Shalom All,
Greetings in the name of our Lord!
"Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done" - Philippians 4 verse 6.
When faced with a tragedy or a storm of any kind, it can be a trying experienced, as well as extremely difficult for us to understand why such happenings have struck us. We may even feel apprehensive, frightened and lost. We may even be angry and try to play the blame game. In moments like this, a consoling voice will be very helpful and much needed. But from where? But our God works in mysterious ways, ways we may never know!
In the midst of our deepest heartache and pain, we will find hope and courage to carry on with our brokenness. And find Him, our eventual source of hope and strength. With God's help and the help of our caring Family of Christ and the encouragement through his Word and much prayer, we will surely receive the necessary strength to be an overcomer. And be blessed by Him!
Yes, one may be thinking, "I don't know how I could ever get through this." Or one may be battling powerful feelings of despair, suffering, confusion, fear, worry, and even anger. These are all normal responses to tragedy. But as difficult as the life storm maybe you and I in the Lord are not walking alone. God is with us always. He loves us and cares about what is going on in our life.
We must keep our faith and rebuild our lives after a tragedy or difficult situation.
In life we will encounter many challenges including some that may shake our faith to its core and leave us hurting. However, the most important thing when facing those times is to rise up with courage and strength!
The same challenges are faced in starting and building up a church. It is not easy at all to run a Church. We face many challenges. But we must press on even during difficult, or very difficult times.
Let me here share our burden with you so that you can continue to pray for us, as we pray for you too.
For the past 3 months, we received not much offering from abroad compared with last year and our Church receives tithes less than THB 300/per week (RM 32/USD 10) from congregations, mostly Christian refugees. This is just enough to cover fellowship meals on Saturday Church Service.
But we have so many expenditure needs to cover, such as for rental, property tax and other expenses related to the Church. My wife and I are not paid any salary as we commit to serve as volunteers in His service as we surrender our lives to serve our Great God. We pray that we can continue to sustain the Church and keep on serving our Mighty God.
On 7th February 2014, we started the Diploma in Theological Studies program in our Church that is affiliated to Evangelical Seminary, Canada. Many students have enrolled and are attending the course. Among them are Christian refugees as well as one local Thai pastor. The reasons why they are taking the course are;
- They want to know more about the Bible.
- To improve their English.
Let me briefly describe here the plight of the refugees I have come to know being in contact with them.
- They are not allowed to work by law but many did work illegally to survive.
- If they are caught for this, they will be imprisoned and then sent back to their home country.
- Visiting them, I saw them eating rice only without meat, sauce and salt.
- So I decided to buy them some nicer food in my next visiting trip, treating them a meal once a week.
- During the school holidays, their children will find work and they work very hard to earn more money so that they will have money to study.
- One orphan has to work very hard to support himself.
The Christian refugees will do the production side and our team will focus on the logistics of sales. On design, we welcome suggestions.
How do we pay the Christian refugees for work done?
An example to illustrates.
If we sell a bag at THB 200 and we will pay the worker THB 70 for his bag and THB 100 for the other expenses (materials, logistics and administration) while the balance of THB 30 will go into a pool fund. We will use the pool fund to help the Christian refugees needing financial assistance such as for medical treatment, shortage of food, children's education and etc. In this way, we teach them how to fish instead of giving them fish. Also, there is less need to raise funds to help them for the long term.
Dubbed "Basketball Mission" Church, we launched this on 2nd February 2014 attended by many enthusiasts, many of whom would otherwise spend their time on computer games, social chatting and watching movies. Our ideas are to teach and train the young to be more active in sports activities. It is good for their physical health and mental health also. Many parents allow their children to come and learn basketball. This gives us an opportunity to share the gospel with them. Even the older ones are drawn to watch the game. We have a professional coach to train them for free. Every Sunday evening, we have inter-district Basketball tournament and I was given an opportunity to share 10 minutes of the Gospel to the Basketball teams and crowd. Many of them have taken the first step to accept Jesus Christ as their personal saviour. Thus, God has opened the door, but it takes time to let the seed grow towards maturity.
In God, we trust His mighty hand in the spread of His Kingdom.
Many blessings to all in the Lord.
Blessings,
Rev. Steve Peter H S Kok
Many blessings to all in the Lord.
Blessings,
Rev. Steve Peter H S Kok
