End of August 2023 Update
Have you ever caught a glimpse of yourself in a window or mirror and thought, “Who IS that?” and then recoiled in horror when you realized..."Oh, it’s me!"
Frankly, my "little old lady" reflection is always a shock. I'm used to the fact Peter has gotten wrinkled and gray, but....moi? Most of the time, we both feel young and energetic, but I must admit, after the last three weeks of training (with a couple of pastors’ conferences thrown in, the odd Sunday sermon, and three days a week teaching ESL English for two hours at a time) the expression “rode hard and put away wet” springs to mind. Inevitably, and blessedly, once we get started the Holy Spirit takes over and we’re energized by the excitement and enthusiasm of our disciple-maker attendees/pastors/students/ ESL kiddos!
The amazing stories of God’s faithfulness we've heard from missionaries and pastors we meet along the way also replenish our spirits greatly. When we were in Chiang Mai training 34 young adults in disciple-making, we met the founders of Living Word Ministries, who have worked in Thailand for nearly 40 years, establishing three children’s homes, and planting dozens of churches. Almost all the projects are self-sustaining, and the staff are children’s home former students, now grown into leadership roles for the Kingdom. What an inspiration! It’s our hope and prayer that the children in the homes we support will emerge to be similarly productive mission leaders.
The more we learn about the work of pastors and leaders we train, the more inspired we are. We listen in awe as pastors tell us how their small churches in tiny villages resist the illegal government in that-country-that-must-not-be-named; because of their defiance their children can’t attend government schools nor can their members go to hospital. They quietly identify themselves as CDM (Civil Disobedience Movement), organizing their own schools and medical clinics as best they can with whoever has any skill. What incredible courage and resolve!
A great praise is that our dear children’s pastor, Nan Htike (the one suffering from SLE) has after almost six months in Yangon hospitals returned to her Children’s Rescue Home across the (closed) border from MaeSai. Praise the LORD for His mercies in her healing! I gather the reunion with her children was glorious and joyous…followed swiftly by, shall we say, a “lowering of the boom.” Our pastor typically runs a v-e-r-y tight ship and, while her coworkers and older students did a bang-up job of childcare, their organizational skills in the too-small facility lacked a little something! I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall for the standards reset! Meanwhile, in a wonderful answer to prayer, she's put the first payment down on a new property and has begun building housing for the children. Please continue to pray for funding as her previous compound in the mountains remains unsold, the cost of everything…especially building materials…has escalated, and land payments will continue inexorably.
Persecution of Christians is so pervasive here we sometimes fail to give thanks for our freedom to worship at home. In MaeSai, we live at Kingdom Mission International’s center, using the facility for our discipleship training. The young Pakistani pastor who directs operations here and in Lahore, Pakistan, told us this week of a Christian village close to his church, Jaranwala in Faisaladbad, that was completely burned down (several churches, hundreds of bibles, and dozens of houses) by angry mobs in retaliation for alleged disparagement of the Quran. The same thing happened when our pastor friend was four and his own village was burned to the ground, leaving his family homeless. His church in Lahore is organizing, packaging, and hand-delivering relief packages including clothes, rice, flour, oil, lentils, tea, water, and milk to those left homeless. We were thrilled to have the emergency funds you send us to assist with this project. Thank you, LORD, for your care of all your children.
Pastor Jaime in the Dominican recently held another Pastor’s Conference, this time celebrating the dedication of a chapel built by mission teams from the States for Haitian congregations and used as a conference center and bible training facility. Funding from our supporters helped feed the 170 people celebrating this incredible accomplishment, achieved through a partnership of missionaries and local villagers. Pastor Jaime continues to train and mentor young Haitian pastors to plant churches, teach their people discipleship, and manage our micro-loan project in the Dominican.
Just when we think we’re accustomed to lax Asian safety standards, hardened to the sight of pre-teens piloting motorcycles (usually with a younger sibling or two on board) the wrong way on crowded streets, pickup trucks loaded with standing youngsters, and railing-less restaurant stairs so steep you steady yourself by holding onto the steps in front of you like the rungs of a ladder…then something new comes along. It’s the rainy season here; ideal disease-carrying mosquito breeding conditions. (We take anti-malarials weekly.) The other day, we heard this massive generator, looked out the window, and saw a thick cloud of vaporized insecticide rising from the ground. While we cowered in our closed-up bedroom, scrambling for our N95 masks, property owners threw open their windows to benefit from the free extermination. I’m not kidding…the noxious fog roiled into our third-floor apartment, and curled around the furniture thickly, filling up the whole building with an eye-watering haze that took hours to dissipate! We felt like termites in a tenting experience.
During our just-completed 21 Days of Prayer, we’ve been once again astonished by the faithfulness of God in answering our requests. Oh, that I would remember He delights Himself in every aspect of our lives, and give Him all my worries immediately, instead of muddling along and trying to figure things out first on my own! In this season, there truly have been some miraculous answers; even the long-lost water filter shipment, seemingly irretrievably swallowed up by Thai customs, was as nothing for Him to sort out...and we have them in hand once again!
And, because we know “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” we covet your prayers: for God’s presence as we conduct the next two weeks of discipleship training in conjunction with other missionaries; for safety and protection as we travel to Cambodia next month to meet and make new mission contacts; for reduction of pain and the healing of Peter’s knee; for wisdom in deciding our next steps; for visa help for ourselves and our missionary friends; for continued funding for children’s homes, discipleship training, and emergency relief. As always, we are deeply grateful for your support, love, emails, letters, wonderful encouragement, and most of all your prayers.
“I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.” Psalm 34:4