David and Diane Ford have 6 children – Kara (23), Joshua (22), Holly (20), Alyssa (18), Anna (11) & Andrew (9).  Diane grew up as a missionary kid in Bangladesh as the youngest of Jay & Eleanor Walsh’s 7 children.  Dave grew up in Michigan as the youngest of Stan & Carolyn Fords 3 kids; my father was a school teacher.

Dave was in the automotive industry for over 20 years before God led the couple into full-time Missions.  In 1985-6, they spent a year in Bangladesh in short term missions where Dave helped run the business office at the Mission Hospital right where Diane grew up.  They have been with ABWE since 2002 and moved to Thailand in July of 2005.

The Ford’s ministry is called GAP – Global Access Partnerships.  GAP strives to help nationals reach nationals.  They meet with national pastors/leaders and seek to form partnerships where they can help them in their church planting ministries.  Since arriving in Thailand, they have helped facilitate a partnership between Woodside Bible Church and the Akha in Chiang Rai, Thailand.  They helped the Woodside team in Thailand when they came in March 2006 and have continued to try to assist both Woodside and the Akha as the orphanage was built.

GAP has many partnerships in many of the surrounding southeast Asian countries.  Dave has traveled to some of these over the last 3.5 years to see how he can assist them and will continue to communicate/travel with them.  Since coming to Thailand, he has been to India, Myanmar and Indonesia to follow-up on partnerships and to help start new partnerships. GAP tries to assist the national leaders in anyway possible so that they can be more affective.  Those working for GAP will never know the language or the culture as well as the nationals do, so it is felt that the best approach is to help them with their ideas. The Fords have also led several groups who have come for short term mission trips where they have gone into schools to present Christian mimes, music and help teach ESL, as well as teach other clinics.  They have had a horticulture team, a dental/medical team as well as building teams.  They will be hosting a sports ministry team in March, a horticulture team in February, and a Woodside team coming in April. When ABWE has conferences in Thailand, Dave is the one who sets these up and coordinates them and they will be having one in May.