December 2025 Prayer Letter

Written by: Karl Dahlfred on 30 December 2025.

DOWNLOAD PDF - DECEMBER 2025 DAHLFREDS PRAYER LETTER

Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! As we approach the end of yet another year, we are grateful for how God is working in Thailand and that we can be a part of His work. And we are deeply thankful for your prayers, support, and encouragement that enable us to be here. In this letter, I want to look back over the past year and then look ahead to 2026.

Theological Education & Equipping Leaders

The majority of Karl’s time throughout the year is spent in teaching classes in church history and mission studies at Chiang Mai Theological Seminary (CTS), as well as an adjunct course at McGilvary College of Divinity (also located in Chiang Mai). It is gratifying to see students inspired and equipped in the classroom with new insights that they can take back to their churches. The impact of studying at CTS is not limited to the classroom however. The informal times with students before and after class, during breaks, and during other school activities are extremely valuable in getting to know them and have input into their lives and ministries. Every Tuesday during our all-school chapel, CTS faculty take turns preaching exegetically through books of the books of the Bible. Preaching in many Thai churches is topical, moralistic, and not well grounded in Scripture so it is vital for students to see a model of solid Biblical preaching as a standard for grounding God’s people in His Word. One of the core classes at CTS is “Principles of Biblical Interpretation,” taught by Professor Thanit, director of CTS. This class is transformative for many students, giving them tools and methods to understand the Bible more clearly than they have before. In this coming year, please keep in prayer both Karl and the other CTS faculty as they teach and mentor current and future leaders of Thailand’s churches.

Karl teaching at Chiang Mai Theological Seminary

A year ago, the book version of Karl’s doctoral research was published and in March 2025, Karl presented (in Thai) a summary of his research as the keynote speaker at the Thailand Theological Association Conference (TTAC). The topic was the impact of theological modernism (liberalism) on the American Presbyterian Mission in Thailand in the early 20th century. In presenting my findings, it was my hope that the seminary professors and other Christian leaders in Thailand who listened would understand the potential for conflict and distraction from the Great Commission that can happen when a mission (or church) begins to lose its biblical moorings. Feedback was positive and I was later able to donate copies of my book for the libraries of each school represented at a Thailand Theological Schools conference held in early May.

Chinese Ministry

Near the end of May, I spent a week in another city in Southeast Asia helping to team-teach a course on missions at a small Reformed mainland Chinese seminary. It took a lot of time to prepare for this course but I was glad for this opportunity to make a small investment the Chinese church. At the same time that many people are trying to leave China, the Chinese church is growing by leaps and bounds. We’ve seen numerous baptisms of Chinese believers here in Chiang Mai and there is a great need for training them in the Scriptures. Secularism, materialism, and Chinese cults would love to pull them away from Christ. Once per week, Sun and I teach English through Bible stories, mostly to Chinese believers.

Karl teaching an intensive course at a Reformed Chinese seminary

Sun teaching English through Bible stories

Local Church Ministry

I love being involved in formal theological education but the point of the seminary is to equip believers for service to the church. To that end, our family is involved with a Grace Church Chiang Mai (a Thai church) and secondarily Refuge Fellowship Chiang Mai (an international church). At Grace, Karl preaches every 4-6 weeks and does live sermon translation from Thai to English each week. Sun works with a couple Thai sisters to teach children’s Sunday school. Just recently they completed a New Testaments overview series using Walk Thru the Bible. In July, there were several baptisms at Grace Church, including two Thai sisters whose husbands came to faith within the past year or two. Much prayer and time was invested helping them understand the Gospel and embrace Christ, so it was great to see them profess faith, and to receive the sign and seal of God’s covenant with his people.

Baptism at Grace Church Chiang Mai

New Believers Baptized at Grace Church Chiang Mai (July 2025)

Weekly New Believers Meeting (Grace Church Chiang Mai) Weekly Thai New Believers Meeting (Grace Church Chiang Mai)

At Refuge Fellowship, our kids are not only involved in the youth group, but also sometimes help with childcare during the Sunday evening service. Sun and the kids had a great time volunteering for two different weeks of Vacation Bible School at Refuge this past year, as well as assisting with several outreaches to local schools. I’ll let Sun tell you about one of the recent Christmas outreaches with Refuge:

On Dec 12th, we shared the gospel in a Buddhist temple school to 121 students. At Ban Pa Ngew School, a small preschool to grade 12 school at Pa Ngew Temple in Doi Saket district, we 20+ volunteers met at 7 am and drove an hour north of our international church to do a 4-hour outreach with ELM, an organization that reaches out to young women with unplanned pregnancy. We had plenary sessions sandwiching 5 stations: Christmas nativity skit, games, relays, Life in the Womb video, and craft. It was followed by lunch provided by Refuge Fellowship. We served hot dogs since the school requested something Western. All the kids loved it!

“Who would like to be a child of a billionaire? Who would like to be a child of a king?,” I (Sun) asked. Most of them raised their hands, of course. “Who would like to be a child of someone greater than a king? Someone who made the king?” Perplexity showed on their faces. “I am a daughter of Someone who made the king, who also made the stars, and the mountains, and of every human being. And the other 3 volunteers with me are also children of that great Almighty Creator. Today I will tell you how you can also be children of that Almighty Creator.” Thus, I began and shared of God’s plan of redemption: The Almighty Creator is perfect and he lives in heaven where everything is perfect. He made the first human couple named Adam and Eve and put them in a beautiful garden filled with everything they could ever want. He told them they could eat from any tree except from the tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. One day, Satan came along and tempted Eve, who disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit and gave some to her husband who also ate, bringing sin into the world. Sin is anything short of God’s perfections and holiness: murder, stealing, lying, anger, selfishness, etc.

“Is anyone here perfect and holy?” I asked each of the five groups of students. Strangely enough, one or two girls insisted that they were perfectly holy, though almost all soon saw their own disqualification when the definition was broadened to its full extent.

“The Almighty Creator wanted people to live in Heaven with Him, so He sent His Son Jesus as a little baby one Christmas day about 2,000 years ago. This Jesus grew and was killed. When He was killed, though He did nothing wrong, He took all the sins of the world in the past, in the present, and in the future and destroyed it. He was NOT like other people who died and stayed dead. He rose again the third day. He is now in Heaven. He invites us to become children of the Almighty Creator. If we ask for forgiveness of our sins and are willing to trust and follow Him, God will adopt us as His children. He wants to adopt each and everyone of you into his family. This is the story of Christmas.”

Refuge Fellowship School Outreach

Our Kids’ Lives

This past year Sun has continued to homeschool Caitlin and John, and this coming year Caitlin will begin a one-year online certificate course in business. Caitlin’s been enjoying reading, raising chickens and baking, while John fills his free time with woodworking/DIY and reading.

This past year, Joshua worked a summer job in Alaska and is now back in Thailand studying for some tech certifications with the aim of getting an online job. Joshua and Karl enjoy running together on a regular basis and recently ran the Chiang Mai Marathon.

What’s Ahead in 2026

We anticipate this coming year will look similar to the past year, though with some uncertainties and changes. Joshua can not remain on a dependent visa after he turns 20 and will need to get a different visa type, yet to be determined. He does not have the right to work in Thailand, so online work (from the U.S.) combined with some non-work type of visa would be his only options if he wants to stay in Thailand. Pray for upcoming decisions for Joshua.

This past year Karl has done a lot of teaching, as well as numerous additional responsibilities that he has taken on. Some of these need to be reduced or eliminated so that Karl can spend time working on a book project. Karl and a fellow missionary have begun research and writing for a new one-volume book on Thai church history with the aim of publication by summer 2028 in time for the 200th anniversary of Protestantism in Thailand. But there is a lot of work to be done between now and then and Karl finds it difficult to say NO to additional teaching and ministry requests in order to have enough time to work on the book. Pray for wisdom in know which ministry tasks to accept and which to decline.

As of November, our year-to-date support level was hovering around 80% and it would be wonderful to see some year-end donations to get us to 100% to meet budget. But we know that the current economy is presenting real challenges for many, and we are grateful for God’s continued provision of all that is necessary, whether it be much or little. Whether it by prayers, donations, or just moral support, we are thankful for all of you who have a part in enabling us to be here.

Thank you for partnering with us as we serve God in Thailand!

by Christ's grace,

Karl & Sun Dahlfred