For the Easter, to celebrate Jesus' resurrection, we pray that your hearts are revived and transformed
with the love of God and your spirits
are renewed with the hope of Jesus’ resurrection.
Mary, Isaac and Stephen just got back home from China
last night. This short mission trip was
designed to deliver the money from IDES to tens of thousands of refugees who
have flooded into the western part of Lincang at Muang Ting, Pong Kon and
Cheungkang in Yunan Province of China. The
intense fighting between the Burmese troops and Kokang independent fighters in
the Northeast part of Myanmar, particularly Laukkaing, a self-administered area
of Kokang, has killed many innocent people.
Many women and children have been tortured and have been treated
inhumanely. Several thousand homes have
been destroyed.
In the western part of Lincang, Asians For Christ has
connections with over 50 churches
among Lisu, Lahu and Wa people. Many churches in the area
are now sheltering and feeding these displaced people in order to display God’s
love in a tangible, need-meeting way. The
fighting looks like an ongoing issue for months to come. The urgent
need is related to daily circumstances. The first step in financial help would be
to provide for refugees’ daily consumption of food, rice, vegetables, cooking
oil and water.
Tali, Chinese Christian leader, in front of the refugee tents
The life of the refugees
Refugee Children
Mainly for the security and for the future ministry
inside Myanmar, the key Christian leaders, Tali (Yee Hong Kui), Ngaw wu and
many others, in the area suggested
Stephen not to go and give the necessities to the people, at this moment. Either side,whether the Burmese government or
the Kokang insurgent, may assume that our mission is choosing sides because of
this help. Therefore, the key Christian leaders sent their
representatives to meet us at Kunming.
After meeting with them, we handed all the help to them and provided
them with the essential information on how to carefully and faithfully handle
this type of ministry for the sake of expanding God’s Kingdom among those
displaced people.
Stephen met with the Christian leaders
to present the help money for the refugees
Mary and Isaac took their time off from their daily
activities and joined with Stephen at this particular trip. Besides Kunming, they also made a trip to
Dali and Lijiang to meet Mary’s relatives and friends in China. It was an exotic trip for Mary and
Isaac. They even tasted a bit of what
Stephen’s mission works in China looked like.
Particularly, Isaac had an opportunity to exercise his Chinese since he
had learned Chinese as his third language for the past two consecutives
years. He also met many new people and was
excited to travel on planes, trains and buses in China. Sadly, Mary got food poison on her last day
in Lijiang. Friends of ours took her to the
hospital to receive an intensive care so that she would be able to fly back
home in Thailand.
Stephen, Mary and Isaac at Dali, China
Isaac with Chinese legendary monkey
Stephen, Mary and Isaac with Chinese legendary pig
Isaac on the train to Lijiang
Mary and Isaac on the train to Lijiang, China
At the Ancient city of Lijiang
Isaac posing in the Ancient city of Lijiang
The highlight of our ministry this month was conducting
the Lisu cultural seminar on March 13-17.
Nowadays, one of the most effective strategies for evangelism is
cultural sensitivity. Indeed, the
seminar was well accepted by various groups of mission organizations and missionaries. Many speakers were selected from both
believers and non-believers. Through
this seminar, we are winning minds of those non-believers and hopefully, in the
process, winning their souls in the near future. Obviously, this type of seminars is breaking
down the hostility between non-believers and believers among the Lisu
people. Moreover, the evangelistic door
has been opened wider. One of the conclusion of this seminar is that every Lisu
needs to learn how to read the Lisu language.
Many non-believers in various places in China are calling for Christian
evangelists and teachers to teach them how to read and write in Lisu. This literacy calling in deed is leading them
to read the Bible because the Bible is the only available literature among the
Lisu people. Now, we need many ground
workers to carry out such need. Please
lift up this need in your prayers so that God would send His workers into the
field.
Needless to say in length, God is moving at this exotic
event; however, where there is the Spirit of God working, there is also the
evil ones in action. At the end, God is
the victor. As Paul writes in
Philippians 2:10-11 “Every knees in heaven and on earth and under the earth
will bow down to the name of Jesus and every tongues will confess Lord Jesus
Christ.” Thank you very much for your
prayer for this event.
Lisu Cultural Seminar 2015
Stephen speaking at the Lisu Cultural Seminar
Chinese News interviewed Stephen
Lisu Cultural Seminar group picture
Isaac with the Lisu traditional outfit
Stephen and Isaac both wearing different Lisu attire
Lisu from different countries with different attire
Honoring dinner with the local governor of Chiang Mai
Mary, Isaac and John in Lisu attire
After the seminar, Stephen took 40 Lisu leaders, most of
them are non-believers, to Laos. As you
may already have known, Laos is considered to be a communist country, where
Buddhism is their strongest influential religion. The Lisu people have a culturally animistic
background. In fact, only one person in
the group is leaning to hold his faith in Buddhism. Since Stephen grew up with various religious
contexts, so it was a great moment for him to offer the group a comparative
theology on animism, Buddhism and Christianity.
The irony was that many times while the groups made a visit at the
Buddhist temples, few Christians in the group came to Stephen to discuss about
the Scripture, God’s Word and their faith in such contexts. Pray to God that these people would learn
from Stephen not merely through his words, but through his deeds. May our living God and Lord receive all the
honor and glory!
The group of Chinese leaders that Stephen led to Laos
Nick spent his week in the Southern part of Thailand,
Krabi, with his former classmate from Pensacola Christian College. Nick and John are intensively preparing
themselves for the upcoming youth camp at Myitkyina, Myanmar on this upcoming
April. Nick and John will team up with Caleb
Hutchcraft and Drew Hanson, youth ministers from the USA, in Chiangmai and then
they will all fly out from Chiangmai to Mandalay and then to Myitkyina. Please pray for this team for God will be
working with/or through them. At this
moment, Becky is at her final two months at her university. She is busy in wrapping up all her class
works.
May our living God and Lord Jesus, the Son of God, who defeated death and rose
from the grave as the firstfruit of the resurrection be with you and bless
you.
In Christ’s Love,
Stephen & Mary
Prayer Requests:
1. The
helps for the displaced people in China.
2. Stephen’s
mission trip to Myanmar.
3. Nick,
John, Caleb and Drew at the Youth Camp in Myitkyina, Myanmar.
4. Family’s
health.
