Simon Percy's Report on the School

Simon Percy was the other Bible teacher instructing and encouraging our students for the first week of their training this year.  He shared the following report with the supporters of his ministry, Pastor Training International which is based in England.

Time has flown by and I have now completed the Bible Training that PTI has been doing in partnership with the Barefoot doctors. I shared the week with Rich Petersen who is the Missions Pastor at a church in Denver that supports the umbrella organisation, Frontier Labourers for Christ (FLC). I met him once before in 2016 with a different group of Barefoot doctors. 

Jung, the leader of FLC here in Thailand, explained that he gets many requests for people to come and teach at the Bible training week. But he prefers to stick with working with PTI because of its clear Biblical Teaching/Training. 

Not all the students are pastors, but those that are, tell me they have benefited enormously from the program, and all have become excited by hearing the word of God explained and taught well. Many of the women are involved in women’s programs in their churches, and appreciate the emphasis that is being placed on the need to keep the Bible at the centre of all we do. Others are evangelists, but feel helped as they transition from being an evangelist to be the pastor of a brand new church. 

The focus of my teaching has been how to preach and teach Old Testament Narrative, and Christ in all the Scriptures. There has been a natural degree of overlap. In the workshops we focused on reading and understanding the life of Joseph, breaking it down into small units and deciding what is the BIG IDEA and the BIG AIM of each passage. It was very encouraging to see how many remembered the lessons from previous years when we looked at identifying the BIG IDEA and the BIG AIM in a passage. This year we added the question where can Jesus be seen? 

This morning (January 19th) I preached from Genesis 50:15-21. For many the idea that God uses suffering, even theirs, to accomplish his purposes is still an alien idea. But the studies during the week have helped to reinforce this and to make them confident that God will be doing the same with their suffering. They also find it understandably hard to forgive those who have been brutal to them and their family. Joseph’s willingness to forgive his brothers for what they did spoke very powerfully to many. 

Thank you for your prayers and support. Next week I and Johnny Malean will be doing Training with the Karen Pastors.

Thanks for sharing this report with us, Simon, and thanks for teaching in our school once again!