About this time last year, I spoke on the Asian
Lectureship in Singapore. Four places asked me to come and work
with them: two in Australia, one in Malaysia, and one in Thailand.
Foreign mission work is not new to our family. All three of our
children were born while we were working with the church in Melbourne,
Australia. We returned to the States to raise a nephew who was
being neglected. He is now married and doing well. We feel it
is time for us to go back to the mission field. After much discussion
and much prayer, we decided to move to Thailand. The reason we
chose Thailand is we felt that Thailand has the greatest need.
We will be working with Dorsey and Ola Traw. Dorsey
has been working in Thailand for forty-four years. He hopes to
work there another six years. Dorsey has just turned seventy-five
years old. His plea was for our family to come and work with them
now, and, in his words, "When I have to lay my armor down,
you soldier on." That is just what we are planning to do.
My wife and I are making a lifetime commitment to the work in
Thailand.
The work in Thailand will be the most difficult
of all the works that we were offered. We will all have to go
to language school and learn to read and speak Thai. We will not
be able to drink the water. We will have to keep up with our immunizations.
We will have to take extreme care in how we prepare the food that
we buy. It is an area of the world that continually has political
and military unrest.
Most people want to know why we would go to Thailand
especially with our family. The answer is quite simple: to teach
the gospel of Christ and help fulfill the commission that He gave
us. Through all my years of preaching, I have taught "See
a need, meet that need, even if it costs you something."
We have tried to instill in our children that Christianity is
a life of sacrifice and service. We see the great need, we are
going to meet that need, even though it is going to cost us much
in the eyes of the world. My wife will be moving halfway around
the world from her aging parents. We are giving up the majority
of our material goods. We have asked our children to leave their
friends, possessions, and even our family dog. My wife and children
are moving to a land where they have never been, where they do
not know anyone, and where they do not speak the language.
Thailand has 62,000,000 people who need the gospel
of Christ. 94.6% of the people there are Buddhists. Only .5% claim
to be Christians. That means that those who are actually in the
body of Christ are even a smaller percent than one half of one
percent. The need is great.
"See a need, meet the need, even if it costs
you something." We are willing to go. We need your help.
Will you help us meet this need? We need your prayers. We need
your emotional support. It is easy to feel isolated when you are
far away from everything that is familiar to you. Communication
with those we know and love is so important to the missionary
and his family. We also need your financial support. We have raised
over half of the money we need to make this move. We have raised
just under half of the money we need of our ongoing monthly support.
I am able to come and make presentations concerning this work
and our needs on Wednesday evenings. Let me come to your congregation
and tell you more about this wonderful work and how you can be
a part of it. I need the help of congregations and individuals.
If you are interested in helping with this work, or if you want
more information, please contact me at (304) 722-2333 or write
me at Michael Mayo, 1025 7th Ave., St. Albans, WV 25177. You can
also e-mail me at michaelandlu@peoplepc.com