Midland Mission to Thailand: February 25

EDITOR'S NOTE: A mission team from First Presbyterian Church of Midland, Texas, has recently returned to the United States from a triip to Thailand. I will be sharing some daily notes from their trip.

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It has been a busy but very productive trip thus far. We have had the opportunity to visit with many of our Thailand ministry partners over the last week and we feel that it has been beneficial for all involved. Below is a summary of where we have been and what we have done . . ..

Our trip began with a two-day flight that led us from Midland to Dallas to Dubai to Bangkok. We left on Friday Feb. 22 and arrived Sunday Feb 24 – 13 hours ahead of our family and friends back home.

Monday, February 25

We met with NightLight and Annie briefed us on the history of the organization, what is currently going on and their plans for the future. We were able to visit the new building that will house the Coffee Shop which our church has helped fund. It is located a few blocks from the NightLight office and is in the midst of the area they work.

We left Bangkok that afternoon and flew to Chiang Mai in the northern area of Thailand. We met Larry Beckner, the director of Garden of Hope, for dinner that evening. Larry visited with us about the challenges and successes he has had over the past year. One of the challenges has been trying to gather past donor information to enable him to raise support for the Drop-In Center. He is doing better but it has been a slow process. Currently they have 5 churches and 4 major individual donors. He will be heading to the US on Tuesday evening to try and raise new and continuing support. Garden of Hope is now under a new foundation – Family Connection Foundation. Larry feels that it will be a great foundation because of their training and support programs