Food, Community, and Worship

As Thanksgiving season arrives, it is a time to praise God and give thanks to Him for the many blessings. Many villagers have harvested their crops for the year and it is time for honoring God. Thanksgiving is a large community event in Asia, for example a whole village would come together and worship God. The exact date may be different throughout the world, one aspect of Thanksgiving that is common is the food. No matter what area of the world, Thanksgiving is associated with a sharing of meal with others. It’s times like this when everyone comes together and cooks, share unique recipes, and talk about life. There’s something about people and food, eating together enhances a sense of connectedness… not to mention the delicious food itself.

Thanksgiving party at our home

Many people came to worship God together

Every year, we have a Thanksgiving party at our house and we invite several villages to join us in giving thanks to God. The event usually starts in the morning, beginning with a short sermon and then different churches will come up and praise God through a song or a dance. Afterwards, we would have a time of prayer and then everyone would gather around and enjoy lunch together. We really appreciated the people helping us in the background. A few ladies from a few hours north, came the night before to help prepare food for 200 hundred people. Several men also came to set up tents to prepare for the event. With much help, this event went well and all of us had many things to be thankful. Praise God!

The men came to help set up and tear down tents

Some of the women preparing lunch

Mary helping pass out oranges

Plenty of food to enjoy together

The neighborhood women's committee came
and performed a Thai traditional dance

The Lisu sang an acapella worship song

After this event, the recent church plant in Huay Lai also had a Thanksgiving event. Stephen was asked to give the main message at this Harvest worship. Many people from the surrounding villages came to worship God by singing songs and dancing. If you can see the pattern, Lisu people love music! Anyhow, this was a great time of thanksgiving for our God who provides everything, including all of our food.

Another Thanksgiving event at a new church plant, Tap Due

The villagers brought their first produce as an offering to share
with those who need food

Stephen gave a message

More great singing from the Lisu people

Another new church plant, Nong Kio, Vieng Haeng has seen a lot of growth. This house church was established by Stephen and the group of leaders he's been teaching. God has done great things through this group since they've planted several churches already in a year; and these churches are growing in number and also spiritual growth because the members seek to study the Word more! Every week, a few of Stephen's students would go up and help at the church by training leaders and sharing the message with them. At this moment, they have been taught that God is the ultimate provider; He gives us much blessing and we too should give in order to support the needs of the church and help others. This was well received because many of the members have slowly becoming people who give. They will have their first Thanksgiving worship service in the next couple of weeks. If the number continue to grow as it has been, we are discussing about possibly building a church in this village. Please continue to pray for the church plants we mentioned.

Stephen visiting the house church
at Nong Kio

The numbers continue to grow, praise God!

Recently, Stephen and Mary also went to visit a children’s home in Myanmar in order to provide some clothes, new cooking tools, and cook a few meals for the kids. Before going there, they were a bit nervous because the situation in Myanmar has been really bad. People are being kidnapped for ransom and many have been threatened and harmed. Nevertheless, the guardians at the children’s home asked us to visit them for many months now, so they prayed and headed over to Myanmar. When Stephen and Mary arrived, they were greeted by smiles from about 40 kids, orphans and destitute children, all living in very small spaces. One of Stephen’s first thoughts were the living conditions was not the best… it was very crowded and there were a lot of dust in the small building. Mary saw the kitchen area and said she felt very sad for them; they were using a broken rusted over spatula. The spatula was very short, so when they tried to stir fry the food, they came very close to the fire. Mary and some of the kids were very sweaty because of the heat and some of their arm hair were singed as well. During the few days, Stephen and Mary both saw how the kids worshipped with their hearts. They were both encouraged and blessed to spend time with these children.

The bedroom at the children's home

Mary cooking with the boys, they were all
sweating from the heat of the fire

Mary and the girls prepping the ingredients

Mary giving new clothes to all the children

Stephen also made a trip to Laos in order to help people starving because of the recent natural disaster. Over 10 villages were affected by the flood and many farmers lost their crops for the year. Such a travesty especially because all of the villagers live under poverty. They plant enough rice for self-consumption and when the crops are all dead then their livelihood is affected. Many are struggling. Our local evangelists have requested for help and so we reached out to IDES; IDES has always been a great partner in relief works in Southeast Asia and China. We have worked on many relief projects together and this is another one which will bring hope and the love of Christ to the villagers in Laos. This trip was a success as Stephen coordinated and delivered food packages to the villagers with our local team. It is a blessing to be a part of the efforts to feed hungry people and to share the love of Christ with them. 

Rice is the main staple food in Asia; it is the main need 
for the people affected by the recent flood

Stephen with his team and the Laos government passed out
the relief packages to the school

Students at one of the village receiving
relief packages

Another team also with rice headed to several villages

Hundreds of families received food

During the Laos trip, Stephen also visited the capital, Vientiane. As you may recall, this is the area where we have set our outreach center/dormitory ministry. We received generous donations from our partners and are currently at 40% into our goal. The land has been prepared and some of the fence has been constructed. We have enough at the moment to start the first structure. We hope that we can continue to add as we get more funds. At this moment, we are praying that God will provide a building for worship so that students and neighboring people could come and worship God. However, the immediate need is drilling for a water-well and electricity. Please lift the remaining costs to the Lord with us.

The fence posts were delivered

The college students helped set up the simple fence for 
boundary purposes

Stephen encouraging the college students in Vientiane

In the evenings, there are small groups

These are some of the students who would have a safe place
to stay once the outreach center/small dorms are finished

More important than physical food is one of the spiritual kind. Jesus said while he was tempted in the wilderness in Matthew 4:4, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” This verse emphasize the importance of spiritual food. Therefore, these past few months, Stephen has been teaching the Bible to various groups of students from different locations. One particular instance was a Romans weeklong intensive course at Huay Ko village, in Chiang Dao. The pastors and evangelists in this village requested for Stephen to teach the Bible to them. We are blessed to see many people requesting to study the Bible. This year Stephen has already offered several of these weeklong courses which have all resulted in increasing the Biblical knowledge of church members in various churches in Northern Thailand. One of the most important things for the spiritual health of church members is their understanding of the Truth. Praise the Lord that many have requested to learn more. 

Stephen teaching at Huay Ko church

More teaching

Family

Stephen and Becky celebrated their birthdays in August. We cherish every year we have with the family, because as you already know with Becky’s health history, we constantly praise God for giving us time to spend together. After the celebrations, Stephen and Mary were both had to go to the hospital because they had the flu and felt very weak. Praise God for their recovery. Nick finished his first semester and had a few weeks of break before starting another semester. He is currently planning on doing his thesis study on how Christianity impacts mental health; this will be the first study of its kind in Southeast Asia. Several professors at the university are interested in this topic as well. Isaac recently received a science award for Thailand. We are really proud of him for his many achievements at school. Please continue to pray for us and our team (and their families) serving in Southeast Asia and China.

Strength in numbers, Strength in the Lord

There is a saying “there is strength in numbers,” which is true in many occasions. When people help each other, they could delegate work and be more efficient, especially when everyone brings in their strengths and abilities. This was the case, many decades ago, as the Lisu people migrated from China to settle in Myanmar and Thailand. They traveled in groups and when they found a flourishing area with a river and wild game, they would begin to build houses out of anything they could find. After a while, when the village grew large and resources were scarce for everyone, a small group of people would break off in search for a new place. Smaller groups or unprepared groups have a hard time surviving the wild, and many end up having to assimilate with other ethnic groups and lose their Lisu identity; such is the case in Laos, for we know there were several small groups who traveled into Laos from China, but the contacts were lost, long ago (we are still searching for this lost Lisu groups in Laos to this day). Other reasons groups would leave to find a new home would be because of wars in the area, belief conflicts, and even internal politics. This is why there are many Lisu villages spread out across the mountains of China, Myanmar and Thailand. 

Present day Lisu village in Thailand,
living on the mountain side

As you may have known, Stephen began training up a new class of Lisu leaders. Yes, this group contains member in their 50’s and 60’s, but they have been diligently studying week long intensive courses each month. Nevertheless, God is using these guys who are mostly retired in reaching out to the lost in Thailand. One of the core requirements of Asia International Seminary, a grass roots non-traditional seminary under Asians for Christ, is for the students to go back to the biblical times in order to search for the original meaning and then contextualize what they have learned on the field. In order to train up and disciple these leader-students to evangelize and disciple others, Stephen with these leader-students have been going and evangelizing to remote villages of Thailand and converting many people each week. In the worldly perspective, our team is a small and weak, perhaps; even this particular mission’s task is led by a group of retire-aged people…oh! How many would say this is futile. But we know we can accomplish great things when God is with us!

Stephen with the Lisu leaders ready to go evangelize!

Stephen teaching New Testament Exegesis

Perhaps, you might be foreign to miracles or question if it still happens, because maybe you’ve seen something suspicious on television. We would just like to share this wonderful story of our powerful God. A lady in her late 70s arrives to meet us one evening as we were talking with a few villagers. People could tell there was something off about her. The way she would have ticks, moving of her facial muscles. On top of this, she complained about some type of pain on the inside. As she spoke with a frail tone, Stephen and the team offered to pray for her. She accepted. Immediately after they finished prayer, you could see an immediate change in the room. To everyone’s amazement, she no longer had ticks, was able to communicate with more strength than before and even started smiling. God moved to show His power in this place. After this incident, several people wanted to learn more about Jesus, and some believed and were baptized. From strangers, they became our brothers and sisters in Christ. God is so good!

After this prayer, she was healed

She believed and was baptized in a water storage

Several others were also baptized on that day. Praise Jesus!

In the recent decades, missions to the ethnic minority groups in Thailand seemed to have been over saturated. You would have thought that everyone would have at least had a chance to hear the Gospel. Boy were we wrong! As we discussed together about the potential area for evangelism in Thailand, several villages came to mind. To our surprise, there are still Lisu villages in Thailand yet to be reached. Several villages held heavily to their animistic belief in these villages, evangelists were threatened by force to never show up in the town. So, no one ever dared enter these villages because everyone there were openly against Christianity. Through prayers, we finally decided to try and reach these villages. First, we connected with the local in the town, and when the other villagers saw us, they openly laughed and warned us to watch our backs. But, the thing with unfamiliar places is that we need to rely on God all the more.

After a couple months of intensive prayer and frequent visitations, we saw the first villager in this small town accept Jesus Christ and was baptized. Oh how beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tiding of good things (Romans 10:15, NASB). These new converts are gathering at house churches, until they overfill the house; then raising money for a church building would be necessary.

Stephen and Mary singing hymns and teaching the youth
in one of the villages

In another village, they assembled a team
and went to teach the youth at another village

Stephen and the team were asked to tell the gospel
at many houses

Mission Field:

The ministry in Laos has expanded greatly, almost daily people believe in Jesus Christ. Praise God! Please continue to pray for this mission field as we work with the locals in equipping and empowering them to evangelize in their various communities. Please pray also for a group of local evangelists and their families, particularly, their needs for filling gas in their motorcycle to carry out the Great Commission to the lost souls.

Many believe and are baptized in Laos weekly

New brothers and sisters in Christ, in Laos

Another group of new brothers and sisters in Christ

In Myanmar, the war still tears through those lands. Unrest still remains. Help from outside the country is slowly dissipating. We are still teaching and encouraging the people in the country via online teachings/podcast. Unfortunately, it is not safe for us to go into the country. Several of our graduated students are still evangelizing in the north but it’s been tough.

In China, the bible class continues while the government continues to monitor with CCTV inside church buildings. In the midst of such circumstances, many Chinese Christians remain true to our Lord and Savior. Actually, a couple of the evangelists in the area came to see us in the past month. By the way, Stephen is still teaching the Bible for Christian leaders in Myanmar and China weekly via podcast. He has 85 leaders who are studying with him at the moment.

The group of Chinese evangelists came to visit us

Spiritually, many wander around exploring for a place to put their trust and hopes. Rarely do people find Jesus, the true hope, unless someone goes and tells them. We believe God is showing His Greatness, especially through obstacles. We continue to reach out to every corner of Southeast Asia and China even if it is potentially dangerous, because that’s part of the risk of evangelistic trips in many of these areas. Surely, there are many potential challenges along this spiritual journey. However, we believe that at the end of the day, it is rewarding to serve God and to see life transforming in each individual who meets Jesus Christ!

Family:

August turns out to be a celebration month for our family. In Thailand, mother’s day is set in August. Stephen and Becky were born in August. Mary is busy on taking care of daily needs not only for family but also for leader-students of the intensive classes, even though they took turns in cooking and cleaning. Isaac got a silver medal for the project of the Development of Hydrogel used as Mulch, which can delay the decomposition of fertilizer for his project in Indonesia International Olympian competition 2023. His other project for data sciences on depression is at the national competition. On top of helping teach Bible classes online with Nick, Becky started teaching English classes for little kids up in the mountains each month. This has been a very great opportunity as the little kids really like Becky’s classes. Nick volunteers in a youth ministry with Khao a local church in Chiang Mai. They have been serving there every other weekend and God is definitely working in the kids’ lives. The neighboring kids also asked Nick to continue to coach their soccer team. Nick has also dedicated his time to mentor to these high school/young adult age kids in the neighborhood. It has been tiring for Nick to study his Master’s program in mental health and to also do ministry, but he has now started to be able to balance and manage his time very well. Please pray for God to give him strength as he studies and serves the various communities.

Nick teaching the youth at a Thai church

The soccer students Nick coaches in a small league in town

We went out to eat to celebrate Thai mother's day

This month was also Stephen's birthday (Becky's soon to come)

We hope that you continue to pray for us as our ministry grows exponentially. We are baffled by the wonderful things God is doing on our mission field. Please take time to look at these pictures of all the things that has been happening!

May God Bless You,

The Wongs

Knowledge is Power

 Ministry Updates

“Knowledge (itself) is power” was first coined in the 1500s by the well-known English Christian philosopher who made a huge impact in the advancement of science by stating the importance of observation and reasoning. His original intention was to promote scientific experiments in order to glorify God. This has led to great advancements that we see today… well and the not so moral or ethical. It is this “knowledge” that people can find amazing cures for diseases, but on the same note, it can be used to deceive and hurt others for personal gain. The bottom line is that, one can use knowledge for good or for evil.

In his letter to Corinthians, Paul contrasts the wisdom of this age (world) to the wisdom of the coming age (God). The wisdom of God is centered on the cross of Jesus Christ. According to 1 Corinthians, the wisdom of the cross contrasted cultural norms for living, eating, conduct, worshipping, and faith. Likewise, Jesus’ teaching in Matthew was countercultural to the norms by saying that he came to fulfill the Torah and the person who wants to enter the kingdom of heaven must have a righteousness which surpasses those of the scribes and Pharisees. While the scribes and Pharisee practiced righteousness: almsgiving, praying, fasting before men, rather than doing it for God. This wisdom of God is the focal point of our mission works, therefore, we pay much of our emphasis on teaching the Bible, the Word of God, in the mission field. It is the Word of God, the Scripture that gives meaning, understanding, and hope to all.

Stephen teaching Matthew

Recently, Stephen concluded his Matthew class with a group of Lisu leaders in Thailand. As you may remember from our last update, there is a revival within the Lisu community in Thailand; many village people have turned to Jesus Christ. Some of those villages had been anti-Christians for a long time. They went as far as barring many evangelists from coming to their villages, and many evangelists have faced threats to their lives. Praise the Lord! Now, some of these very people in those villages have turned to the Living God and have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. However, we are very short of evangelists; at least 7 villages are in urgent need of preachers and church buildings. For this reason, Stephen has been offering special intensive Bible classes to a small group of leaders to study the importance of focusing on the truth from the Bible. The plan is for them to teach and train their peers and their congregations to carry out the Great Commission to the lost souls. We believe that a church that is rooted in God’s word has the power to transform the people, change their community, and help many leaders focus on expanding the Kingdom.

Stephen leading worship hymns

Stephen giving a communion message

We know that earthly knowledge is not comparable to heavenly wisdom, but we can still use it for the sake of His Kingdom. For instance, Nick was recently asked to be the point man in the initiative to grow coffee in three small villages in Laos. Coffee is considered a sustainable crop that can promote many things in the society and environment. So, learning from his friends throughout these few years, Nick gained substantial knowledge in farming, processing, roasting, and even making coffee drinks. This knowledge about coffee will hopefully help villagers, especially church members in Laos find a better cash crop and lead to more sustainable churches in the future. This way we teach them how to fish rather than always giving them fish. By the way, our mission has been blessed to work with a non-Christian foundation in this endeavor. Like God provides Elijah’s daily need through ravens (1 Kings 17:5-6), this non-Christian foundation provided coffee seeds and supplies to make a coffee plant nursery, and also other fruit-tree saplings (which cost about $100,000) for the villages in our mission field. Praise the Lord for this provision! 

Taking coffee seeds and seedling nursery supplies to Laos

It took us 5 hours to reach the border of Laos and Thailand

We made it on the front page of Thai News!

We are ever impacted by knowledge. History tends to be full of people using knowledge to either advance humanity or abuse knowledge and claim power. One example is our mission field north of us (specific name of the location purposely excluded). This elusive, culturally-packed, highly-populated country is full of people yearning for hope. In the past year, the government set up cameras in every church to monitor the congregation. This has been a huge challenge and it doesn’t seem like it will cease any time soon. In the meanwhile, we’ve found a way around these obstacles so that Stephen is still able to teach Bible to the church members. Knowing what’s going on can help a country retain power, but having knowledge helps as we find creative ways to study and praise Jesus amidst persecution.

Another country where people are having a hard time worshiping God at the moment is Myanmar. People are having a hard time attending church, not because of persecution but because of the continued fighting. Some of our friends have told us that the fighting has now progressed into the towns (they used to have a code of war where they would only have their battles outside the cities). Many civilians have had to flee from the city and move to another safer town. The people there have been requesting two main things from us during the past several years: relief aid from Covid 19/war, and more biblical classes. At this moment, even if we had resources to send to the people, it is nearly impossible to cover those needs with all the battles going on throughout the country. It is sad! As for Biblical knowledge, we are still providing Bible classes to the people through online means. A few are still able to join while many have gone dark because of the lack of electricity, internet, and safety. Please be praying for all of our ministries. Pray for us to use knowledge that we have to continue to further his kingdom.

Special song in English for the Lisu to hear

A visit from a Christian leader in Bangkok

Family Updates

All good things must come to an end. For us, it was the departure of John, Anna, and Anna’s family. What a blessed time to be able to spend the summer with John and Anna. On top of that, we got to meet and get to know Anna’s family. We shared memories of fun and ministry together! It was a bittersweet goodbye as we want to be with them for a little while longer but it’s a bit easier knowing that John is loved and cared for in the States.

Nick  teaching Anna and Jo how to roast coffee

John giving a word of encouragement

Playing a game in the airplane coffee shop

Giving snacks to the kids at the school in our neighborhood

Celebrating Khao's first birthday as a Wongratanamajcha

After John’s family left, we continued to have lots of visitors to our house. Everything is starting to be livelier as Covid fears are but a distant thing. Our family is well as we continue to serve God. We just want to thank all of you for your prayers, support, and even encouraging words. True, lots of ministries around the world took a dip during the past several years, but we can honestly say that we’ve had a great harvest as churches here are booming, many are studying the Bible, and people are worshiping our God at the top of their lungs! We thank you for being a part of our family and our missions.

Our families visiting Huey Ko Village

Special Prayer requests:

1. Resources in order to support more local evangelist

2. More teachers to teach to local leaders

3. Nick's Masters program

4. Family's health

5. Resources in order to plant more churches in areas that have a good amount of Christians

6. Political unrests in Myanmar

7. Our local teams