February 8 -- First Day in Thailand-- Experiences with Annie and Jeff Dieselberg in Bangkok

Greetings from Thailand! Here’s a summary of experiences by members of our ABCRM Thailand mission team with Annie and Jeff Dieselberg and their NightLight ministry.

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After leaving Denver on February 6 and flying 26 hours to Bangkok through San Francisco and Tokyo (losing one day as we flew over the International Date Line), the ABCRM Thailand Mission Team arrived in Bangkok at 12:15 a.m. on Friday February 8. The first mission trip activities later on this same day were to visit with Jeff and Annie Dieselberg who started NightLight two years ago. They now employing salaried 78 women who make jewelry that allows them to escape from the huge prostitution Bangkok market with a good wage and health benefits/company savings plan.

Even at our 1:00 a.m. hotel arrival on Friday, out team could still see first-hand the busy prostitution business operating in the streets surrounding NightLight and our nearby hotel. It was off to bed for a few hours of sleep before we gathered for breakfast at 8:00 a.m. to attend the daily morning 9:00 a.m. worship service held at NightLight’s nearby chapel. We were led on the short walk to the chapel by Annie and her “right-hand” outreach and business assistant Bang, where we joined 75 women employees of NightLight who sang praise songs in Thai with great enthusiasm before hearing a spiritual message on love from Jeff.

This service was also a farewell celebration for one of NightLight’s primary staff members Natalie, a co-founder of the NightLight ministry with Annie in 2004. The NightLight women expressed their love for Natalie by sharing of their sorrow, singing songs, and performing Thai dances. Natalie (shown in the red sarong in the photo on the left) moved to Kuwait with her businessman husband Steve on February 10. The deep love and respect for Natalie by the NightLight women was obvious!

After the morning worship service, Jeff met with our ABCRM Thailand Mission Team to tell us about this ministry in an area of Bangkok where every night an estimated 20,000 prostitutes roam the streets and bars in a half-mile radius of NightLight. Jeff explained that he handles the chaplain/teaching portion of this ministry, as well as teaching in local Bangkok seminaries and preaching at nearby Bangkok Thai Christian church. Annie is the CEO of NightLight, in addition to working on the jewelry designs, attending morning NightLight chapel services, leading weekly Bible studies, getting addition business, and helping to keep track of on-line NightLight jewelry website sales (see -- http://www.nightlightbangkok.com/).

Bang gave us a tour of NightLight facilities showing our mission team the many facets of the jewelry business including design, inventory, production, quality control, packaging, and shipment. The women showed so much pride in their work. As members of our team purchased jewelry and the NightLight workers saw our excitement and amazement of their high-quality work, their joy on the faces of the NightLight women was quite obvious!

After having a delicious lunch with Jeff of Thai and other Asian foods, our mission team discussed his and Annie’s ministry, and their desire to expand into more working space for NightLight. This transitioned into a “pros and cons” discussion of how ABC-International Ministries funding might be provided for such business-related ministries and our concern whether ABC-IM can adapt to support a “business in missions” strategy for those missionaries who wish to do so. Such a strategy could help build economic stability for needy people in various parts of the world, and at the same time provide a way to introduce Christianity to the employees of the business ministry. The importance of having trust, autonomy, and flexibility of our ABC-IM missionaries who wish to create a business-related ministry seemed obvious to our mission team members.

Later in the afternoon, our ABCRM mission team met with Annie, who talked about the challenges of starting up a missions-related business in Thailand where bribes are a part of the business environment. Annie emphasized the complete rejection of any bribe-based activities by NightLight to instead build a missions-based company that provides many benefits to its employees. She also discussed the huge problem of human trafficking seen in Bangkok that the NightLight ministry is helping to combat.

Before returning to our hotel to end a busy first day of our ABCRM mission trip, the team members shared dinner with Annie’s Christian outreach group at a food court just a few blocks from NightLight. This group walks during the evening through the go-go bars and other gathering places around NightLight to hopefully start up begin new friendships with women involved in prostitution who could possible be saved by the Dieselberg’s NightLight business-ministry. Everyone on our team was simple awed by what the Dieselbergs are doing as IM-ABC missionaries in Bangkok!

Tomorrow Saturday our IMABC Thailand Mission Team leaves to see the ministries of Chuck and Ruth Fox in Chiang Rai, where some of us will start the project to rebuild a school cafeteria in the Akha village of Sansuk with Chuck, and others will help with Akha craft-making and doing New Life Center teaching with Ruth. We’re looking forward to what God has in store for us next!


(Note: You can read more about the Dieselberg’s IM-ABC ministry at -http://www.anniejeffbangkok.org/)

Kerry Hassler

Mission Team Leader