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Joyful Fellowship Meals!

In Asia, one of the best ways to connect with people is through having meals together. People will have meals together to make business deals, celebrate success, build relationships, or even squash quarrels. During these meals, people will see if they are able to work together and trust those who are in attendance. It’s no wonder that many pictures on the phones end up being about food or a group photo during a meal. Since borders have finally fully opened up, these past couple of months was full of fellowship meals.

A meal with the Wong family

A meal with a guests from Germany and Laos

A meal with leaders from Laos

Stephen taught a class on the Theology of the Cross to a group of Christian leaders including his relatives who are high ranking retired Thai government officers and doctorate persons from various fields: anthropology, theology and Buddhology, whether from Thailand or from abroad. It was a spontaneous 2 day class, from 8am to 5pm. These Christian leaders called in a week earlier and asked if there were any classes that they could attend. Moved by their interest in studying the Bible, Stephen offered them this class. One of the things discussed in the class is the importance of dying with Christ and picking up the cross daily. For this gives us hope after we depart the world, we would head to paradise which is often described as a “feast”. They all easily understood and connected with the “feast” analogy since that’s a huge part in the Asian culture. The feedback of the class was positive, many went away learning more than they anticipated and felt that they need to study the Bible even more! This is wonderful news because many Christian workers/leaders in Asia are involved in great ministries but have very little Biblical education.

Class on Theology of the Cross
 Laos

Abraham is one of our field workers in the remote village near the border of Laos and Vietnam. Whenever a new family wanted to accept Jesus Christ, he had to walk several hours uphill because during the rainy season motorcycles and even cars aren’t able to traverse the muddy terrain. Most villages in that area are on top of mountains, so during the rainy season, they aren’t able to go down to the river as easily. During any other season, they would be able to walk 2 hours down to the river at the base of the mountain and walk 5 hours back to the village. So, during rainy season, they have to dig a huge hole in the ground, line it with tarp, and then fill it in with water. This is such a great image of Baptism as they have to actually dig a hole in the ground as if it were a burial site. They would then be baptized in this makeshift baptistery.

Traveling on small motorbikes during rainy season is tough!

Making a makeshift baptistry

The baptistry is ready!

New brothers and sisters in Christ!
Like Abraham, we have 10 field workers who are carrying the Great Commission to the lost souls in the communist country. Praise the Lord! This group of native evangelist has won over 400 souls so far this year (2022). Half of the group has had a chance to study some books of the Bible with Stephen and they want to study more. Therefore, Stephen will begin offering special intensive courses twice a year so they would be rooted firmly in God’s Word, the Scripture. Please lift up this group of native evangelist in your prayers! Without your prayerful and financial support, their ministry of carrying out the Great Commission to the lost people in the restrictive country would not be as successful as it is today.

Baptism at a stream
Baptism at a river
More Believers
The works in Laos is amazing! We are overjoyed to work with the locals there in furthering His Kingdom. Recently, another great need just came up especially for medical experts (doctors/nurses/anesthetists). The Laotian government asked us if we had any friends or connections with any medical personnel as the government hospital requested for any expert to come and help train them. They said that their practices are outdated and would like a bit of medical training for their doctors and such. The specific requests were for training in anesthesia dosage and surgeries involved with the kidney, appendicitis, bile, ovarian tumor, and possibly the brain. They would like to raise their treatment standards because most doctors said that they don’t feel confident in their practice. If anyone with a medical background would like to join a medical mission trip in the next year or so, please let us know. The trip would be connecting with the doctors in Laos and also doing medical clinic tents in villages with those doctors and nurses. We believe that this would further our relationship with the government as they would see Christians in a new light, pun intended!

Myanmar

Recent air raid targeted a concert at village near the town of Hpakant, northern Myanmar, killing at least 80 people including 3 popular singers and injuring more than 100 innocent civilians. It is very sad news! The violence in Myanmar has caused many common citizens, who don’t want to take sides or be a part of war, to leave their homelands, farms, animals, even families and love ones in order to settle down in foreign and often inhabitable locations; some villagers have had to move from the far west, near India’s borders, to the far east, near Lao’s border; others had to move from the villages on the mountains to suburbs of the towns. Many have even fled to Thailand and Malaysia.

In order to demonstrate God’s love, we (Asians For Christ with IDES) provided the basic essential needs; rice, noodles, cooking oils to several thousands of hopeless people. We also built hundreds of temporary shelters for them to go through during this monsoon and winter season. Please continue to pray for our field workers on site and for peace in Myanmar.

Wooden planks gathered for the temporary shelter

Temporary Refugee Shelters


Food packages for the displaced people
Family

Two weeks ago, there was a 4.2 magnitude earthquake where the epicenter was only 10 km from our house and, unfortunately, our house faces some damages. This didn’t stop us from hosting several groups of people coming over for lunch or dinner and that’s been such a blessing in the midst of disaster. We were honored to host a group of Christian leaders from Laos and enjoyed the time to pray and discuss about future mission works in the country. Some of them are even willing to carry out the mission works that we ourselves are unable to go at this moment due to Stephen's unstable health. We also had friends and family from Germany, France, New Zealand, and America come and visit us. Some of them even studied God’s Word with us. Praise the Lord!

One of the several damaged areas
from the Earthquake

During the middle of October, our family went out for a weekend for a camping vacation trip and a day of hiking. At one location, only Isaac and Stephen made it to the top of the mountain. By the way, Stephen’s health has improved greatly. He has begun to make church visitations and preach at different churches and villages. He is now teaching online class on the book of Galatians and completing his exegetical book on Isaiah. If God’s willing, he is planning to go to Vietnam this November. However, he’ll have off days where he is completely exhausted and lack energy. After some rest, he would regain his strength. Please keep him in your prayers as he’s on his way to recovery. 

Stephen preached at a small house church in the mountains.
(Praise the Lord! 3 people are interested
in becoming Christian, as a result)
Stephen, Mary, and Isaac relaxing

Mary has done amazing setting up and making sure everything runs smoothly at the house. Becky and Nick have started a new class with the teachers from Hawaii; the class is a Bible story telling class and the students are from Myanmar and Laos. Nick’s soccer team had another game this month and were victorious! On top of that, Nick and his friends enjoy working with the youth at a Thai church in the city. Isaac has been selected from his school to attend an Olympic style event to participate in language competitions. We have no clue about this competition so we’ll see what it entails soon. Recently, John and Anna moved from Idaho to Missouri. They are planning to settle down in Kansas. Please pray for every one of the Wongs, that we will be a light to the people around us, maybe connect with them more over a meal, and that they may see Jesus through us.

Bible Story telling class with the teachers from
Hawaii

Our soccer team winning another game!


Took them out to eat after the game!
More fellowship!