Food, Community, and Worship

As Thanksgiving season arrives, it is a time to praise God and give thanks to Him for the many blessings. Many villagers have harvested their crops for the year and it is time for honoring God. Thanksgiving is a large community event in Asia, for example a whole village would come together and worship God. The exact date may be different throughout the world, one aspect of Thanksgiving that is common is the food. No matter what area of the world, Thanksgiving is associated with a sharing of meal with others. It’s times like this when everyone comes together and cooks, share unique recipes, and talk about life. There’s something about people and food, eating together enhances a sense of connectedness… not to mention the delicious food itself.

Every year, we have a Thanksgiving party at our house and we invite several villages to join us in giving thanks to God. The event usually starts in the morning, beginning with a short sermon and then different churches will come up and praise God through a song or a dance. Afterwards, we would have a time of prayer and then everyone would gather around and enjoy lunch together. We really appreciated the people helping us in the background. A few ladies from a few hours north, came the night before to help prepare food for 200 hundred people. Several men also came to set up tents to prepare for the event. With much help, this event went well and all of us had many things to be thankful. Praise God!

After this event, the recent church plant in Huay Lai also had a Thanksgiving event. Stephen was asked to give the main message at this Harvest worship. Many people from the surrounding villages came to worship God by singing songs and dancing. If you can see the pattern, Lisu people love music! Anyhow, this was a great time of thanksgiving for our God who provides everything, including all of our food.

Another new church plant, Nong Kio, Vieng Haeng has seen a lot of growth. This house church was established by Stephen and the group of leaders he’s been teaching. God has done great things through this group since they’ve planted several churches already in a year; and these churches are growing in number and also spiritual growth because the members seek to study the Word more! Every week, a few of Stephen’s students would go up and help at the church by training leaders and sharing the message with them. At this moment, they have been taught that God is the ultimate provider; He gives us much blessing and we too should give in order to support the needs of the church and help others. This was well received because many of the members have slowly becoming people who give. They will have their first Thanksgiving worship service in the next couple of weeks. If the number continue to grow as it has been, we are discussing about possibly building a church in this village. Please continue to pray for the church plants we mentioned.

Recently, Stephen and Mary also went to visit a children’s home in Myanmar in order to provide some clothes, new cooking tools, and cook a few meals for the kids. Before going there, they were a bit nervous because the situation in Myanmar has been really bad. People are being kidnapped for ransom and many have been threatened and harmed. Nevertheless, the guardians at the children’s home asked us to visit them for many months now, so they prayed and headed over to Myanmar. When Stephen and Mary arrived, they were greeted by smiles from about 40 kids, orphans and destitute children, all living in very small spaces. One of Stephen’s first thoughts were the living conditions was not the best… it was very crowded and there were a lot of dust in the small building. Mary saw the kitchen area and said she felt very sad for them; they were using a broken rusted over spatula. The spatula was very short, so when they tried to stir fry the food, they came very close to the fire. Mary and some of the kids were very sweaty because of the heat and some of their arm hair were singed as well. During the few days, Stephen and Mary both saw how the kids worshipped with their hearts. They were both encouraged and blessed to spend time with these children.

Stephen also made a trip to Laos in order to help people starving because of the recent natural disaster. Over 10 villages were affected by the flood and many farmers lost their crops for the year. Such a travesty especially because all of the villagers live under poverty. They plant enough rice for self-consumption and when the crops are all dead then their livelihood is affected. Many are struggling. Our local evangelists have requested for help and so we reached out to IDES; IDES has always been a great partner in relief works in Southeast Asia and China. We have worked on many relief projects together and this is another one which will bring hope and the love of Christ to the villagers in Laos. This trip was a success as Stephen coordinated and delivered food packages to the villagers with our local team. It is a blessing to be a part of the efforts to feed hungry people and to share the love of Christ with them.

During the Laos trip, Stephen also visited the capital, Vientiane. As you may recall, this is the area where we have set our outreach center/dormitory ministry. We received generous donations from our partners and are currently at 40% into our goal. The land has been prepared and some of the fence has been constructed. We have enough at the moment to start the first structure. We hope that we can continue to add as we get more funds. At this moment, we are praying that God will provide a building for worship so that students and neighboring people could come and worship God. However, the immediate need is drilling for a water-well and electricity. Please lift the remaining costs to the Lord with us.

More important than physical food is one of the spiritual kind. Jesus said while he was tempted in the wilderness in Matthew 4:4, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” This verse emphasize the importance of spiritual food. Therefore, these past few months, Stephen has been teaching the Bible to various groups of students from different locations. One particular instance was a Romans weeklong intensive course at Huay Ko village, in Chiang Dao. The pastors and evangelists in this village requested for Stephen to teach the Bible to them. We are blessed to see many people requesting to study the Bible. This year Stephen has already offered several of these weeklong courses which have all resulted in increasing the Biblical knowledge of church members in various churches in Northern Thailand. One of the most important things for the spiritual health of church members is their understanding of the Truth. Praise the Lord that many have requested to learn more.

Family

Stephen and Becky celebrated their birthdays in August. We cherish every year we have with the family, because as you already know with Becky’s health history, we constantly praise God for giving us time to spend together. After the celebrations, Stephen and Mary were both had to go to the hospital because they had the flu and felt very weak. Praise God for their recovery. Nick finished his first semester and had a few weeks of break before starting another semester. He is currently planning on doing his thesis study on how Christianity impacts mental health; this will be the first study of its kind in Southeast Asia. Several professors at the university are interested in this topic as well. Isaac recently received a science award for Thailand. We are really proud of him for his many achievements at school. Please continue to pray for us and our team (and their families) serving in Southeast Asia and China.