Whoever welcome these little ones

On our early days here, we didn't plan to focus on children ministry. But God had other plans for us. He was the one who lead  us into this and we are grateful for the privilege. We are here to serve our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. We were encouraged to know that the Lord says that every good thing we do for these children, we do it for Him.

"He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them. “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.” [Mark 9:36-37)

Once again, we want to thank all our friends and partners who believe in us and what we are doing.Here are the few highlights of what happened this month and  will happened next month with its accompanying prayer concerns.

Teaching teachers

Narlin had finished teaching conversational English at Tesaban 1 Watpoweehan  School. They will have their final test on Friday. We are thankful to the Lord for this rare opportunity to teach the teachers and develop friendship with them in the process. It was indeed a wonderful experience.We will be spending the last day of the class in a buffet (eat all you can) restaurant as the school is treating us. Thank you so much for your prayers. If you or anybody you know wants to minister here through teaching English, you are welcome to join us.

Sam Rong Gets Better

After an emotional struggle to prevent Sam Rong from being taken to the remote place in Burma, we are happy to announce that he is responding well with medication. He is now playing with the other children and has been a laughing a lot. He is even helping in some household chores. We are expecting that the medication will be totally stopped and he will be totally healed until June. Our God is the Lord who heals.It seems that Sam Rong will be staying with us for good. It's wonderful to think that after several changes in the number of the children we adopted, we are back with 12 of them. Thank you so much for your prayers for these children.

Tina, Ayung and Mike Graduate

We watched our kids went up the stage to receive their certificates. From afar because parents were not allowed to get near the stage and take photos. We couldn't believe that we were sitting among the proud parents of the graduating kinder pupils of the municipal school. It was a wonderful experience.

 

Three pupils were selected to deliver the graduation speech in three languages--Chinese, English and Thai in that order. Tina spoke almost perfect English. After the speech, the head teacher of the kindergarten, announced that Narlin is teaching English at the school and we have an orphanage where Tina came from. Thank you for your prayers and support for the children education.

Learning and Ministry Resource Center

We had been driving around Mae Sai looking for an appropriate and affordable house for teaching and discipleship. It proved to be an impossible task. We were about to give up the search (we had been looking for three months.) Until a friend told us in passing that an OMF rented house will become available in September.It is God's answered to our prayers. We talked with the tenant and she told us that she will pass the house to us and we might be able to use it for accomodating teams this April even though the contract will expire until September. Praise the Lord!

Tentative Activities this Summer

Please help us in prayer for the summer activities with the help of team coming from the Philippines. Please help us in prayer for the summer activities with the help of team coming from the Philippines.

• Easter Sunrise Service for International Community
• English camp in Mae Sai Pantamit Tribal Church.
• English (DVBS) and music camps in Tachilek, Myanmar
• English camp and music clinic in Emmanuel Church in Ban Chong.
• Teach in Song Kran Bible Camp in Mae Sai Grace Church
• Music Theory Class in Mae Sai and Tachilek.
• English, Music, Piano and Guitar lessons in our house for our kids for a month.
• Opening of Learning and Ministry Resource Center.

More Prayer Concerns

Thank you for your untiring prayers. Listed below are our praises, thanksgiving and concerns.

• We praise and thank the Lord for Displaced Orphans International (DOI) Foundation for the facilitation of receiving support in our behalf in the US (tax exempt). They are a big blessing to us.
• We are thankful for God's answering our prayers with regards to Nanay Linda's (Narlin's mom) healing. She is in the Philippines now. She has problem with blood circulation in her feet extremeties that the doctor thought that amputation is the only option. However, after getting second opinion it is good to know that other treatment is probable.
• Pray for Jared as he will go home in May to go to college. He will go home with my sister Dadai. Pray that his transition to the life in the Philippines and his adjustments to college will go smoothly. Pray also for Jillian and Reuven's studies.
• Pray for provision as the time for paying our house's one-year rent has come. Moreover, the extension of our one-year work permit and visa is also fast approaching. God

Our God is an awesome God and we thank Him for giving us awesome friends like you. We sincerely appreciate your love and prayers. Until next update.

Vehicle Project

We are sincerely grateful for your love and prayers. This week, heavy rains fall continuously and the need for a vehicle hit us more than ever. The older children walk to school with their raincoats and umbrellas and the younger children ride with me on the motorcycle.

Few more friends have been touched by the Lord and generously contributed to our vehicle project. I realized that they don't want their names and the amount they contributed to appear in this email. So what l give you here is the summary info. We need to raise 270,000 Baht to buy a good second hand truck. To date, friends have rallied behind us and contributed 163,700 Baht. THIS IS NOTHING SHORT OF A MIRACLE (PTL!). We still have a long way to go, but we're almost there.

All things are possible with God. He can do anything he wanted in an instant but I believe he is giving us the privilege of being part of the Kingdom work through giving. Your contribution will be a big part of God's mission here in Mae Sai.

MOST Training

I had a meeting with Jethro the other day. Both of us are ministering cross culturally here in Thailand. He is leading an NGO that focus on agriculture and community development.  He has an extensive experience training the church and the community about the importance of holistic ministry. He trained church and village leaders how to farm and hence help to support themselves.

My involvement with community development is very little. However, I have enough church leadership and theological education experience. Basically, these are kind of work I have been doing since we came to Thailand five years ago. It is true enough to say that God had used me in starting two Bible training centers. (Continuing to work though is a different story).

Between Jethro and I we have more than 10 years experience in doing training in our respective field in this region. We decided to work together. We will start a training center for church and community leaders. The training will be done within three months with 10-12 people. The projection is that we will have three (3-month) training a year. The venue will be the NGO's agricultural training site since they have dorms, training hall, kitchen and other facilities.

We formulate our goals, mission and vision. Along side this, we create a curriculum that we best think would meet the need of the people we addressed to train. The annual budget will cost U$6,000 a year.  Please help us to pray about this project.

History
Mae Sai Out of School Training (MOST) started from the vision of Christian workers ministering in Northern Thailand and Myanmar.  MOSt also stands for Mae Sai Outreach School of Theology. They see the needs of the churches and community in both sides of the border. The School is designed to meet these needs by training people who will become competent leaders in both the church and community. It is a joint program of Asia Rural Life Development Foundation (ARLDF) and Philippine Baptist Theological Seminary Education by Extension (PBTS-SEE).

Goal
To assist and facilitate church planting activities in a community where there is no existing church.

Objectives
To train 10-12 church leaders from 5 churches and partners entity annually.
To enable the students to demonstrate and mentor other on what they learn.
To assist at least 10 churches in ministry development.

Mission
To train and equip God-called people to be Christ-like leaders in their church and community.

Vision
Under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we envision seeing Christ-like leaders in the church and community.


Subjects

• Knowing the Bible (Introduction to the Bible)
• How to Understand the Bible (Interpretation)
• Teach the Bible Through Story (Chronological Bible Storying)
• How to Share the Gospel (Evangelism)
• How to Disciple (Follow  Jesus Training)
• How the Gospel Spread (Condensed World Mission Course)
• How to pray (Devotion and prayer)
• How to lead like Jesus (Leadership)
• How to share the gospel (Evangelism)
• How to preach (Homiletics)
• How to plant a church (CPM)
• How to be a true worshipper (Leading praise and worship)
• How to do village farming (ARLDF)
• How to do community development (Church and Community Development-CCD)

Any suggestions and help will be highly appreciated.

Wind of change

We are waking up up each morning with unusually cold and foggy mornings, it’s funny how weather seems to change every year. It has been said that the only thing constant in this world is change. Missionary work is the same. Our goal remains the same but the means and the opportunities to share the gospel and make disciples change. Only God and his faithfulness remain the same. As the Psalmist says:

In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end. (Ps. 102: 25-27)

Although we have been anticipating big changes since last year, we are still blown away that they are finally happening.

Firstly, it is now certain that we are leaving Mae Sai Church. We had been working with Burmese migrant workers for 5 years now and this church had been the avenue through which we minister to these people. No one could have thought that several years ago the church have no sunday school, no migrant primary school,no nursery, no children’s home and no trained staff. There were very few worshippers especially in the morning. We are happy that we had been part of its growth and to know that our presence is no longer needed. At the same time, we are sad that we are leaving and will have to look for another church to work with.

Secondly, when the English worship was cancelled, Jethro and I among other Filipino Christian workers in Mae Sai decided to gather together once a month for worship and fellowship. It is a simple gathering but we are open to the leading of the Holy Spirit if he wills that a new church will come out from this fellowship. We are praying that it will expand to become a church that is open to all nationalities and tribal groups.

Thirdly, it is now definite that we are leaving The Foundation that is providing us visa.  Nonetheless, we praise the Lord for his timely provision. The school Rong Rian Powihan is willing to give Narlin a volunteer visa. In addition to this, Asia Rural Life Development Foundation (ARLDF) is willing to sponsor our visa if the the school arrangement didn’t work out.

Fourthly, our partnership with an agricultural NGO is now official. The NGO will have a regular 3-month (spread through out the year) discipleship and agricultural training. Jethro, the NGO director will teach agriculture and I (Joey) will teach the discipleship part using Seminary Education by Extension curriculum. The training will tentatively start in March.

Finally, we are praying for the probability of working with a charitable Christian organization from Bangkok. People to People Foundation found itself in a very unusual situation. They stumbled upon very cheap properties between Mae Sai and Chiang Saen and they believe that God has planned everything. A team from the USA came, bought the properties and is now financially supporting the construction of the building. They will call it The Indo-China Mission Training Center. The construction will be finished in August. The coordinator of the Foundation is a Filipino who is married to a Thai lady. We came to know him through a local Pastor in Mae Sai. He had a meeting with us and told us that they have the facilities but they are still praying for people who will oversee its daily operation and activities. Since we are already in Mae Sai for five years, he believes that we are God’s answer to their prayers. He had invited us to join their Camp and Conference in Bangkok this coming April in order for us to know the leaderships of the organization.

We are excited with the changes that will happen this year. We are confident in God that we can continue on serving him this year in whatever capacity because you are praying for us.

Dela Paz November Update

Here is our latest newsletter. I hope somebody is still reading this blog.