The corona pandemic and justice issues for the vulnerable. These two issues have taken front stage globally and are the topic of most every conversation. In ancient Israel there were three groups [...]

With the outbreak of Covid-19, writers have been revisiting similar pandemics from the past, especially the Spanish flu of 1918-20 which infected 500 million people. Early missionaries to [...]

If you asked people to define “pandemic” a few months ago most all would have struggled, but now everyone seems to understand how a disease can spread quickly to an entire nation and even world. [...]

If you search the word “Fail” using Youtube, you will generate literally 100s of clips and millions of hits. If they had Youtube in Bible times they could have videoed numerous fails by some very [...]

A few years ago, a group of women on a short-term mission trip from the states came to a Thai temple and to the horror of their host began to hug some of the child novices! They explained, “We [...]

In the fall of 1971, the United States was in the midst of the Vietnam War, so as a freshman in college I decided to join the Air Force R.O.T.C. (Reserve Officers’ Training Corp) due to an [...]

If you ride a motorcycle often, you get used to this question: “Have you ever had to ‘lay it down’”? Invariably the seasoned biker has had at least one occassion where he or she has had to [...]

The countries of Asia, as a part of the majority world which are mainly preferred oral learners, receive the Easter message very well when it comes in the form of concrete relational [...]

I am writing this on April 1st (April Fools), a day famous for hijinx and general tomfoolery in the west. But in Thailand it is a serious day to reflect on King Rama V (Chulalongkorn) who on [...]

Recently I have sat with a number of missionaries who have had to leave their mission station unexpectedly due to persecution by government officials. As an open country, Thailand ends up [...]

I first brought my family of six to The Pines over 20 years ago. Recently my adult son and I had a nostalgic trip to this beachside OMF Holiday Home on the Gulf of Thailand. Just like most [...]

Recently I heard a Thai evangelist explain the gospel with this introduction, “If you are born once, you will die twice, but if you are born twice you will die only once.” After giving a summary [...]

I was teaching a class on missions at my Thai Bible school when on November 17th news came of the death of John Chau, a missionary who was seeking to reach the Sentinelese tribe in the Andaman [...]

“You need to be able to preach, pray or die at a moments notice,” was a phrase I heard while training in seminary and has become especially poignant in Thailand where I am sometimes called upon [...]

The OMFer who recruited me in the states encouraged me to do a research paper on the Bangkok Bible College with the possibility that I could teach there after my language study was finished. So, [...]

One aspect of the miraculous cave rescue in Thailand that the press failed to emphasize sufficiently was when the British diver popped up and asked how many were on that ledge. This was the first [...]

While in the states, I routinely shell out up to $15USD for a simple haircut. The other day I kidded my barber in Chiang Mai about his raising the price of my haircut from $1.30 to $1.60USD. What [...]

Recently I wrote a blog saying that “… the world breathed a sigh of relief when the news came that the 12 Thai soccer team members who had been trapped for 9 days in a cave near the golden [...]

  The world breathed a sigh of relief when the news came that the 12 Thai soccer team members who had been trapped for 9 days in a cave near the golden triangle had been found. Yet now we [...]

I just spoke at a church camp for 70 Thai people. I counted only 11 males which works out to a 1 to 7 ratio. On a regular Sunday, this church has a higher ratio of males to females, but overall [...]

One glaring concern missionaries have working in Thailand is Biblical illiteracy. One Thai leader admitted, “Thai Christians are unable to put events in the Bible into any sort of a [...]

I just got word that Billy Graham passed into glory at 99 years old. I immediately thought of the impact that his life had on me as a young Christian. I grew up watching Graham before color TV in [...]

On a recent trip to South India, I watched my host communicate effortlessly using numerous Indian languages. When I asked him how many languages he knew, he pulled out a Rupee bank note and [...]

I recently read a surprising article in the Bangkok Post called “In the Lead” which ranked Thailand #1 in the world in various categories (both positive and negative): 1)coup d’états; [...]

Since my marriage in 1978 I have lived in 30 houses. I just moved into my most recent domicile today after spending the last couple of months in a guest room at the top of the Bible school I [...]

Back in 1980 the OMF Orientation Course in Singapore lasted a couple of months. Part of our training was in the LAMP method (Language Acquisition Made Practical), which included learning basic [...]

One strange observation I’ve made during my time in Thailand is the number of missionaries who sport a distinct “tattoo” half way up the calf of their leg. The mystery was solved for me after I [...]

Thailand has 68 million people and 35 million cars on the road. Of those vehicles, 76% of them have a Buddhist image sitting on the dashboard for protection. Yet Thailand ranks #2 in the world as [...]

Thai people love to eat and have even coined a phrase, “gin prumprua”. It is hard to translate, but basically means that the Thai love to snack throughout the day and center their social [...]

There is a peculiar village outside of Chiang Mai called “House of Two gods”. At first I wondered if there had been some kind of mythical battle in the past between two rival gods … a kind of [...]