Asians for Christ: God's Care

Stephen is on the way to a full recovery, slowly but surely. He takes a 4 kilometer (2 miles) walk almost every morning and 2 kilometers (1 mile) every evening. Usually, he would do jump ropes but health experts suggested for him not to jump so much in order to prevent his knee from going bad at his age. Many friends and relatives keep telling him to work less and relax a bit. As some of his close friends would know that he is a workaholic! In the past two years (during the Covid lockdowns), he wrote 11 books, taught 3 online classes each week, all this on top of conducting and managing the mission works in different countries - Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and China. One day his son John called him from the USA and reminded him to go out and enjoy life once in a while. He replied to John that to study God’s word, and travel through the space of the Scripture, is his best enjoyment; nothing could replace this joy. Nevertheless, he has reduced his online classes to once a week; he also spends more time socializing with visitors that come to our house.

Recently, Stephen received a call from a group of Christian leaders from Myanmar requesting for him to offer them a special intensive course this upcoming November. They told him that they didn’t want Stephen’s biblical knowledge to be lost if he were to ever pass away. It sounds “rude”, but pure hearts and straight words prove that they do deeply want to study with him.

Another “cultural variance” occurred when several high ranking Thai military Christian friends came over to the house; as they were talking with Stephen, they asked about the symptoms from when he was very sick. After Stephen told them all about the several fainting episodes, they said, “oh there was a minister that had the same exact symptoms… and he died 6 months later.” WOW! That was a shock for us to hear. They didn’t mean it in a negative way but culturally some topics are spoken frankly. Stephen jokingly said he wasn’t sure if this was just a cultural shock moment or was it a message sent from God. Please continue to pray for Stephen’s battle with his health. Nevertheless, we have faith that God’s got everything in control and we thank God that Stephen is still with us.

Furthermore, God has definitely been working even among our relatives. We started to have family gatherings more often after the loss of Stephen’s eldest sister. We, as a family, continually pray so that our whole extended family would be used by God. It was during one of these dinners that we realized that God is answering our prayers. One of our relatives had been struggling with anxiety and depression for almost 18 years. On top of that, he struggles with low blood sugar. During this dinner, he opened up and said that in the past couple of years, there was a time that he almost died so he turned his life around and has been really intentional in prayers and having a relationship with God. Recently, he went completely off all his medication. Praise God for His great works as several others have also recently experienced God’s work in their lives.

Praying with relatives

Family Get-together

Laos

Praise the Lord! God has opened wide evangelistic doors for us in Laos. Through our faithful and generous donors, we have recently acquired a piece of land in Vientiane. Our next step is to build a couple of dormitories and an outreach center so that we can expand His Kingdom in the country of Laos. This is a unique and probably one of the first kind of ministry in the restricted and poorest country in Southeast Asia. Here are some facts and statistics of the college age students. In 2021, 58,349 students graduated from High school. And only 39,337 are able enter college or university. Out of the 39,337 students, 70% comes from rural areas. Since colleges and universities do not provide dormitories, and in order to attend college, the majority of students has to stay with a relative or rent a 3mx3m (9ft x 9ft) room which is shared with 6-7 other students because of the price, or (what most do) is to rent a shack or a rundown home. Many of these young students, especially the young innocent girls, have to live in unsafe environments and they don’t have any options. Sadly, some of them end up working in brothel or human trafficking business just to afford a place to live and food to eat. This is why we started also focusing on college age ministry.

College students in Vientiane - Worship Time

Currently, we are working with roughly 30 college students. All of these students are from the rural areas where their families work on farms and fields. In Southeast Asia, farmers and field workers often live below poverty lines. More than half of these students have met Jesus Christ in our ministry. They are now very active in sharing Jesus to their peers. The students have set their own goals, if God’s willing, that each one of them will reach out to at least 4 students each school year. Please pray with us as we are drawing out the plans and starting fundraising for building this outreach center.

IDES

Special thanks to IDES for their partnership yet again with our missions. During the easing of Covid lockdowns, we realized that countless areas in Southeast Asia and Southern China faced challenges. Families just didn’t have the means to buy food anymore because it had been 2 years of instability during Covid. We received requests from several villages saying that they really needed help immediately. At the same time, IDES reached out and asked if we needed any resources to aid in our mission field, and we immediately thanked God for arranging everything and providing in crucial moments.

During our field team’s distribution, many called us telling us that God’s promise in Matthew 6:25-26 “do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink… Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them” (NASB) had been fulfilled in their lives. Truly, they have witnessed that God is faithful to his Words. Praise the Lord! The following are pictures from some of the areas where we are able to share photos:

Traveling through muddy roads to get to some areas

For the elderly group

Many widows and orphans also received this blessing

Ready to eat some rice!

Thanks IDES for partnering with us in carrying out the Great commission to the lost people in Southeast Asia and China. While IDES helps with the physical needs, we, Asians For Christ, focus on their spiritual needs, God's Word in particular. Together, we have reached many unreachable places and people and have won many souls for Christ. We are looking forward to reaching out to many more places and people in Southeast Asia and China.

Family

Mary continues working in the field; her papayas are finally starting to bear fruit. Recently, Mary made some food for the students at the public school near our house; they were able to enjoy a variety of food with lots of meat! There usual lunch is just rice and soup with some vegetables. Once in awhile, Mary likes to bring the kids special food to just love on them. John and Anna have recently moved to Missouri, please keep them in your prayers as they transition to the Midwest. Isaac just started doing Thai ROTC basic training with the school; every Monday, he has to go to military base in Chiang Mai and do some training. This is a Thai law. All males have to either give 3 years to ROTC training during high school or become a soldier for 2 years when they turn 20. Becky has a month break from teaching Myanmar students online so she has been enjoying the rest. Nick’s soccer team is in the process of having their first match since Covid, so the boys are very excited for that. On top of that, Nick works with an awesome team to help lead the youth at a church in Chiang Mai, and there are a lot of events planned throughout the rest of the year.