Pastor Dana Bratton's Page

We moved to Thailand in August 2006 to volunteer at the Step Ahead MED center in Khao Lak, where we taught English and shared the Gospel, as well as helped people to recover from the Tsunami. We currently live in Thachatchai on the island of Phuket. Where Dana pastors Calvary Chapel at the Bridge, an international Phuket Church, and Cindy teaches English. Previously we spent 6 months studying Thai in Bangkok. We are long term missionaries to Thailand. Dana is a licensed and ordained Southern Baptist minister who worked for 16 years as a hospital chaplain. Cindy was a school teacher. She taught home school for our three children, kindergarten, and middle school science. They also were missionaries with Child Evangelism Fellowship for eleven years. Dana enjoys helping Christian ministries with web design too.

Did you know? There are 1.3 billion Moslems in the 10-40 window. There are 400 million Buddhists. There are 800 million atheists adopting Western consumerism. Who will go tell them about Jesus? How about you? Isaiah 6:8 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8 (NASB)
Thachatchai is a small village on the north end of Phuket island that was hard hit by the tsunami. About two and a half years ago, Calvary Chapel Ban Khem started a church plant there. There are many new homes built by Habitat and the Mercy Ships. The mission church has a core of about 20 people. Mercy Ships raised funding to build a large community center that set vacant for a year. It is a huge two level building with two auditoriums, class rooms. We have a church service on Sunday and Bible study on Wednesday, plus Kids Club on Saturday. Very few people in our village speak any English at all. Cindy teaches English for adults on Thursday evening and Sunday afternoon at our home, and children at the Thachatchai School. The community is very poor many are fishermen, they harvest jelly fish, shrimp, and squid and dry the squid on a large wire screens on the street. Some people work at the Marriott Resort which is just a few miles from us, some work in downtown Phuket about an hour away or in other neighboring villages. Also there is a very large police station and border patrol in our village, and one public school. There are a few small shops in our village and some people have motorcycle carts selling food, ice cream, soda, or snacks. There are about 20 churches in province/island of Phuket with a population of 500,000. The statistics overall in Thailand are the country in 95% Buddhist, 4% Moslem and less than 1% Christian, however in the South the percentage of Moslems is much higher, at 35%. Thai Buddhism is mixed with animism, there is a great fear of spirits here. Many homes and businesses have spirit houses where they place food and drink for the spirits to try to appease them. There is a pretty good networking between the churches in Phuket especially for major events such as Christmas and Easter.