Wednesday, March 2, 2011

MISSION - GIFTS - EVENTS

Shalom All,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth!

We have received much encouragement in our faith walk with Christ as nothing is impossible with God’s call and Will. Now we have about 8,000 email readers and 6.000 page views per month on my mission blog. Praise the Lord for all that He has done!

We can almost sense the nearness of the End Time as mentioned in the Book of Matthew, chapter 24, where it is said we will never know when it will happen. For the past few weeks ago, I have been reading news about earthquakes, volcano eruptions, weather changing, riots within the nations, famines and wars between neighbors. We cannot predict when the end will come but we can have confidence in His control over the world’s events. The world's history, as well as our own pilgrimage, is in God’s hands and we can be secure in His love and trust to guide our destiny and life. Many are also “false prophets” with counterfeit signs of spiritual power and authority. One Jewish writing says that the story of Eve's temptation include Satan masquerading as an angel. Nothing could be more deceitful than Satan, the prince of darkness, disguising himself as an angel of light! In the same way, these false apostles were pretending to be apostles of Christ, while in reality they were agents of Satan. We must be alert to all these situation, stay close to God, believe that Christ has set us free and only the Word of God is truth.


God works so amazingly and our prayer is been answered. We have sought the Lord for a vehicle since August 2010 and finally we got a second hand car since late November 2010. The car costs us around THB 150,000 (USD 4,900) and the car condition is still new without need for much repair I took a hire purchase loan from the Christian Car Dealer and he requested my Malaysian Passport without any guarantor. Not only that, by now the car is almost fully settled. God is so good when we seek Him humbly and earnestly.


On the December 23rd, 2010, we published our first book called “A Journey of Life” in Thai Language. It is about our life testimonies of faith. Our book appears to have touched many readers, who share their thoughts with us after reading our book, one of them a devout Buddhist, who has decided to accept Jesus Christ as His Savior and many more. The Christian News also advertised our book in the newspaper and received tremendously orders from the readers. The book, 1000 printed copies, sells at THB 79.00 (USD 2.45) throughout Christian Bookstores in Bangkok. We decided to donate 100 books for free as charity contribution and one of the readers gave us an offering of THB 10,000 (USD 326) for one book. Praise the Lord! The Lord never returns less than what we are prepared to give Him, but more if we have faith in Him.

As reported in my last mail, we have earlier decided to become mission partners with Glad Tidings Assembly of God, Malaysia, and have been back in Malaysia to attend the Mission Committee meeting early January 2011. However, the Church has recently decided to delay this community project and church planting for the time being. This has affected our plans for work in Bangkok as we have been promoting the up-coming project and have also gathered more than 20 people to start the church. It is hard to continue to move along with this project due to these uncertainties and so we feel it best for us to withdraw ourselves from the earlier agreed arrangements. I believe that God has a greater direction for them as well as for us.

Since September 2010, Senior Pastor Dr. Sinchai has invited me to be part of his pastoral team in his Mahachon Church but I have declined the offer many times. In mid January 2011, Dr. Sinchai again offered me the position. In a mobile phone conversation, Jenny just said “yes” and so that was that. It could be God’s plan for us to help the church. The church appointed me as a volunteer pastor advisor while Jenny assists in the church.

The mission reports;


In mid December 2010, we decided to buy basic necessities (soap, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, body powder, noodle, biscuits, books, paracetamols, etc) to give to the homeless. I used the available mission funds to purchase around THB 5,500 (USD 180) and we were able to assemble about 120 packs for the homeless. We also bought 95 boxes of gifts for the children from the Australia Samaritan Purse with a sum of THB 1,000 (USD 33).


On December 18th, 2010, we joined the Lumpini Evangelism Christian Group at Lumpini Park There were about 80 homeless people there. I did not have the opportunity to share the Word of God on that day because the schedule was tight. An elderly man from Taiwan shared his thoughts about the Holy Gifts of laughter to rejoice God’s presence. After that, we distributed the prepared Christmas gifts. We also blessed other passerby with the remaining gifts. Proverbs 22 verse 9 says “A generous man will himself be blessed for he shares his food with poor”. Hallelujah!


Two days later, a church in Hua Hin invited us to their Christmas gathering. There were about 18 inter-denominational churches gathered there to celebrate the Christmas event in the Market Village. The Mayor of Prachuap Khiri Khan Municipality City came to launch the event and we were delighted he chose to spend almost 1 ½ hours to see through the exciting program. The church leaders had thought he would spend not more than half an hour after launching the event. Praise the Lord !


On the morning of December 22nd, 2010, we had Christmas Caroling in Siriraj Hospital, Bangkok. In this we were joined with a few other inter-denomination churches. I have an opportunity to share the Word of God with some of the patients. After that, I drove to Chiang Rai (about 900 km away from Bangkok ) with Jenny to help a Christian brother solve some issues. It was a tiring day traveling all the way, and I didn’t get to sleep much. But God freshed me each day for “when we are weak, He will make us strong”.


Early morning on December 24th, 2010, we were co-organizers of the Christmas Celebration event for the Lumpini Primary School and we arrived from Chiang Rai around 3.30am. Then we started to prepare the event around 6.30am. There were about 700 primary students in the school. We arranged many Christmas gifts and Ajarn Suchart assisted us to get sponsors for 700 packs of Vitamilk. The students were in great excitement, playing games and responding to questions giving us a wonderful opportunity to share the meaning and joy of Christmas. In fact, many of them don’t know much about the true meaning of Christmas, knowing only about Santa Claus, or waiting for Christmas gifts and not knowing who Jesus Christ is and why we celebrate His birth.. We also helped arrange the Australia Samaritan Purse boxes for distribution to students who won their games. The events lasted about 4 hours, then we returned home to rest.


The next evening that is on Christmas Day, we went to the Christmas Celebration organized by Mahachon Church in the Central World Mall, Bangkok. Many shoppers came to join the events. There were well known local pop singers (also Christians) singing there and a Korean dancing group to draw the crowds. After this we rushed to another Christmas event in the Avana Hotel (about 24 km away). A generous couple organized a grand buffet dinner for about 650 non-Christians and they shared their life testimonies. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay long enough as we returned to Central World Mall for the Christmas Celebration.

From December 30th, 2010 - January 1st, 2011, we were in Singapore to meet up with some Christian friends and stayed in a mission house that cost only SGD 20 per day (USD 16). Then we were in Kuala Lumpur for 5 days. We had a dinner meeting with the Mission Committees but nothing solid worked out. Perhaps the Lord has other plans for us. We were busy meeting up with Christian friends and had good quality time together. I have an opportunity to share the Word of God in the Full Gospel Businessmen Fellowship, Damansara Intan Chapter, Petaling Jaya.


During the month of January 2011, we were extremely busy organizing the HT Long - Elvis Malaysia’s concerts (The Golden Voice of Elvis) in the churches and hotel in Bangkok, from January 29th to 30th. On January 28th, we had dinner with the Elvis of Thailand together with HT Long. It was a pleasure to meet Khun Jaruek Viriyakit impersonating Elvis at the Asia Hotel as well as many other impersonators. Three Elvis impersonators sang together and thrilled the audience.


On the morning of January 29th, we were busy organizing the HT Long - Elvis Malaysia event in Avana Hotel, Bangkok. The hotel organizers invited many businessmen to attend this event. One high ranking government official who was not a Christian came to attend and to sing together with HT Long. During the program, HT Long took the opportunity to share his faith and the love of God. Later, this senior government officer and non believers was so touched by the testimony given that he decided to accept Jesus Christ as his Savior. Indeed, God works in mysterious ways to touch a man's heart. The hotel management offered two free hotel suites for our use during the event. May God bless the hotel management for its generosity and giving.


The following evening, we went to Mahachon Church, Bangkok to arrange the program for HT Long’s concert. We invited many non-Christians, including Jenny’s uncle. When HT Long made an altar call, many people came out to the front. HT Long prayed for them, many were slain and healed. Hallelujah! The Lord uses simple ordinary people, including one with the gift of Elvis' voice, to touch and heal people .

The next morning, we went to the Acts of Christ Church, Bangkok where the same concert was arranged at the last minute. Due to the limited time, the church leaders allotted HT Long 15 minutes' singing time. The congregation was thrilled to listen to his impersonation of Elvis Presley, clapping and shouting for more songs. Unfortunately, that was all the time we had as we had to hurriedly leave for the next event and destination in 1 ½ hours.


Some of the members from Acts of Christ Church and other churches came to the Second Samyan Church, Bangkok to attend the HT Long’s concert. It was a 2 hours event. When HT Long sang his Rock’n Roll, one cripple with stick came up to the stage and danced. When HT Long took away his stick, he was healed totally. Again an amazing miracle of healing ... Praise the Lord! A few weeks later, the church pastor informed us that his church leaders were very happy with our program and they look forward to working with us for more such events in the future.

We wish to thank all of you for your continued support in our work in Thailand. Please continue to pray for our health and joy in serving the Lord. May God bless you and yours richly with His abundance!

Blessings,
Rev. Steve Peter H S Kok and Sister Jenny P Kok