Prayer Update

Dear Praying Friends,

We thank our God every time we remember you. In all our prayers for all of you, we always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Phil. 1:3-6)

We share the sentiments of the Apostle Paul when he wrote these words to the Philippian Christians. Our hearts are full of joy as we think of all of you who have been helping us through your prayers and generosity. We are comforted by the assurance that God’s work that has been started will be brought to completion. God has been doing great things in our lives from which we are thankful for.

• We thank the Lord for the opportunity He had given us to continually minister with Thai and Myanmar people through the church we are now part. The free English classes that we have been offering to the community are expanding. Students come and go, but this scheme seems to work for good for the spread of the gospel to the people in the community. We have the opportunity to know and befriend more people.
• God has given us the motorcycle we have been praying for over a year. Although we have yet to pay the motorcycle within three months, we are confident that God will touch people to help us in paying for it.
• The nursery ministry is getting better and more organized under Narlin’s leadership as time goes by. We will have a recognition program this 3rd of April as a venue to appreciate the works that the children had done and to honor the parents. This is also a good opportunity to once again share the gospel.
• We thank the Lord for his provision for our children’s home schooling. We had doubts from the beginning how we could sustain the high cost of home schooling as we consider the heavy burden it would cause to the people who express their desires to help. But God is faithful, he provides and he sustains.
• We are grateful for 4 people (and more to come) who have been baptized during our church anniversary celebration. Everybody in the church believes that winning people to Christ is not the work of any individual but is a cooperative effort among us.
• We praise the Lord as the church is growing not necessarily in numbers but also in many aspects of faith and in outlook in taking the opportunity in sharing Jesus’ stories and also helping in the needs of the poor people in Mae Sai.
• We thank Jesus for the gift of tongues. Formal language study is one necessary thing we need to have but we can’t afford, but with God’s grace we are actually acquiring it with the passing of time. It may take some time but we are not in a hurry.

Please continue to uplift us in your prayers as we are facing another major difficulty in our year of stay here.

• Pray for God’s provision as we renew our one-year volunteer visa this coming June. We need about 30,000 baht for our visa. God had done miracles before regarding this matter. We believe that he will touch people again to help us with this struggle.
• We still need to pay some amount for the motorcycle. We know that some friends are trying their best to mobilize for us regarding this and this gives us the assurance that eventually the payment for the motorcycle will be taken care of in the near future.
• Pray for the unity of Christians in the mission field. Our vision is that denominational doctrines and practices would not cause conflicts and divisions among Christians whose ultimate purpose is to win people to Christ for the greater glory of the Father.
• Pray for the Day Care Center, the center are lacking in funds but not lacking with commitment of people who volunteers to work there. We have 3 teachers and one utility man. The Dela Paz family is trying to help the nursery financially.
• Pray for the Mission Training School that Pastor Shin Maung, Pastor David and Pastor Joey are envisioning to start this coming June. Pray for God’s approval and provisions.

We are so thankful to the Lord for the people who have been emailing us and giving us encouragement. As we stay here in Mae Sai, we also think of our country. We are praying for the Philippines especially for this coming election. We are not losing our hope that God can make something good comes out of seemingly bad (political) situation we are experiencing right now. We long to come home one day, but we all know it will take a long time before we can do that.

With much prayer,

Joey, Narlin, Red, Jillian and Ven
Mae Sai, Thailand