Who we are, and why children
Thailand Kids is a small mission with one job: to plant Bible-centred children's churches in the villages of northern Thailand, led by Thai believers, so that children who have never heard the name of Jesus can hear it, come to know Him, and grow up inside a church that stays.
We do this because He told us to. Not as a programme, and not as a policy — as obedience to a person.
A four-year walk, then a single month
Nothing about Thailand Kids was planned on a whiteboard. It came out of years alongside Thai churches, and then one month in which the direction became unmistakable.
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About 2020
Northern Thailand
Aaron and Alina arrive in the north and begin serving alongside Thai believers — training pastors and Bible students, and putting audio Bibles in the hands of village leaders.
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August 2024
A team from Sterling, Colorado
A team from Sterling, Colorado comes to serve for a season. The newsletter from that month carries one prayer request: “clarity about how God wants us to minister.”
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The same month
The children at Noah's church
The answer comes as a weight that does not lift: focus on the children. Thailand Kids begins there, with the children of one village church and a Thai leader who already knew their names.
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2025 to today
Churches that plant churches
Lessons written in Thai. Leaders trained for eighteen months. A children's church launched only when a local believer can lead it from the first Sunday. Then that church looks for the next village.
Obedience first. Everything else follows.
Thailand Kids is an interdenominational mission rooted in historic biblical Christianity. We believe in the full authority of Scripture and in Jesus Christ as God in the flesh, the only Saviour, and the only way to the Father. Any church that stands on this foundation is a church we can serve with.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.Matthew 28:19–20
And, in the same voice, about children: “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.”
Matthew 18:5We hold those two sentences together. The Great Commission is not finished until it reaches the child in the last village, and the child is not welcomed until she is welcomed in His name.
What that looks like on the ground
Thai leaders lead
Every children's church is led by a trained believer from that region, from its first Sunday. We equip; they shepherd.
Children are discipled, not just taught
The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, in their own language, week after week, until it is theirs.
Families stay together
The church comes to the village. No child is moved or housed to be discipled.
Children are protected
Consent, altered images, first names only: the Thailand Kids Shield, because He told us what happens to those who cause one of these little ones to stumble.
One Kingdom, many churches
The churches that pray for, fund and send teams to this work come from many traditions. What they share is the gospel, the authority of Scripture, and a conviction that Thai children should hear the name of Jesus. That is enough. We are not building a denomination in Thailand; we are helping the Thai church raise its own children.
Our administrative home in the United States is the Foursquare Foundation, which holds our 501(c)(3) status and processes every gift, and we are grateful for it. Partnership with Thailand Kids has never required a partner to share that affiliation, and it never will.
Teacher Mai, who came back to church four years before she met the Lord
We tell this story because it is ordinary. It is what the Father revealing His Son looks like most of the time: not too fast, not too slow, and never on a schedule we set.
Before I became a Sunday-school teacher, I did not know God.
Teacher Mai · Ban Ruam Sook Church
Mai had once walked away from the Lord. Then she came back to church, and for four years she was there: singing the songs, hearing the sermons, saying the same prayers. What she could not do was pray on her own. The words were ones she had been given; she did not yet know the One they were spoken to.
Then she joined Thailand Kids as a Sunday-school teacher. On her first Sunday, she says, she was afraid she did not know how to teach. At Thailand Kids she began to learn the death of Jesus on the cross, His burial and His resurrection, and why each one matters. Somewhere in those lessons it stopped being a story she knew and became a person she knew.
What we learn from Mai. Flesh and blood does not reveal the Son; the Father does, in His time. Four years of the same prayers were not wasted, and they were not the thing that saved her either. This is why we are patient with children, and why we teach the gospel plainly and repeatedly rather than pressing for a decision. The revelation is His to give. Our job is to keep telling the truth until He does.
The work belongs to the Thai church
The names a sponsor should know first are the leaders who stand in front of the children every week. Then ours.
Pastor Noah & Laada
Akha pastor · Chiang Rai
Noah and Laada have served in northern Thailand for more than forty years and have overseen the development of many churches in the area. Thailand Kids began with the children of their church.
Jan
Thailand Kids leader · Chiang Mai
A seasoned leader, wife and mother of two boys, Jan works alongside Christian leaders on worship projects and children's ministry. She leads the Thailand Kids group in inner-city Chiang Mai.
Teacher Mai
Sunday-school teacher · Ban Ruam Sook Church
Came to her first Sunday afraid she could not teach. Her story is above.
Aaron & Alina Glassburn
Founders
We have served in northern Thailand since about 2020, and in August 2024 the direction of that service narrowed to one thing: the children. We are not the reason the churches exist, and we would rather you remembered the Thai leaders' names than ours. What we do is equip, train, write, raise support, and keep the promises this website makes to sponsors and to families.
Write to us →Who holds us to it
Trust is not something we ask for. It is something you should be able to check.
Registered 501(c)(3) through the Foursquare Foundation
Every gift is processed by the Foundation and receipted for tax purposes before you hear from us. How giving works →
A written child-protection standard, in public
The Thailand Kids Shield governs every photograph and story that leaves a village. Read the policy →
Promises you can hold us to
What each sponsorship level receives, and when, is written down before you give. The sponsorship page →
A person answers
No contact form. Four email addresses, each read by someone on the team. Contact →
Come and help the Thai church raise its children
Sponsor a child, plant a church, or bring your congregation alongside a village. Every one of those is the same act of obedience, at a different scale.