Dwight and Mary Kay Martin founded the eSTAR Foundation in 2007. The foundation's roots go back to 1948, when Dwight's parents arrived in Thailand as the first Protestant missionaries in Nakorn Phanom province. Dwight was born in this remote province on the Mekong River, where he developed a deep connection with Thai people. Dwight has dual Thai & US citizenship.
After high school, Dwight left Thailand to pursue higher education in the US. He married Mary Kay, started a business career, raised a family and earned an MBA in Technology Management. He also founded a successful software company. Despite being away from Thailand for many years, he never forgot his childhood home and felt God's call to serve the Thai people. In 2006, he and Mary Kay moved back to Thailand.
The Martins quickly connected with the leaders of the Thai church, thanks to Dwight's personal knowledge of the language and culture. He established some key relationships with leaders who had been influenced by his parents' ministry. These church leaders asked Dwight to help them maintain the statistics on the church in Thailand. He also took on many other ministry projects that required his business and technical skills.
In 2021 Dwight was asked to serve as the President of the newly established Association of Free Churches in Thailand (AFT). The AFT is now the largest affiliation of churches in Thailand with over 3,000 churches.
This map (see link below), called "The Art of Church Planting", displays the locations where AFT church planters have found "people of peace" down every road and lane. (zoom in on the map to see this) The dots represent the GPS coordinates where someone has accepted the Gospel Message. As a result we are able to form house churches in every village . The colors indicate the different districts. We establish a district church once every village in the district has a house church. The district church in turn continues to grow and disciple the house church members. This link is updated daily and shows how the gospel is spreading in Thailand in "near real time".
https://lookerstudio.google.com/s/pUiw7Gftcb4