We had an incredibly busy, struggling but extremely exciting month. We are constantly experiencing God’s miraculous deeds and provisions and of all these happened because of your untiring prayers. We can’t thank you enough for all your support, encouragement and prayers.
Visa Extension
The month began with our struggle to raise the amount needed for our one-year visa. We sent out emails requesting for prayer about this particular need. And God miraculously provided the right amount at the right time. We cherished your words of encouragement and for assuring us that you are all praying for us. God alone deserves all the praise and glory. And we thank Him immensely for touching people’s heart and help us out of seemingly uncertain moment (but God is in control so it wasn’t really uncertain). From the bottom of our hearts we want to thank you all (although some of those who contributed chose to remain anonymous). Praise the Lord!
More of Summer English Camp
The summer camp is part of our regular yearly activities. Normally we were just doing one camp a year. However, this year a breakthrough happened and God allowed us to hold a camp in a more restricted country of Myanmar. And we believe that this could not have happened without your prayers. More than 120 children and young people attended the Tachilek camp. We thank the Lord for sending people to help us in the persons of Sandra and Isaac of Asia Vision Short Term Missions.
For those who helped financially for Narlin’s expenses for her one-week food and lodging in Myanmar, we sincerely thank you. This was the first time that we held the summer camp in Tachilek and this camp paved the way for a strong partnership among local churches and children’s ministries over there. The challenge for us now is how we will make the camp better and bigger next year.
Children Shelter
The Lord has put a burden in our hearts about the plight of children from Myanmar who keeps on coming to Thailand hoping for a better life. For over three years, we have been taking care of the children of the poor migrant workers (through Grace Home Kindergarten Center) while their parents are doing menial works. We’ve been around these little ones long enough to know and even witness how one of them lost a parent to AIDS right before our eyes. Moreover, we heard stories how they fell victim to greedy human traffickers and many other heart-breaking stories. We tried hearing from God about this and we believe that God wants us to help these children in our own small way. And we do this by opening our home to orphaned and abandoned children. Having said that, seven children are living with us. At the moment, two of them are going to Grace Home Kindergarten Center and the rest are going to a Thai preparatory school.
We will never become a “professional” orphanage because we could not be. We limit the number of children so that we can provide the best care for them. You can help us by praying for these children. Please email us and we will give you their stories so that you can pray intelligently for them.
The Green Canopy
For those who had been at Grace Home would know that what makes it a cool place is the vine that creeps overhead. We planted the vine two years ago and now it serves as a protective shade for the children against the hot tropical sun. However the canopy is made of bamboo and now it was about to fall down. With the help of the Bible School students, the canopy and fences have been restored to its former beauty.
For us this event represents the struggles that Grace Home have been going throughout the year. Differences among the local staff are destroying the beautiful testimony that the day care has to its community. The staff inability to follow instructions and guidelines reduces the efficiency of care that it is giving to the children. Only through the wisdom and empowerment from God that Narlin were able to resolve problems and issues at the daycare center. Please pray for Narlin that God will continue to do her responsibility as overseer of this ministry.
The challenge to evangelize and disciple the parents are still of utmost importance to us. Pray that we can consistently do this ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, the owner of the property where GHKC is being housed put a “for sale” sign on it. We are not certain how long we will be staying in this place unless of course we are able to buy the property. Please pray that together with Angela, we can raise the fund needed to buy the property.
Engage Camp
The hope of our own children to have a “normal” social life and proper education seemed to be hanging in the air for several years. Our prayer is that the Lord will provide a way by which Jared and Jillian can have a circle of friends and ministry involvement. In addition to this is the difficulty they are experiencing with home schooling. We are happy when people are concern about our needs and the ministry we are doing here but we are very much encouraged when people express serious concerns about our children’s odd situation as missionary kids.
We thank the Lord for our friend Alison who provided the means financially for them to join the Engage Camp held on second week of May in Chiang Rai. Their experience in the camp serves as catalyst for Jared to have confidence in playing the guitar and Jillian to lead the praise and worship in our church. Furthermore, they are now helping ministering to the children at Bann Nana (the largest children shelter in Mae Sai) every Sunday morning. More than anything else, the most significant help you can give to our children is to pray for them.
Full-time Preacher For the Mean Time
We were happy when Pastor Shin Maung (Pastor of Grace Church) asked us to help start and lead the international congregation in Mae Sai. But we are happier still when he told us that he could take over the leadership of the international community. We worked on the schedule of preachers for the whole month. For the last two years, I only preach once a month and listen to the other preachers the remaining Sundays. I liked the arrangement because we likewise receive feeding from other teachers. In the last two, months I had the privileged of being the full-time preacher as Pastor Shin Maung went to Yangon for his studies and other missionaries return to their country for their home assignments.
The international congregation of Mae Sai Grace Church is composed mainly of Asian and Australian-New Zealand long and short-term missionaries and teachers. Initially few Americans joined us but for some reasons they have stopped coming. We learn that they will start another international congregation here at Mae Sai. This is of course a good development but it creates an impression that there is division among the Christians in Mae Sai especially among His workers. Pray for unity among missionaries in the field.
A Friend Accepted Christ
What is friendship evangelism? It can be defined as an outreach strategy based on the idea that building relationships with the lost will eventually break their resistance, thus making them more open to the gospel. In other words, befriend people in order to present to them the gospel. However, God has taught us that if you will really care for a person and develop genuine friendship without ulterior motives (yes even sharing the gospel), the Holy Spirit will actually work in your friend’s life and he or she will come to you and will ask you how to know Jesus. We had experienced it so we can testify to this truth.
We became friend to our children’s Thai language teacher. She is a Thai citizen but originally a Burmese-Chinese Muslim (I know how confusing it is but we live in the border). The friendship has been very close and fruitful. We listened and helped her when she was in trouble. Like when her husband left her for another woman and took their daughter with him. We (Narlin and our friend Megan) counseled and prayed for her. However, when we moved to our new house, we lost contact with her and had not seen her for quite a long time. Until two weeks ago, we saw her and gave her our mobile phone number.
Last week, she called us up and told us she needed help so bad. She was running away from her mom who is cruel to her. She had nowhere to go so we welcomed her to our home. Incidentally, the team from Asia Vision Short Term Missions was staying with us for two days. And we took this opportunity to jointly pray for her. While were praying for her she fell to the ground and jerked, as if demons were coming out of her. She talked about her fears and terrible experiences with her husband and stepfather. And because we did share the gospel to her before, she publicly confessed and received Jesus Christ as her Lord and savior.
For the meantime, she is staying with us because her relatives disown her for becoming a Christian. She goes to the church with us and readily gives her testimony if she is given a chance. Pray for Rajima (not her real name) as she grows in her faith and knowledge of our Lord Jesus. Pray also for all our friends that we may have the same opportunity to tell them about Jesus and that God may reveal Himself to them.
Bible School
The opening of classes is on July that is a month earlier than last year. The schedule for the interview for the prospective students will start on June 15. Eight students were able to finish the intensive discipleship training last year. This year we are praying that God will bring to us the right students. We are praying for those who have potential to become leaders of the local believers and are able to initiate church planting where they are living.
Please continue to pray for us, as we will have a series of meeting with our partner Cherry (who provides the finances) about how the school will run this year. This will include such issues as scholarship grant, food and lodging, immigration matters, curriculum, class schedules among others. This will be a very busy time for Cherry and I (Joey). The two of us will be the only full-time teacher this year. Narlin will not join us this year because she will concentrate more with children’s ministry.
Please Pray for Us
We are very much encouraged when people ask us what are our specific and urgent needs. It means that they would want to pray intelligently for us. Here are prayer requests:
We need a vehicle to take the children to and from school. A new (second-hand) van is what we need. We will also use this van in going to church and other ministries. The van will be made available also to Grace Home Kindergarten Center for any activities that will require transport. Moreover, in the last few years, missions teams have been visiting us. A van will be very useful in bringing them around town and transporting them to different places of ministry. We know that the van will cost a lot of money but with God nothing is impossible.
We need some help with the orphaned children we “adopted”. We need help for the children schooling, clothing and daily food expenses. We are expecting to have ten children (we have seven now).
Some kind of help is also needed at the Bible School. Cherry and her church are primarily supporting the school’s daily expenses. Please help us pray for her church that will not stopped supporting this ministry. We also need help with teaching materials written in Burmese language. In case you know some resource center in Burmese language, please let us know.
When we left our home, our regular support was barely enough for our daily food and utility expenses. We thank the Lord for his provision. We could not have imagined that the Lord will touch more people and churches to support our ministry and us. Please pray that these future provisions will be fulfilled.
We are praying for an online home schooling for our children. The bulk of schooling materials are expensive. Not to mention the postage or the amount we need to pay when we are transporting the home schooling materials here. Also my children worked well with computers.
Grace Home Kindergarten Center needs a permanent home. Pray that we can buy the property. Angela (our local partner) will help us in raising the money. The property costs four million baht. We trust that the Lord will provide. Help us through your prayers.
Once again, we thank you all for your support and prayers. If you want to know more details about our particular ministry, please email us.
