"Saving Grace Project" Works to Preserve Thailand Mission School... 600 Missionary Kids’ Education at Stake

Plano, TX, August 12, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Hundreds of missionary kids and their families are wondering about their future schooling, the result of pressure by a local neighborhood association. Grace International School, located in Chiang Mai, Thailand, serves some 600 children of missionaries from 26 nations and more than 80 mission agencies. Founded eleven years ago, the school purchased and occupies facilities that previously housed an athletic club. While the school has enjoyed use of the facility for more than a decade, the neighborhood association desires to regain control of the property.

Grace International School is facing having to restore, at its own expense, the property to its original condition and turn it over to the association without compensation. As a result, the school is already preparing plans for relocation. Together with the Grace International Educational Foundation (GIEF), based in Plano, Texas, the school launched “The Saving Grace Project,” a $2.5 million effort to preserve needed educational opportunities for hundreds of missionary kids and help relocate the school to a new campus.

GIEF president Tom Matyas says the immediate goal of “Saving Grace” is raising the funds needed to relocate classes to temporary facilities in case the school must quickly abandon its current property.

“The school has a contingency plan to relocate junior high and high school students to temporary classroom structures that can be reused for a permanent campus when that becomes possible,” explains Matyas. “At the same time, the bulk of the $2.5 million is needed to purchase and prepare land for development and construction of a new and expanded campus to serve all grade levels.”

Matyas and Don Williams, the school’s superintendent, see “Saving Grace” as an opportunity to educate people about the special role played by the missionary school in the lives of hundreds of missionaries serving in Southeast Asia.

“Without Grace International School, many of these missionaries would have to leave their field assignments,” explains Williams, “because there are simply no other education opportunities that would keep their families together. The idea of shipping young children thousands of miles away to boarding school is just not an option for many of today’s missionaries. Grace provides a vital service to them – and to the Thai students who also attend the school.”

“The Saving Grace Project is an opportunity for Christian people to demonstrate their support, not only for the school’s ministry,” says Matyas, “but also for the work of missions in this strategic area of the world. Chiang Mai is located within a three-hour plane ride to more than one-third of the world’s population. That’s why so many mission agencies and organizations are located in this region – and why the school is so important to their efforts, as well.”

While Williams and other school officials are hoping and praying that the issue can be resolved peacefully with the neighborhood association, The Saving Grace Project is a necessary step toward the future of the mission school.

“In our original purchase we anticipated having our campus forever and growing it as needed to accommodate the growing number of missionaries in Thailand. But it is obvious that we must begin now to plan for new facilities. And we need them! We simply have no more room for growth.”

For information about The Saving Grace Project, or to contribute to the $2.5 million needed for relocation, visit the foundation’s Web site at GraceFndn.org or the Saving Grace Project Web site at SavingGrace.GraceFndn.org.

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