The
mission field is very complex. Life in the mission field is unpredictable; in
fact, we face many challenges throughout the years. We’ve been chased by some
authorities and even by Christian leaders in restricted countries. We’ve been
falsely accused, gossiped on countless times, and ridiculed, even from mission
workers who have been our friends (which hurts us a lot from a human’s
perspective). We’ve taught the Bible in the midst of gunfire and bombardments.
We’ve faced many trials throughout the years, but God has always been with us.
When these challenges occur, God has always delivered us and even blessed us
with even more and more opportunities to reach the lost. We thank God and
churches and individuals who have always been with us and our missions. We are
truly blessed and words cannot describe how thankful we are.
Ecclesiastics
says in 3:1-8 “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter
under heaven: a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and
a time to laugh. . .” During September,
we faced a problem with our livestock. Due to the avian flu epidemic which
originated from the western part of China and moved to Myanmar and finally to
our area; sadly, our black chickens, that we raised for self-consumption and
for hosting guests and students, just dropped dead within a matter of days.
This incident happened to us because of jealousy. While all chickens at our
little town died, our chickens were spared (because we lived outside of town).
Then someone dumped their dead chickens next to our chicken’s pen. This
incident has brought Mary and her mother great devastation because they have
been taking care of those chickens for a several years. Each of those black
chicken costs $10-20 and the breeder costs over $200 at the market. But even in
moments like this, we have thousands of reasons to thank God – our health and
ministry in particular.
At
the beginning of September, the Association of Thai Christian Police and
Soldiers came over to our house to fellowship and to worship our Living God. In
America, the society can be changed by the movement of common people, but in
Thailand, the society can only be changed by the elites. This group of
Christian police and soldiers are among the elites of the country of Thailand
and they are on fire for God. They believe that only “Jesus Christ” can
transform Thailand into His Kingdom. In the past year, this group stood up to
nullify the law that would forbid any individual Christian to evangelize in
Thailand. This same law would also forbids for a house worship or devotional
time, and no more church planting unless they had a special authorized document
from the central offices. If this law were to pass, it would impact Christian
evangelism and His kingdom expansion immensely. Praise the Lord for such law
was nullified! They also have visions to send evangelists to every public
school and military camps in the Northern Thailand. The core problem is that
there is no worker for such tasks. Please continue to pray for this group of
Christians that they may make a huge difference in Thailand for His Kingdom.
Over
all, the high ranking soldiers of this group want to train the next generation
Christians to become leaders who will be able to be God’s tools in transforming
Thailand. They are searching and recruiting Christian children under 17 years
of age to attend at their military cadet school. They want Isaac to join in
this program. They will come back for Isaac and discuss with him directly in the
near future. Isaac is thinking and praying about it. Please pray for Isaac as
he is deciding on whether to train, which will be like an extracurricular
activity on top of his school works.
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| A group picture |
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| Pray... |
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| Fellowship meal after worship |
One
of our visions to overcome poverty, human trafficking, drugs among the Lisu
people, particular among the Lisu churches throughout Myanmar and Thailand is
to help the Lisu people with skills and knowledge so that they can have jobs
and eventually are able to stand on their own and become healthy churches. As
it is said “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and
he’ll eat for a lifetime.” We are now trying our best to contact with several
organizations both Christians and non-believers to help teach and train the
Lisu people.
In
the past weeks, Stephen and Nick met with the director of a nursing aid school
in Chiang Mai and also the director of a Japanese newspaper in Thailand.
Stephen and Nick talked to them about our missions and how we teach the Bible
and also how we are trying to find people to help teach skills to the Lisu
people so that they may be able to get out of poverty, human trafficking and
drugs. One of the directors is Thai and the other is Japanese and they are very
interested in helping the Lisu people. They really respect and would like to
read Stephen’s Bible commentaries. Mr. Urano, the Japanese director of the
newspaper company would like to put our missions in his newspaper as well. We
are extremely thankful that God has allowed us to meet with non-Christians that
are willing to help our missions.
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| Hosting guests at the mission office |
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| Planning how to help the Lisu churches and people |
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| Visiting Stephen's Office |
Family
Mary
is doing well. She misses the sounds of the chickens but is happy that the bird
flu didn’t affect our family. Stephen has done over 90 percent of each
commentary works on the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. However, he
has paused his commentary works in order to go back through his college and
seminary notes on the book of Daniel. He has been invited to go teach on this
book in China and Myanmar this upcoming month of October. It will be a
challenging book for him since the Old Testament is not his area of emphasis
(though he took more classes of the Old Testament at Lincoln Christian
Seminary). So, he needs your prayers that whatever he does, whether teaching or
preaching, that he would deliver God’s Word faithfully. Isaac is currently
having his final exam for his first semester. He is currently on the top group
of students in his grade for the English based classes. Then he will have a
break for a month in October. Becky is doing great job in tutoring Isaac; her
health is doing great as well. Many times, she feels frustrated because there
is no available job for her in this country since she is limited due to the
hardships of getting to and from places. Nick has started teaching a little bit
of English in the city on some days in order to make ends meet. John is
searching for his internship church for his preaching major during this year at
Boise Bible College. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
