Village ministry

A friend called Narlin on the phone and asked if we could drive them to Ban Koknoi to bring a mother to see her daughter. Koknoi is a village on the mountain that we used to go to do ministry. We taught English and brought YWAM team to minister with the children over there.

The story goes like this: Our friend’s friend came into an agreement to have a “symbiotic” relationship with the village school. The school needed more students to get the government support and our friend needed a place for the children. The children had lived there for over three years and consequently the school acquired new buildings and facilities because of the additional students.

For some reason, however, this year the children were moved to another town and are now living in another children’s home in that place. Apparently, our friend’s friend made similar agreement with this village school again. Regardless of the idea behind all of this, I think the move was good for the children.

We are going to Koknoi to see the girl who decided to stay. I think everybody was upset with that decision so her mother will go to convince her to return home or to go with the rest of the children. We were excited to go to Koknoi because we had been there and we have friends in the village. Unfortunately, the trip was cancelled because of the mother got sick. We hope to make the trip some time.

I tell you this story to let you know that in the past years, God had given us opportunities to visit and minister to the hard to reach villages around Chiang Rai. We hope to do more of this in the future. We had been to two villages this year and the village school teachers had invited us to do English camp in the school

This is why we are thankful to God for our giving us the “miracle” truck. We can go places to share God’s love to the villagers.

Prayer Concerns

Please pray for the children in Koknoi and other villages around Chiang Rai that God will use more Christian workers so that they learn about the Word of God and that they will have good education so that they can  have better future.

We thought we could make the trip to Koknoi last Saturday. But as you already know, the truck’s tires are dangerously bald already. We could not make the trip with the bad tires. We borrowed money from the Microfinance Cooperative of Grace Church so we can change the tires. Please pray for God’s provisions. We need THB 25,000 (roughly USD 800) to pay for the loan we made for the tires.

We hope to do more village ministry in the future in partnership with NCWSA. Please pray that God will send people to help us to teach English and share God’s love in Shan State this coming summer.

It’s exam week for Reuven. Thankfully, his exam schedule does not conflict with our scheduled trip to Chiang Mai. Please that he will do well in the test.

We will be traveling to Chiang Mai today (16 July 2013) to appear at the immigration office for our extension of our visa. It has been raining heavily today and the roads to Chiang Mai are winding and slippery. Thankfully we already have the new tires. Please pray for safe travel.

Please pray that our visa will be extended without any problem. The Foundation and I had worked together so that every documentation is properly done.

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Joy and Assurance

Joyful greetings in the name of Christ. Thank you so much for your love and prayers. We are sharing to you some of our stories this month. We want to begin with Andrew and Luke:

I was trying to concentrate on my study but the noise of the two little boys happily laughing and playing wildly had distracted me in a good way. It made me smile. The moment gave me an unexplainable joy and assurance that we made the right decision to take them into our life. Nataset (Andrew) and Flook (Luke)have eventually adjusted and settled in the family, ‬the long hour of crying were finally over. As a matter of fact they are enjoying the love being showered to them by their older brothers and sisters.

We thank you not only for praying for us but also for being part of God’s answers to our prayers.‭ ‬Your support,‭ ‬gifts and contributions have been sustaining us and our ministry.

Roofing Project

In our previous newsletter,‭ ‬we shared to you about the temporary roofing we put up five years ago to prevent the rain from coming in the dirty kitchen and laundry area.‭ ‬The tarp roofing had became old and worn out it was no longer able to serve its purpose.‭ Some of our friends learned about it ande collected funds among themselvesfor the installation of the roof and construction of the bench and sink.
‭We are grateful for God-given friends who are ready to help us in time of need. ‬The construction of the roof and the sink is almost complete. We also thank the Lord for our handyman friend who found time to do the work in spite of his busy schedule.

Lea’s Visa

Narlin and Lea went out to Laos to get non-immigrant visa.‭ We did not bothered to review the supporting documents provided by the Network for Children and Women Association‭ (‬NCWA‭)‬-Mae Sai,‭ ‬and even if we did we could not have noticed it because the documents are written in Thai.‭ ‬The small error caused the Thai Royal Embassy in Lao to deny Lea her visa.‭ ‬However,‭ the immigration ‬officer told them that if they can submit the corrected paper they can issue a non-immigrant volunteer visa right away.

Because of the time and distance, ‬Narlin and Lea decided to settle with a tourist visa for the meantime and come back to Laos after two months with the correct documents.‭ ‬She may have failed to get the visa but it was a learning experience that can be useful when the need to get volunteer visa for people who want to come and work in Mae Sai.

Birthday Celebrations

Month of June,‭ ‬we celebrated three birthdays.‭ Narlin’s birthday was on the 14th, Nataset on the 18th and Joey on the 19th. Jillian celebrated her birthday without us for the first time in the Philippines. It is the eighth year that we celebrate our birthday here in Mae Sai. God is good and faithful. We are hoping to celebrate many more of our birthday here.

More Prayer Concerns

• Pray for strength, wisdom and boldness to share the gospel to the people we encounter every day, moreover, to the people we are teaching and we befriended.
• Please pray for our health specifically to that of the children. The rainy season has started and it seems that dengue breakout could not be prevented because of our proximity to Burma.
• Please continue to pray for all our children’s schooling. The school expenses are taking its toll on our budget. We have 10 children on elementary school and 2 in pre-school with one of our children in high school and two in college in the Philippines. We thank you so much for your prayers and support for this particular need.
• Pray for our partnership with Network for Children and Women Association (NCWA). We are thankful to God that the association is able to provide government recognition to our children’s home. In the future, we are hoping to work with individuals, foundations and organizations for future projects to help improve the life of the people both physically and spiritually.
• Pray for our visa. As we have shared already, the process in extending visa in Thailand takes a lot of time. Our work permit has been extended already. The next step would be to extend our non-immigrant volunteer visa. We need to be physically present at the immigration office and to pay the fees for three people--Narlin, Reuven and Joey
• We are thankful for our miracle truck. I could not believe that the truck has been with us for almost three years. We have been using it everyday to drive the children to the school. We also used it for our outreach activities to the villages. I noticed that the tires are wearing out. We are praying for God’s provision as we might be replacing them before the year is over.

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