and Bible Telling five-day workshop with Food for the Hungry leaders and their local team leaders. We will also have conversations with FH leaders as to how to organize ongoing training with them throughout the year.

 Praises and Prayer Requests:

• Praise God for this amazing opportunity to work with a well-known and successful Christian development organization, Food for the Hungry International-Bolivia! We are no longer working with Compassion International – Bolivia as their Colorado Springs office has another program that they want them to follow. We wish them well. FH wants to see their partner churches and communities gain a strong sense of ownership and empowerment in effectively reaching out to their own communities, long-term after their partnership with them ends. They are inviting us to walk alongside them in the process of improving their organization and methodologies to more effectively see the kingdom of God expand through their work throughout Bolivia. What a privilege!
• Pray for our three-day coaching workshop with FH leaders and a few other leaders we are also training, including our Navigator leaders. Gary, Merri Lee, and I will facilitate this workshop for everyone else. Pray for people to understand Christ’s empowering leadership. Pray for a strong desire to grow in participants to be a more empowering leader, and pray for some excellent experience in coaching, and a commitment in the months ahead to practice these skills. Pray for FH leaders to see ways to improve their organization’s leadership culture to become more empowering, with a growing strong value of developing the leaders they have and work with.
• Pray for our Adult Learning workshop for people to understand the “why” behind the way we facilitate, to desire to learn how to teach in this way, and to commit to taking some practical steps to grow personally and especially for those who will be on local D4D teams, that they will practice this method of facilitation.
• Pray for our Bible Telling workshop for people to see the value and effectiveness of studying God’s word in this powerful and involved way. Pray they would catch the vision of this method and that they would commit to practicing it. This skill often brings a strong “win” to those beginning to implement Discipling for Development in their churches and communities. This is a powerful way to connect people in our churches and communities to Bible study in a much more accessible way than using traditional preaching or teaching methods.
• Pray for our team:
  • Gary and Merri Lee Hipp – American missionaries who coached our Rwanda D4D team. They are an amazing team who have led D4D for many years. Gary is our team leader. They are learning Spanish and will facilitate a few lessons with Katia interpreting for them.
  • David Thomas – Evangelical Friends Missionary blessed to partner with The Navigators D4D in this new work in Bolivia and a former missionary kid from Bolivia.
  • Judy Camp – American Navigator ministry with Hispanic ladies in Los Angeles for many years.
  • Bruce Hook – American Navigator working with American Navigator missionaries and Latin American Navigators in member care in Latin America.
  • Sergio and Mónica are Mexican Latin American Navigators.
  • Marcia and Carlos are Chilean Latin American Navigators.
  • Cintia Huayhua – FH worker, Friends church member, future missionary hopeful.
  • Stefanie and Rodiz Chambi – Friends church members, and future missionaries to the Middle East. Stefanie has been translating our material into Spanish!
• Pray for God’s favor, blessing, and grace to rest on us! Pray for wisdom and Holy Spirit insight as we walk alongside FH a YWAM leader, his local church in Santa Cruz, and a Bolivian Friends missionary couple to the Chiman people.
• Pray for health, strength, energy, excellent Spanish, and excellent communication with all those participating in these seminars.
• Pray for safety in travel for all those coming (often a day’s drive from their cities). Pray for health for everyone during the two weeks of seminars.
• Pray for me. I am learning to be continually centered, grounded, and rooted in Christ’s love. I know that I am his “beloved ‘huios’ (son, heir, family representative), that Papa is pleased with me, (that he trusts me), that his delight rests on me.” (Luke 3:22) Pray for these truths to be deeply rooted in me, in who I am.
• Pray also for me to be continually aware of Holy Spirit’s presence and nudging, to find a good rhythm of rest alongside the times of intense focus in facilitating and listening to others facilitate. Pray for growth in my emotional intelligence and awareness of everything and everyone around me. Pray for God’s favor to rest on me!

Bless you!

David Thomas

The post Join David Thomas in Prayer for his November/December Trip to Bolivia! first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

A Report from Chiang Rai, Thailand | September 20-30, 2023

Thank you for supporting me in prayer on this last trip. I felt Holy Spirit’s presence in many ways.

JaSoPa church members displaying the major five barriers out of 20 holding them down in poverty.

Mana and Yosapa facilitate a discussion in the church of JaSoPa.

•    At the beginning of the trip I got to go to the JaSoPa village with Yosapa, and I got to observe Yosapa and Mana work together as an amazing team with local pastor MoPa. I also got to observe them facilitate the “obstacles to our development” lesson along with witnessing the animated conversations, vote, and final list of the key obstacles they face.
• By the end of the week, they presented to me a calendar plan for the next four months and the specific obstacles they will be analyzing with the JaSoPa team members looking at the “bad fruit (results)” of various problems they face as well as the root causes of these problems.
• Continue praying with us and JaSoPa that they will come to see clearly and to own the problems they face. Pray for the Holy Spirit’s insight all through this process.
• Pray for hope to grow in them; that they continue to grow in seeing themselves as placed by God in their village to steward all that he has given them. Pray they come to see themselves with eyes of hope that they are God’s salt and light to bring his message of salvation to others in their village, that he wants to see his kingdom grow through them in JaSoPa!

Abo and Naloka share their resource drawings along with the large full village resource map behind them.

Mana and his wife, Naku, offering a delicious desert of bright purple dragon fruit!

• I appreciate walking this coaching path with Scott Purser who is an excellent fellow coach.
• On this trip I noticed a strong sense of ownership in Yosapa and Mana, for their plan for the lessons they are facilitating, for their discipling relationships in the villages, and for the great way they work together as a team. When I see this level of empowerment, I realize my work with them will be coming to an end. We still have a good two years of coaching through the Empowerment Phase, but the level of dependence on us as coaches is beginning to switch. This is a very encouraging observation.
• Our two days of coaching workshops went well with each participant experiencing one hour of coaching through their own issues as well as each participant getting to coach each other for one hour. Chalee appreciated the step of brainstorming out all the various options they could think of related to the issues they were discussing.
• It has been seven years since I made my first “vision casting/exploration” trip to Chiang Rai with Ben Kibbe and team. It has been six years since we have been formally following the Discipling for Development process, and by subtracting almost two lost years because of COVID-19, we are finishing our fourth year in our D4D process here in Chiang Rai, Thailand. This is very encouraging as we enter the last four months of the Mobilization Phase and get ready to enter the Empowerment Phase in February of 2024.
• I got pretty sick on Wednesday night with a fever, chills, an achy body, a debilitating headache, throwing up, and diarrhea. I slept a day and a half, got some tests done at a hospital and was able to fly out by Friday evening, sleeping again all day Saturday in Korea. I started feeling better on the long flight over the Pacific. I’m grateful Scott could finish up the important coaching of those last two days while I rested. I’m also grateful to have him to travel with as I made my way back home.

A cheerful old lady in JaSoPa.

Scott facilitating the coaching workshop with Jason and Yosapa on either side.

Dear friends, I am still in a friend-raising, fundraising mode seeking new partners that want to join me as prayer partners, and also as monthly financial partners. I am currently supported at around 69% of my budget needed to take these coaching trips. Thank you in advance for asking Holy Spirit if he would encourage you to join my team! There are four ways to give:

• Online. Visit https://catalog.friendsmission.com/thomas. You’ll be given the opportunity to indicate whether you are making a recurring or one-time gift.
• Credit Card. This may be given online (as stated above) or by calling the EFM office (303-421-8100) to give your information to a live person.
• Automatic Bank Transfer. Download the form here and email it Debby McElroy (EFM Bookkeeper) at debby@friendsmission.com. Please note that ACH payments are processed on the 10th or 25th of the month.
• Check. Mail a check to EFM, P.O. Box 771139, Wichita, KS 67277. Make sure to mark your check “Thomas Support” and note if you will be giving on a recurring basis (monthly, quarterly, etc.). Pay to the order of “EFM.”

Thank you again for your prayers!

David Thomas

The post A Post Trip Report from My Trip to Thailand- October 2023 first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.