Mission Report – Feb 2024

Participants:

• Jung Dangshing, Chiang Mai, Thailand
• Del Giddings, Colorado Springs, Colorado
• Ron Oholendt, Colorado Springs, Colorado
• Tyler Giddings, Waikoloa, Hawaii

The mission conducted at Kong Khaek, Mae Chaeem District, Thailand was a rural community development project of the New Heights Ministry. The project was the construction of a concrete, 20,000-gallon, freshwater storage tank in the village of Kong Khaek. The purpose of this ministry project was to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ to the villagers by providing a critical resource to the villagers at no cost to them. The freshwater tank will provide fresh water to the 500 village families year-round and more importantly, through the dry season when the mountain springs provide less water. The source of the water to Kong Khaek is a mountain spring located fourteen kilometers from the village. Having a constant supply of fresh water for cooking, cleaning, and bathing reduces the infant mortality rate and increases the lifespan of the villagers. Life in these mountain villages is hard and not having to haul water from the nearby river is a huge blessing.

Rural community development projects such as the freshwater storage tank, provided New Heights Ministry the opportunity to introduce Jesus to the tribal villagers in the northern mountains of Thailand. During the construction of the tank, New Heights missionaries lived in the village and worked side by side with the villagers. The villagers ask why we are helping them and we explain we are doing for them what Jesus did for us. Jesus provides for our needs unconditionally.

Our team arrived in Kong Khaek late on Sunday, January 28, 2024. We began the tank construction on Monday, January 29, 2024. We completed the tank construction on Sunday, February 5, 2024. Monday was used to clean up the site and the team packed up our tools and equipment and returned to Chiang Mai on Tuesday.

The mission was hugely successful in building strong personal relationships with the villagers and the village leaders. Jung Dangshing, our ministry director, will return to the village in early March to help the villagers remove the wooden support structure inside the tank (see photos) used for the pouring of the concrete lid. The tank will then be cleaned and filled with fresh water. The tank will be put into service by the second week of March. Jung and other New Heights evangelists will continue to visit Kong Khaek to begin sharing the Gospel. New Heights will also send medical technicians to the village as part of our ministry. As villagers come to know Jesus, we will conduct Bible training in the village.

From the seeds sown by New Heights Ministry rural development projects, many villages have been won to Jesus. Jung Dangshing and lead engineer Del Giddings have constructed sixteen freshwater storage tanks in villages in northern Thailand since 2000. From their endeavors, eleven churches have been started. We are praying Kong Khaek will be a future location for a church.

This mission project in Kong Khaek was extra special because of how God answered our urgent prayers for help.

On the second day, we were set to pour the tank slab. However, the concrete mixer would not start. The mixer operator and villagers worked two hours trying to get the mixer started without success. Our construction schedule was very rigid and not having the mixer operating would force us to abandon the project for the present. Getting another mixer would take several days if we were lucky enough to find one available in the district. We gathered to pray and asked God to start the mixer within the next 30 minutes. That start time was needed if we were to save the project schedule that day. Within a minute or two after praying, we heard the diesel motor of the mixer roar to life and continued to run for the rest of the project!

Upon our arrival in the village, we were informed by the village leaders that an elderly villager passed away and the village would have a ceremony for the deceased and would not be able to work on that day. We were later told that the ceremony would be on Wednesday, the third day of project construction. The third day is the most important and hardest workday of the project having to construct the interior and exterior wooden frames for the walls of the tank. Building the wall frames takes close to twenty people and there would only be the four of us. It was an insurmountable problem...we thought. On Wednesday morning the four of us arrived on site and as forecasted, there were no villagers present. We committed to do what we could and asked God to help us get back on track in the days to come. We were on site for thirty minutes when we heard a number of motorscooters coming up the hill to the work site. Fifteen villagers from the Nayangdin village where we had built a water tank years earlier heard of our problem and came to work with us in place of the Kong Khaek villagers. These Nayangdin villagers had helped us construct their water tank and knew what needed to be done. With God’s provision of the Nayangdin villagers, we finished the day early!

As we prepared to leave the village on Tuesday morning, we were met by the village leaders and their wives with parting gifts and a warm welcome to return to the village whenever we could. That is surely our plan as we seek to win the village for Jesus. We praised God for His attentive provision for our needs and to Him alone goes the glory for what was accomplished in Kong Khaek. We praise God for the prayers and financial support that made this mission possible.