Grace and Peace Baptist Church

“Who has a special song to sing?” pastor Wichai asked.

He knew the answer, because he had practiced a new song with them the day before. All the children – which means almost all of the congregation – gathered in front of the handful of others at church. They did a good job and the song blessed our hearts. They like singing, even though we have not been able to convince them that it is okay to smile while doing it. That’s one of the many cultural differences we see here.

It was Sunday morning at the Grace and Peace Baptist Church. We are a small church but the Lord meets with us and we have a place of service to the community. We are a sovereign grace Baptist church located in Mae Ai, Thailand. We started as a mission begun by the late Bro. Paul D. Brown and his wife, Susan.

It was always the goal to establish a sound, local Baptist church, but the visits to the village churches took precedence. Bro. Paul was committed to encouraging and helping them. That meant most Sundays found the team on the road with Bro. Paul, preaching in the small churches in the mountains. You can’t have a church when you are rarely there for services on Sunday! Until more help arrived, establishing the church was put on hold.

Everything changed in March, 2024. Paul’s motorcycle wreck ended his life on earth and began his new life in Heaven. Wichai and Moses, who had been on staff as assistants and interpreters, stepped up to the challenge of continuing the work he began. They volunteered to take over the evening devotions Paul always had with the nine children living at the mission at the time. They also took charge of the Sunday services.

Moses had known for several years that the Lord’s call on his life was to preach in the villages and to reach out to his own LaHu people. His heart was on taking the Gospel to the remote mountain villages of Northern Thailand.

Wichai started preaching because it needed to be done, and Paul had taught him that every Christian should be ready to preach and teach. As he declared the Gospel to the children and staff, he realized that this was God’s purpose for him. He surrendered to God’s call to the ministry.

Meanwhile, they carried on with the various ministries of the mission. Benevolence, outreach to the local Thai community, distributing Sunday school materials, etc. continued as before. Soon we saw that we had all the elements we needed to establish a church. Since we have two men now, we can have consistent church services while the village ministry still goes on. We have a small group of saved and baptized people who wanted to be a part of the new church, a pastor with a heart to shepherd them, and plenty of evangelism work to do.

Sherwood Baptist Church in Newcastle, Oklahoma, where Bro. Paul pastored for nearly 40 years, came to help formally establish the church. Pastor Keith Brown and Bro. Danny Roten, an elder at Sherwood, examined and tested our young preachers. They expressed pleased surprise at the depth of their maturity and Bible knowledge.

They officiated in the ordination ceremonies for Wichai and Moses and the formal organization of the church in November of 2024.

We began with six members and added the first new member by baptism one week later. All the outreaches of the former mission are now carried on by the new and growing church.

Wichai, who grew up in the mission, is now serving the church as pastor. Besides shepherding the church, preaching, and teaching, he heads up the children’s home ministry and leads the fellowship of sovereign grace pastors. He organizes the Preachers’ Training, arranging the guest teachers. He also takes part in all aspects of benevolence and outreach of the church.

Moses, who also has been in the mission since his teen years, travels to the villages to fill the pulpit and give encouragement to the pastors. He hopes to begin mission outreaches to new villages soon. He also interprets the messages of guest speakers into LaHu, as he did for Paul for several years and has started translating Sunday School material into LaHu as well.

Church services start at 10 a.m. and Sunday School is at 1 p.m. The younger children have Sunday School taught by Moses in LaHu, when he is not traveling to villages. When he is gone, the children have class with Wichai and the older boys in Thai. The girls have class in English translated into Thai by Mali. Preaching is in Thai.

The church is dedicated to being a lighthouse of the Gospel to northern Thailand. We love the Lord and are eager to share His love with our Thai and LaHu community.