Friendship centre reaches students in Thailand

Team 2000, a group of six missionaries and their families, are giving new meaning to the term “visiting a friend’s house”. In December, they rented a townhouse near the local university to establish a friendship centre that will host English classes and Bible studies and provide a neutral ground for the team to build relationships with university students.

Team 2000 consists of Andy and Carmen Owen, Ricky and Karen Sanchez, and Dave and Louise Sinclair-Peters, along with the couples’ nine children. They moved to Chonburi, Thailand a year ago to begin a 10-year church-planting effort through MBMS International, the global mission agency of Mennonite Brethren churches in Canada and the United States.

“In Thai culture, the home is a very intimate place, and many Thais aren’t comfortable just going into someone else’s home, especially a foreigner’s,” writes team member Andy Owen. “They might be curious at first to see how a foreigner lives, but ultimately will feel awkward coming back every week. So we began looking for neutral ground, a place where people could window-shop the Gospel.”

The centre is called Ban Puan, which in Thai means “Friend’s House”. The team’s goal is that all who come in will experience that comfortable feeling of being with friends. The team has found the house to be immediately suitable to a friendship centre. Andy writes, “It is located near a large night market where the university students love to hang out. The downstairs area is big enough to hold a good sized class, and there are two furnished bedrooms upstairs.”

The centre has already been warmly received. On the first day 35 students, mostly from the university, came ready to study. The team is now into their second term and many of the same students have remained, enabling them to begin building longer-term relationships.

The friendship centre has also been used for special events. The team recently had a movie night, and plans a karaoke night for the near future. They also hosted a Christmas outreach for students and their friends. Owen writes, “We had a wonderful time of sharing Christmas traditions (such as cookie decorating), as well as the message of Christmas. One of the students who had recently become a Christian shared his testimony with others, and we were pleased with both the turnout and the result. We look forward to hosting other outreach events at the centre this month with a team joining us from Canada, culminating in a Celebration Service geared towards our students and other seekers on March 2.”

Team 2000 is partnering with a group of Thai Campus Crusade workers to continue the ministry of the Friendship Center. The Campus Crusade workers provide publicity and promotion at the university, and do some of the face-to-face evangelism with students who come. Later this month those ties will be strengthened as two girls on the Campus Crusade team will move into the top bedrooms of the centre, to provide it with a resident Christian presence, and to help with upkeep and rent.

Supporters in North America have donated funds for equipment and furnishings. Rent costs are currently being split between the team members.

Team 2000 is also beginning a children’s choir. Karen Hubert-Sanchez and Carmen Owen held auditions for the choir on February 7. Karen writes, “We praise God for the 17 children who signed up! 15 of them are Buddhist . . . but signed up for ‘Chonburi Christian Children’s Choir’! How cool is that!”

The team is hoping the choir will be an effective tool for evangelism. Karen writes, “Carmen and I already had some fun talks with some of the moms. Our prayer now is that we can have a couple of songs ready for our first Celebration Service at our Friendship Center on March 2.”

—Lisa Alvey and Brad Thiessen, with reports from Karen Hubert Sanchez