Jesus’ Great Commission in Matthew 28 is of utmost vital and
eternal significance. As His followers, we are called to lift our eyes beyond
the immediate and embrace God’s greater vision. God desires that every person
on earth to hear the life-giving message of the gospel. God doesn’t want anyone
to be perish, but that all would come to repentance and experience His
transforming love.
This Great commission compels us to move beyond ourselves
and our borders. Our calling is to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to the
nations, especially throughout Southeast Asia and China, where countless souls
have yet to encounter His grace. By his grace, God are sent to equip Christian
workers, to evangelize to those who do not yet believe, and to empower communities
with the love of Christ.
Equipping
Recently, we have been focused on equipping current and future Christian Kingdom workers. We have had over several classes, over 50 local Christian leaders trained in advance biblical classes – tearing down the denominational views and studying the Bible exegetically. These Kingdom workers come together from these different denominations and study the Bible intensively in order to improve their biblical understanding and therefore teach the members of their local churches to base their faith and understanding upon the truth in the Bible. This has been one of our main focus because we believe that the Bible is the foundation of our belief and it is crucial for the church and its members.
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| Stephen teaching Revelation |
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| Alebo, a former student, also helped teach the class |
Stephen recently taught the book of Revelation in a weeklong
intensive course for Christian workers from Myanmar and Thailand. This group of
leaders demonstrated a deep passion for studying God’s Word. One student, in
particular, showed remarkable dedication by walking alone for three hours,
crossing mountains and the border, and then riding a bus for another three
hours—each way—to attend every class over the past two years. In this weeklong
intensive course, Nick had the opportunity to teach about mental health from
what he’s been studying in his master’s degree. He worked with the students to
find out their attachment style. Attachment theory involves the idea of the
importance of the first few years of a child’s life with their caregiver
(especially the mother); this relationship, if unhealthy leads to insecure
attachment style which is associated with negative mental health and strain in
relationships. Nick’s focus, from his research, is to let the students know
that insecure attachment styles, if left unaware, affects relationship with the
community and even with God. This is to encourage people to also give emphasis
on raising children in the best way possible. The students finished the
weeklong course with great feedback and were equipped to go back and teach what
they learned to their community.
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| Nick teaching pastoral care/mental health |
Evangelizing
As you know, we are continuing to expand, so our next main
focus is to make a evangelistic efforts flow smoothly together with our
teaching endeavors. In the past, we have worked with local evangelists and have
reaped many souls for His Kingdom. Unfortunately, some of these past
evangelists, for many reasons, are working on their own or moved on to other
careers. Albeit this task of reaching out to the lost is complicated with many
challenges – physically, emotionally, mentally, and financially. With over tens
of thousands of people coming to Christ in the past decade, we desire to
continue to improve this aspect of our missions. We have been discussing how we
can better play a role in partnering with these evangelists. Now, we have the
best candidates from each of these cohorts we equip and are working more
diligently in the strategic planning, fundraising, and support in their field.
Although we still support a range of Kingdom workers throughout Southeast Asia
and China, we have chosen specific evangelists and dialed in even more in their
ministry by providing stable financial and missional support.
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| Evangelism to remote villages |
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| The best yet not easy way to get to remote villages |
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| A church in some of the remote areas are simple but full of faithful Christians |
gone to the areas and shared the gospel with many villagers, turning them from growing opium – even though opium is important to their livelihood. Opium has grown in some of these areas where the law and regulations have not been active, and the villagers grow the opium as a cash crop. Most of these villagers are just making a living, not knowing the harm some of these crops may cause; in order to change the people’s decision in growing such a lucrative crop, the people must change their personal beliefs. For those who decided to change crops, they take a loss in income but are doing because they now belong in His Kingdom. Praise God for the amazing work that starts from the building blocks of the truth and goes into the field.
Another student, Michael, a retired police officer in
Northern Thailand has been instrumental in the mission field. He has been
serving at a local church in Chiang Rai where ethnic minority children are
being reached out. The church continues to grow even with a large generational
gap between the members. On top of this, Michael, using his government
connections, has been helping refugees from Myanmar gain temporary status to
stay in Thailand. In previous months, many of the refugees were arrested,
separated from their families, and awaited deportation. If the refugees were
sent back to their country, they face imprisonment or illegal conscription to
join in the war. Michael stepped up and helped the refugees stay in the country
(at the border), while the churches in the area tended to their needs and
shared the gospel.
Empowering
AFC has always been a “wholistic” ministry because a person
is spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental. We have seen too many times in
missions that physical needs are put aside; don’t get us wrong, spiritual
aspects of the mission is very important, but it should also come with meeting
physical needs. Many missions build large church buildings, bring people into
the church, and focus on spiritual teachings. While these are amazing things
especially if the locals are already living in prime conditions and having
sustainable jobs. In Southeast Asia, many are living below the poverty line and
are struggling to make ends meet. In these spiritually-only focused missions,
many of the large church buildings end up eventually empty as people are trying
to pursue their next meal.
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| Stephen visiting this center with Christian volunteers which provides prosthetic legs for the disabled |
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| We sponsored some of the prosthetic legs |
In the past year, we have worked with local churches to provide relief for those affected by the war, floods, and earthquakes. A few months ago, our team provided meals and clean water to thousands of people in Mandalay, Myanmar through our partnership with IDES and churches in the States. We focused primarily on meeting the physical needs of the people first. Not a word of the gospel was delivered on the first week of relief work and this was our choice because we understand that in Southeast Asia the culture is focused more on community and gratitude. After a week, the people started to ask why we were helping them, and this is the moment we share a glimpse of Christ love and good news to them. Overwhelmed by gratitude, the community in Mandalay spread the word and our missions were recognized and praised. This is the moment we knew that the door in this area was open for evangelism. Even the local head monk at the large Buddhist temple in Mandalay was thankful for our work that they presented AFC a certificate of appreciation from their Buddhist group. Now, another field has been planted with the seed of Christ and we are now in the process of setting up a class on how to reach Buddhists for the local church leaders and evangelists (some of our students live in this area). After a few months, the physical needs of the locals are still there as they try to reorganize their lives; please pray for the people in Myanmar as we may need to assist their needs as they recover from earthquake and continue to live in a war-torn country.
Expansions
We are happy to announce that we have two buildings being constructed to accommodate the growth of our missions. The need came when we realized hundreds of local Christian leaders from Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and China requested to come study with us. We realized that although teaching online was a great avenue for those who are unable to come onsite, the onsite classes are more hands on and can go deeper. On top of that, when teachers came to help teach, they had no place to stay so that added to the expenses. To take on this, AFC board decided to construct buildings to tackle these needs. One of the buildings will be purposed to host teachers and students who come to AFC center. The other building will be a multipurpose building used as a church, meeting room, classroom, and a multimedia recording studio. This is a game changer as we further His Kingdom and make it more sustainable in equipping, evangelizing, and empowering.
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| Stephen discussing with the construction team |
Family
The Wongs recently went through a bombardment of the flu. This spread around and lasted a couple of weeks. Although most of the family was sick, they continued the overseeing of the buildings’ construction, teachings, and planning. Stephen has been busy in the office teaching classes and preparing his next courses. Mary continues to oversee most of the projects at the center, including (with Stephen) the construction of the new buildings. Isaac just finished his midterm exams and enjoying his first year in college. He has already been to Japan to compete in engineering contest and their team won the best idea award. Becky has been teaching the grammar class portion of the English bible class which her and Nick (with the members from Hawaii) lead. This class has been a desirable class for many from Laos and Myanmar, unfortunately the number of students are low due to unstable internet from the conflicts in their countries. Nick is finishing up his manuscript for his master’s degree and is awaiting to publish them to a journal, after he has finished his thesis and defense, graduation will be on the horizon.
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| Stephen, John, and Nick attending a meeting in town with local Thai Christians |
We are very excited about how AFC is expanding and it is all thanks to everyone who played a part. We thank you for you partnership and prayers for His Kingdom work in Southeast Asia and China.
