Grace and peace to you through Christ our Lord in this blessed New Year!

Highlights!

1.        Liza and I just got back from a wonderful Christmas vacation trip to northern Thailand's mountains where we explored new parts of the country and visited a student's family in a hill-tribe village.

2.        Sermons are going well and I am really enjoying preaching on the topic of leadership.

3.        My education class (teaching Master of Divinity students how to teach English effectively while teaching them educational theory that will give them tools to be better teachers, communicators and leaders overall)

4.        Exciting conversations about developing more educations classes at BIT to help the Christian schools in Thailand reach new heights of excellence, unity, and mission.

5.        Liza and I have applied to schools all over the world and will be going to London in February for an International School Job Fair.

Dear friends and supporters,

     I had a tumultuous couple months.  Fortunately it never seemed to affect me too much despite my projector breaking, my email account getting stolen, unexpected barriers in obtaining my teaching license and a new schedule at BIT that more than doubled my workload.  On the good side: Just before Christmas, Dell decided to replace the broken part of the projector ($400 lamp) even though it was 3 months past warranty, GO DELL! Though I have not been able to get my email account back, the thieves have not tried to use the information in it to do any serious damage...mostly I just lost a lot of information and some great conversations I've had over the last 10 years.  The test I need to take for my teacher's certificate is being offered in Bangkok. My added classes have been a true blessing as they have rejuvenated my passion for education and allowed me to grow closer to some students I would not have otherwise met.  God is good, all the time; all the time God is good!
 

Traveling Stories!!!         
 

    Probably the thing that is most fun to share about over the past 4 months is the two vacations we've had.  In October Liza and I went to Burma (Myanmar) for our honeymoon.  I know it might not grab you as a honeymoon spot, but we loved it.  Pagan is an ancient city with over 2000 temples that are about 900 years old built in roughly the same era as Angkor Wat in Cambodia.  It was amazing for us to reflect about lengths people go to in search of God. 

   Our second trip was to experience some cool air we heard about, which I didn't believe existed, and to visit one of my students.  During our Christmas holiday, we traveled on the motorcycle pictured left with Liza in the saddle.  Rented for about $10 a day, we spent about 15 hours driving over 5 days.  To our surprise the mountains in northwestern Thailand are both majestic and the breathtaking.  One night it even got down to 3 degrees Celsius (35 Fahrenheit).   Visiting my student, Gumchai, was a humbling experience for us both, especially when it came time to exchange Christmas gifts.  Hill tribe people are among the poorest people in the whole country and yet they were incredibly generous with their time and resources. Gumchai's mom made a beautiful shirt for Liza and a bag for me by hand; a job that took her 4 days. In order to politely reciprocate I ended up calling some Thai friends for advice. It turns out that money in an envelope was the best gift for them and the one they most appreciated.
 

BIT Student Profile:

    Gumchai is yet another incredible BIT story.  He is the oldest of three in his family, (pictured above in the communal bedroom/ living room) but the only able bodied child.  His 19 year old brother and 13 year old sister (bottom right) are both severely physically handicapped, which is a tremendous burden for an impoverished family because there is no one left at home to work the land.  Despite the obstacles his family faced, they all made sacrifices to sendGumchai to BIT so that he could follow the Lord's call on his life.  His village is more than 50% Christian and they expect him to go out and seek the Lord's calling after BIT. Our visit with his family was wonderful.     
 

Preaching at BIT:

   It has really been a challenge to peach about leadership at BIT primarily for three reasons.  Most students here know the scriptures better than I do, in my "congregation" sit the other professors who are all Doctors of Ministry andPhDs (no pressure) and they also don't need to hear about leadership in an American context when Thais are so culturally different.  So I have approached my sermon series with the goal of helping the student body reflect upon their own culture, recognizing how it is different from the culture of the non-Christians around them, and critically thinking of ways they can communicate the Gospel and challenge people to live radical lives as Disciples of Christ.  It seems to be going well and i think i'm achieving one of my main goals in that the students have been challenged to critically think about their own culture in ways they don't usually have to.

Education Class:

    The education class has shown me greater insight into how teachers in Thailand are trained and has given me a vision for a project to increase their level of training.  I will write more about this when there is more that seems solidified.  There are some deficiencies in the Thai school system, as in all other school systems.  Two that most people agree on are that these schools are not serving the poor and that the teacher training programs are not sufficient to prepare staff to handle the challenge of building up Christian leaders that can observe their surroundings and critically think about ways to share the love of Christ with their community, country and beyond.  There are many missions that have a desire to open Christian schools in Thailand, standing in their way, however, is the fact that there simplyaren't enough indigenous Christian teachers to staff even the existing schools, lest not new ones.  Furthermore, calling on more Christian teachers to staff Christian schools would further diminish the already miniscule number of Christian teachers at the Buddhist government schools.  One possible solution is a teacher training program designed in partnership with Thai educators to unify the vision, mission, philosophy and methods of Thai–Christian educators and the schools at which they work, therefore challenging students to develop their ability to think independently, think critically, love their neighbor and love their God.  I've written a lot on this topic lately and could go on for a while, so I'll cut myself off before boring you to death.   

    Thank you for your prayers, support and this opportunity to share.  Please let me know what's happening with you too, I'd love to know how I can be praying for you.  Email me or call me on Skype (free for you) but keep in mind there is a 12 hour time difference from the east coast of the States.
          
 

    In His mighty grip and by His love,
   
 

        -Dan Stine