Greetings to our friends, supporters and prayer partners and welcome to this update. Once again there is much to share with you about the activities in Asia of those who serve the Lord under the Advent Christian banner – in India, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand. My thanks for your support and encouragement and especially for your prayers for our brothers and sisters who are so committed to sharing the message of LIFE IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST with their people.
INDIA
Rev. Paul Selvin is the pastor of a thriving Fellowship of Blessed Hope Church in the Chennai suburb of Nandanam. They have a small church, and no room to expand it, and difficult neighbours who constantly veto the possibility of building a parsonage and other facilities on the flat roof of the building, but the building is always full and overflowing for their services. God is blessing the ministry of the team led by Brother Paul Selvin.
One of their regular ministries is “prayer walking”. Groups of their congregation – young and older; men and women; pastor and lay people – take time to walk and pray through the streets of their community – they spend time in prayer before they walk; they stop and pray as they travel around the streets and they pray for God’s answers when they have finished their walks… and their church and its various activities are always very well attended and their congregation continues to grow as members of their community commit their lives to Jesus Christ!
The greatest need for the Nandanam church is more room – more room for their congregation to worship and learn and fellowship in, and in particular a home in the community for their pastor and his family to live in – they currently rent a home elsewhere at significant cost. As this is an older suburb of Chennai, there is literally no land available and existing houses are very, very expensive.
Please pray with the Nandanam congregation that the LORD will provide.
Rev. Solomonrajan (pictured at right) is the pastor of another thriving Fellowship of Blessed Hope Church – in the Chennai suburb of Ramapuram. He wrote earlier in the year as follows…
“Greetings to you in the matchless name of JESUS CHRIST. Happy NEW YEAR 2018. GOD blessed the year of 2017 especially the ministry. Christmas and New Year celebrations were joyful and blessed by the LORD.
Please pray for the new members who are added to the congregation, especially for the 10 members who are willing to be baptized this year.
OUR GOALS FOR 2018:
- To start 5 new prayer cell groups
- To take the Word of the Lord, among the people who do not know about the Love of GOD. (2 Villages)
- To preach the Word of God throughout the streets of RAMAPURAM.
- To develop youth and children’s ministry.
- To create young leaders for CHRIST.”
Please pray with Rev Solomonrajan and the congregation at Ramapuram, that the LORD will empower them, in His strength, to meet the goals they have set themselves for this year. Pray especially for the youth of the church (pictured below right), that their faith and knowledge of their Saviour will grow and that they will become strong, enthusiastic leaders of their church
The ladies of the Womens Home and Foreign Missions Society groups in the Advent Christian churches in the United States continue to raise funds for feeding the poor in many countries through their BREAD OF LIFE program. Yesuway Jeevan Mission receives these funds each quarter and they are in turn distributed to our ministry partners in Bihar, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana States and in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Our ministry partners in turn bless the poor and homeless and hungry, in the areas in which they minister, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. The ability to feed the poor is greatly appreciated both by our ministry partners and of course by those who receive the nutrituous meals provided!
Please thank the Lord for the WH&FMS ladies and those who contribute so generously in the United States; thank the Lord for those whose ministries meet this great and growing need in India, and pray that the Lord will continue to provide and enable His people to continue serving in the manner Jesus described in Matthew 25:40 – “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” NIV
Thank you for praying for the sale of the Guindy land. We are convinced that the sale of this property is in accordance with the Lord’s will and that His will includes the future, financial stability for the Advent Christian Conference of India, and the extension of the ministries of Yesuway Jeevan Mission and its ministry partners throughout India, that funds from the sale will provide.
Please continue to pray that the Lord will clear the pathway and that the sale will be completed as soon as possible.
THAILAND
Ministry continues at Christian Mission Naratchakwai with Maeo, Pastor Boontaa and the ladies of the leadership team working very hard to represent their Lord to those around them. There is always a very positive note to their postings on their Facebook page (www.facebook.com/Christianmission-189919524539566) – recent postings include the following comments and pictures…
“01/04/2018 Thank you God for today. We are happy that Kaew comes to spend her vacation here. Thank you for everybody who comes to the Christian Mission today. God bless you.”
Kaew was a member of the CMN leadership team until the middle of last year when she moved to Bangkok for her education. (foreground at right)
“25/03/2018 Hello everyone. How are you?
We wish you all are happy and have a good service on Sunday because we all here are very happy. God bless you.”
“18/03/2018
We appreciate for all people who are helping us and praying for us. Thank you God, for today. God bless you all.”
One of Christian Mission’s major outreaches into the community is their monthly distribution of their monthly SOUP OF LOVE and FOOD PARCELS to the older folk and those who are sick or shut-in in their village (Ban Naratchakwai) or other villages in their area. In March they went to Ban Kham Pok village, and visited
Parn’s and Ploy’s homes and others, and gave the food parcels to Ploy’s father and another old lady
During the months of June and July, Ploy and Parn, the two senior members of the CMN leadership team will be visiting New Zealand for approximately seven weeks. Both are studying, in their third year at Nakhon Phanom University, for degrees to enable them to teach English. (As a matter of interest, their grades are almost straight A’s – one of them only got a B+ in their last exams! ☹) They are coming to NZ primarily to be “immersed” in English to improve their spoken English and comprehension of spoken English and will be spending time with a number of Advent Christian folk and families and will spend some time at the Hamilton Church of Christ where they will undoubtedly enjoy fellowship with their youth group and at their services. They are being sponsored by ACMissioNZ, with financial assistance from the Takanini Community Church Property Trust Board (TCCPTB).
Please thank the Lord for this opportunity for Ploy and Parn to visit us and pray that the experience will be an exciting and enriching one for them, and for the folk in NZ as they meet some of those for whom they have prayed for some years. Those who have been members of recent Work Teams to Christian Mission are especially looking forward to having them here with us.
MALAYSIA
Kluang Advent Christian Group’s ministry
Please continue to pray for the small group of faithful, Advent Christian believers who gather weekly on Sundays for worship in the home of Sister Ruth Devairakkam and Brother Wilfred in Kluang and in members’ homes for Bible study and communion during the week. Christian ministry is not easy or without danger in Malaysia, but Ruth and Wilfred faithfully continue their one-on-one ministries of friendship, practical assistance and counsel to friends, neighbours and other contacts.
In our last Update, we mentioned that for some years Ruth and Wilfred have been concerned for the difficulties that some of the members of their group have in getting to their Sunday worship gatherings at their home, and to the regular meetings during the week which rotate around the members’ homes, and were seeking funds to buy a second-hand van to assist with transport. They have raised a third of the cost of such a vehicle (5,000 Malaysian Ringgits – NZ$1,750) and the Takanini Community Church Property Trust Board has generously contributed a similar amount, so we are two thirds of the way to the total required. ACGC in the United States are looking for a church or a group there to assist also.
Will you please continue to pray that the Lord will open the way for the funds to be available to help our brothers and sisters in Malaysia with this situation?
Ruth recently wrote:
“Puji Tuhan (Praise the Lord). His mercy endures forever.
Our hearts are so grateful and thankful to God for his divine intervention in the lives of the people we are ministering to. Your prayer and intercession for them has brought solution and direction for the situations in their lives.
- We have been ministering with a young lady who recently divorced. God has helped her out from her suicidal thoughts and to face the situation and deal with it with his wisdom. She is now bold, confident and well-focused. We give all glory to Jesus!
- We praise God for the widows and widowers who often come to our home when they are lonely and sad. When they come over, they want us to sing with them, watch Christian videos and listen to Christian songs. They enjoy sharing their childhood memories and their experiences. They also enjoy having meals together with us. They are experiencing God’s security, acceptance and love. Even when they are on their own, the time spent with us gives them the confidence to persevere and to know that God’s love embraces them.
MYANMAR
Pastor Timothy recently sent some pictures of their service and celebrations at their home on “Resurrection Sunday” as he called it. Timothy and his wife Hoi Van and his own children care for 56 orphan and underprivileged children, most of them in a very nice building that he has built beside his home.
He wrote earlier in the year “Happy New Year to you, all your children, grandchildren and all New Zealand Advent Christian brothers and sisters. Thank you so much to your beautiful words of blessing for my birthday. Now I am 52 years old and God is good for me all my days.”
He also advised that he had had the joy of baptising seven new believers on 24 December last year (picture above right) and distributed Gospel tracts to more than 500 unbelievers during December and January. Please pray that those tracts, and those which the other leaders of the Advent Christian Conference of Myanmar have distributed recently will, in the power of the Holy Spirit, touch the hearts of some of those who received them.
Pastor Joseph wrote as follows in March
“Dear Respected Prayer partners,
Praise the Lord for this year of 2018; I thank the Lord for His faithfulness to TWM {The Word Mission} throughout the year of 2017. There have been up & down in ministry, but still our Lord Jesus is faithful to us, yet we are grateful for your regular prayer, love and contribution for the ministry of the Gospel in Myanmar.
Praise the Lord. My precious prayer partners in Christ Jesus, I would like to thank you for the prayers and the financial support that you have been providing for us. We are very grateful toward all of you and we pray and remember you in our prayers.
My humble prayer requests
- To build the home for orphans.
- To provide two projectors for our missionaries for sharing the Gospel to unreached people groups.
- To support new church planters for their monthly financial need.
- To be able to help some investment for pastors and ministers.
- To have our own business and our own sself-supportfor the ministries.
- To reach more unreached people in this 2018 year.
- Pray that I and my family will serve the Lord with faithfulness and humbly till we meet Jesus.
Joseph”
Pastor Joseph and his family and a few helpers, care for 75 orphan and disadvantaged children, who originally come from all corners of Myanmar. The pictures below show the present living accommodation for most of the children – some of the girls live in a much better, recently built permanent building.
Brother Joseph dreams big, and slowly but surely, by God’s grace and in God’s time he achieves his dreams. His first prayer request in the list above is to provide better accommodation for the children and he has recently advised that his number one, long term vision is to “To take care 5000 orphan children.” Those are his words!
I will put fuller details of his overall vision on our website soon, but in the meantime will you please pray for Joseph and his organisation – The Word Mission – as he starts to achieve his vision for better accommodation for the children he cares for at present. It is a three-storey building, 20 metres (76 feet) long by 9.2 metres (35 feet) wide including class rooms, chapel, prayer room, library, kitchen, dining room, bathrooms and toilets, sitting rooms and of course separate dormitories for girls and boys, to be completed by 2021! The pictures below show the progress toward achieving that vision!
Joseph wrote, about the picture above right – “Our orphan children are every day and every time praying for their home. Orphan children’s prayer is so powerful.”
Will you please pray with them that the Lord will provide for the long-term vision He has given Joseph?
Once again, my sincere thanks for your partnership in the Lord’s ministries in South East Asia. Thank you for your prayers for and encouragement to and financial support for our brothers and sisters in the LORD who we support in their service for our Lord. Please pray that they will know the leading, guiding and blessing of the Holy Spirit on their ministries.
