Pastor Songsak Pairumpuengsakul, through the Akha Evangelical Church of Thailand (AECT),  is involved in church planting among the Akha in Thailand. Akha Christians divide themselves into approximately eighteen independent groups. There are about 7,000 Akha Christians in Burma, but there are very few in China, Laos, and Vietnam. Rev. Songsak Pairumpuengsakul

  Our Vision 

By God's grace we purpose to reach out to all the Akha/Hani people living in Thailand, Burma, China, Laos, and Vietnam with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our vision is to establish Biblical, indigenous church planting movements in all these countries.

  Our Mission 

	Mobilize the church worldwide to adopt the different unreached sub-groups of Akha/Hani people living in China, Burma, Laos, and North Vietnam.
	Recruit workers to facilitate church planting movements.
	Partner with existing churches in Thailand and Burma for evangelism.
	Partner with others working with the Akha/Hani people.

Background
We serve on the border of Thailand and Burma, mostly to people in small hill villages. The people here are animists, and worship their ancestors. They live in daily fear of evil spirits. To appease the spirits, they must give witch doctors pigs, dogs, chickens, and goats for animal sacrifices. Fortunately, God has given us the opportunity to share the joy and freedom of following Jesus with the Akha people. He has blessed our work here, and since we started in 1990 we have founded 38 churches in the region and started two orphanages.

Church Ministry
We have built 24 churches in Thailand and 14 in Burma, with over 6,000 members. Every church has a pastor that has completed two years of training at our leadership center. We continue to train new leaders, and have 20-30 students studying at our training center.

Training pastors in Burma is difficult, because the Burmese are not allowed in Thailand. Our pastors travel to Burma every month to train and encourage our brethren there.

We have two homes for children, 4 kilometers apart, with 53 children (16 boys and 37 girls). Our 6 full-time staff members are all members of our church here. All our children go to Thai government school. We pay all the children’s chool fees and uniforms (about 4000 Baht, or $100 per year). We also teach bible classes and lead the children in worship every night.

A day in the life of a child
Wake up at 5:45 AM for prayer, clean-up and dress in school uniform
6:30 Eat breakfast of rice and fruit prepared by staff
7:00 Get on Mercy Home truck to go to school (we have small truck, so this takes 4 trips) The government school teaches subjects like Thai reading and writing, activity (sport, craft), Art, English, Math depending on age
4:30 Home from school. Wash clothes, clean home, and shower.
5:30 Dinner prepared by staff, rice, fruit, cabbage, and occasionally chicken or pork
6:30 Homework, clean yard
8:00 Worship, bible teaching
9:30 Bed, sleep

Pray for Us!
We would love prayer for our ongoing work with the children and evangelizing to the hill people here. Pray for our pastors and staff workers as we spread the good news.

We are working on some exciting new projects that need prayer and financial support.

• We need a large truck to take the children to school, church, and other fun activities. Right now we have to make four trips in our small truck twice a day to take them to and from school. These trucks cost 800,000 Baht (about $2,000).
• We currently have some small gardens that we grow vegetables for the children, but we have to buy most of the food for the children. We want them to grow their own food. Our goal is to buy 25 Rai (10 acres) of farmland nearby so the children can farm. One Rai of land here is 100,000 Baht (about $65,000 total).
• We want to bring both orphanages together on one roof, along with a new training center for our young men. We have the plans, land, foundation ready for the 3 story building. This project will cost 4 million Baht (about $100,000).