2024 Year in Review

2024 Annual Report

David & Sharon Filbeck

Thailand Sustainable Ministries

I. Church Plant at San Pa Ha Community (San Pa Ha Christian Church). We achieved

Closing in the back porch to make a children’s room.

significant membership gains.  At the beginning of 2024 we were averaging 5-10 people.  By the end of 2024 we were averaging 20-25. We enclosed a back porch to make a nursery for our toddlers and hold children’s church there during the sermon.  David preaches once a month and we take our turn providing lunch once a month for the fellowship dinner after the worship.

San Pha Ha Village Community Outreach Activities

In November 2024 We hosted the first sports day event on the campus.  Over 200 youth attended and competed in various sports activities.  Invitation cards were passed out to all who attended about our worship services at the church. A result of the sports day is a small soccer team made of up teenagers in the San Pa Village was forms with one of our Thai evangelist as coach.   It was also a good way to build relationships in the community. Many community leaders including the village head man, his assistant who oversees village youth activities and drug prevention among the youth were very happy.  We have plans to continue regular sports day events throughout 2025.  If not every month then perhaps once a quarter.

David hands out helmets at Hua Fai School Christmas             outreach.

In December we hosted a Christmas outreach event at the local grade school.

About 200 students and teachers attended. David gave a short lesson on the true meaning of Christmas. The highlight for the kids was of course presents.  We partnered with another organization that provides motorcycle helmets for  youth.  They were limited to 75 helmets so we asked the head teachers to choose those students who rode motorcycles to school and did not have their own helmet.  For the rest of the students San Pa Ha Church made small gift bags of cookies, pens, pencils, and a notebook. So everyone got something.

Our two evangelists make weekly visits to families in the community, especially those family whose children come and use the sports facilities.  We can have 10-15   teenagers come and play soccer, volleyball, and other sports.

In October the local Boy Scout Troop had an Eagle Project. They decided to build a toddler playground.  We have many young families in the village but all of our sports activities are for older kids.  We have two ponds on the campus and toddlers are attracted to water. So the Boy Scouts offered to build a fenced in playground with roof and install safe slides and swings.  It was supposed to be completed by Christmas,  but as with all constructions various delays have occurred and it will be early 2025 before it is finished.

Ongoing needs and plans for 2025

Electricity.  We need to upgrade to triple phase wiring at a cost of about $8,000.  Our sports lights, water pumps, Air-conditioners need the newer wiring in order to function.  We experience multiple outages in rainy season as a lot of the insulation is worn off of the old wires. So it is also a safety hazard.

We need to replace the roof on the worship building. Cost TBD

Once we get the electricity fixed we plan to make a second soccer pitch so we can have more kids playing.

We are still committed to paying salaries to the evangelists, 20,000 baht ($600) a month.

II. Ban Nam Ri Phatana Christian Church

Our fastest growing church with over 40 families.  David continues to make the 8 hour drive once a month to mentor, advise, consult and

Loading Chairs for Nam Ri Phattana Church

preach.  There have been 10 baptisms here in 2024.  We had to buy an extra 40 chairs to handle the number of people attending.  I am especially pleased to report that this church is beginning to be responsible for financial issues.  The chairs cost 10,000 ($300) baht  and the church was able to raise 8,000 ($250) baht.  They asked if I could give the last 2,000 baht and I did. The Church leaders also found funds to buy a new guitar and an overhead projector.

We contributed $1000 to the Christmas outreach program in December.

Ongoing needs and plans for 2025

We continue to support the two evangelists. ($363). We need to increase that amount but our finances are going to be tight. So we shall see.

Baptisms at Nam Ri Church

We plan to begin “elder” training classes some time in 2025. We need more leadership. But do not have the funds to hire. Nam Ri is also

very remote and it is hard to find people who will move there permanently. Our solution is to try and identity mature believers and begin training them to be lay leaders, elders, deacons, to come along side the paid staff and help with the church growth.

III. Sustainability-Bi-Vocational

Brook Falls Cocoa Orchards: Our orchards are progressing nicely. The first orchard in now in year five and is providing about $100 of income every month.  This is not profit as this goes right back into the orchard buying fertilizer, gas for generators etc.  The orchard at the San Pa Church is year 3 and  is bringing in about $20 a month, again used to buy fertilizer, etc.  It is slow. But we have learned a lot and are confident that by end of 2025 the first orchard will be providing $200-250 income for cocoa sales. We have been grafting branches on our trees and replanting them in the orchards to increase the number of trees. We have also been asked if we are interested in selling seedlings of our cocoa. So that might be a venture we look at towards the end of 2025.

Ms. Nam preparing pork belly to make our bacon

Brook Falls Deli:  Brook Falls Deli took a hit with the massive floods that hit most of northern Thailand in October. Many customers lost their homes and need to rebuild. As such they are not financially able to purchase our deli meats. So our goal of $1,000 a month income has been set back.  Looking forward to 2025 we realize that our business model of selling online is not working as we had hoped.  Many customers want to see a store front. We believe we have a great product. Customers tell us it is the best smoked bacon they have had here in Thailand.  Customers are also  telling us they want to come buy at a store Online and delivery works to a degree but not to the degree we expected or require.   For 2025 we will be looking at opening a small Coffee Shop/Café where were we will provide our breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and mini-cheesecakes. Customers can also pick up bacon and breakfast sausage/links to take home.  David is looking at finding a partner(s)/investor(s) who want to be involved in this kind of bi-vocational ministry.  Our goal is to provide a great product; supplement income; witness to our Thai staff and to our customers.

IV.  Finances:  2024 was a tough    Our regular monthly support was reduced by $2,000 a month starting in August. This resulted in our yearly regular giving being about $8,000 short of budget.  We dropped our Christian Healthcare Ministries membership saving us $450 a month.  I am now on Thai public health system, the lowest tier there is.  Sharon gets social security and minimal private health insurance through her job. Thankfully we had some generous year end donations that made up the budget shortfall.

Our budget for 2025 is going to be a deficit budget. When we visit our new grandchildren we are going to close out storage unit in Cape Girardeau MO. Costs have gone up to $250 a month to store stuff we aren’t going to use anytime soon.    We are praying God will supply enough to make our ministry commitments.

Ask for a copy of our 2024 financial report and 2025 budget details

V. Personal News:  Sharon is working full time at a drug and addiction rehabilitation center. Her income helps supplement our financial commitments to the ministry. Specifically her tithes goes to San Pa Ha Christian  She is also a source of encouragement and counseling to

Don’t know where we are going but we are having fun getting there.

the women and young mothers in the church.

In October, the night before we had to evacuate our house because of the flood Sharon slipped and cracked her knee cap. We had to hire a driver to take her to and from work for a bout 8 weeks.  Her job is about 30 minutes south of were we live, and the orchards and church are 30 minutes north. We calculated the time I would be on the road if I took her everyday and it came to ab out 6 hours a day in traffic. It was cheaper to hire someone to come drive here.

We are needing a new work truck. Our current truck has 300,000 hard kilometers. Sharon’s Toyota Corolla is 30 years old. Both require a lot of maintenance.  For the truck we are looking at the Toyota Champ, a small truck produced for local agricultural jobs. Sharon would drive the truck back and forth for work and I would take the Corolla. She needs a more reliable car than I do.  When I take trips to Nan or need to haul a load of cocoa then we can swap out cars.  A new Toyota Champ cost about $14,000.

David continues to struggle with his asthma. Medication helps keep it under control. But by mid afternoon is low energy due to lack of oxygen.  This get worse during the months of March and April when we endure heavy air pollution.

Even though David is on the public health care system, it is very minimal. Yes, he would eventually get treatment. But would be “end of the line” as preference would be given to those paying out of pocket or with private insurance.   So we are hoping to be able to get some private insurance for him in 2025.

We are both thriving and loving what we are doing for God’s kingdom, whether it be church planting, bi-vocational witnessing with my workers, or Sharon’s influence at the rehabilitation center.

Looking Forward to 2025. We will be making a couple of trips back in 2025 to welcome two new grandsons. More on that later.   We plan to visit churches, both supporting and hopefully make new contacts and supporters.

Respectfully submitted

David & Sharon Filbeck