A little bit of business…A little bit of pleasure
Les has always had a heart for business. Really, it more that he loves to see people succeed and if he can help them in any way, he is willing to try. In a country where the average pay is around $200-$300 per month, more than ever, he has a passion to help those local Christian men and women to succeed in life.
Les not only oversees the ZOE Business school, but he also gets the priviledge of hosting a special team of American business men who come over 3 times a year to host a Micro-Enterprise seminar to help any local Christian entrepreneurs who are interested in starting their own business. Shades Mountain Baptist Church (from Alabama) regularly sends a team out to do this intensive 3-phase training course that each candidate must go throughout the year. On the average, only a handful of candidates make it through all 3 phases of training with a solid basis for starting a new business and are granted the gift of a low interest loan to begin their life long dream. Once the Micro-Enterprise team leaves, Les continues to oversee the graduates by traveling across Thailand to the different business for follow-up and encouragement.
Micro-Enterprise team with the 3 graduates in front
The Shades Mountain Baptist team being greeted by our kids.
But this year was extra special and unique because while Micro-Enterprise program was going on, this team also brought a separate group to simultaneously help in the 2nd week of our ZOE children’s camp.
The entire Shades Mountain Baptist team - front row helped with camp and the back row did the Micro-Enterprise session
This year, our incredible children’s ministry planned a special camp called “Spy Camp”. The creativity and hard work that was put into this camp would blow away anyone’s mind. Through the very hard work of our children’s ministry department, along with the awesome help from this team, our ZOE kids had an incredible fun time on their school break. Everyday, they were taught the word of God while just having an amazing time with games and activities. The following pictures will show that it was “Sanuk Mak”, which in Thai means “a lot of fun”:
Making their yummy snack: apples, peanut butter and chocolate sprinkles
Playing games
The team members helped with a time of teaching the bible
My small part in camp was to put on an English workshop for the kids
Our children's ministry department made an obstacle course for the kids
I just wanted to give a shout out of thanks to our special guests from Shades Moutain Baptist- you were all incredible. Thank you for all your time, effort, finances and encouragement that you poured out to all of us at ZOE. We love you guys!
