Children's Outing

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
- Matthew 19:14

We had a children's outing today!!

And we are very exhausted now... age is taking a toil on me...

We climbed up a hill of 1.3km vertical height, took a walk with the kids, ate and sang, played with them in a river, and made a simple gospel presentation to them. 18 kids prayed and received Christ, praise God! The kids here are very very sweet and relational... miss them already...

Lord, we pray that you continue to bring about growth to the seeds that were sown today. These young ones will become mighty oak trees that will testify to Your goodness, grace and greatness from this village to the next and to the next. We commit them into Your loving hands :)

The old man here is too tired to blog... but he shall let the pictures do the talking. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, this will make it 2000!



Thanks for praying.

Regards,
Jacob

The Glory of His grace

God continues to awe us with His grace and might...

We just saw about 30 people home; they came for an evangelistic BBQ that was held at the shophouse. They were mainly the elderly and destitute whom we home-visited yesterday and the day before yesterday.

How glad we were when we saw them arrive at the shophouse! Out of the 30 people, about 12-15 people received Christ, including children.

I'm lost for words, really. As the videographer, in-charge of capturing precious God-moments, I guess I was partly on the lookout for worthy footage instead of being "in the moment", but what I remember clearly are the raised hands when Eugene, one of the Radion staff, asked who wanted to receive Christ. I remember scrambling in to catch that God-moment, all the while thinking... it's not to us, but unto God; salvation is His miracle.

So, all glory and honour to Christ our King, who gave us the privilege to partner with Him!

Blessings,
Li Ling

Day 4 at Petchabun: Pre-Home Visitation

Even before we went out to do home visitation, the team started on "Unlearning Lesson - Part 1". Indeed we were a bunch of people with much to unlearn... ...

Worship, more than just mere words or lip service, it's really about the outpouring from our hearts. The team seemed to hit a glass ceiling ... no .. an iron curtain ... no .. it's an iron wall... There seemed to be a lot of passivity from the team members. There's a river of His presence God had already prepared ... but somehow, some of us just seemed to be satisfied playing at the banks splashing a little water around... some are satisfied going in ankle-deep ... some stopped at waist-deep but what God really desires is for us to dive in .. and just be 'drowned' with Him... We cant simply stop at the outer courts, but we need to go past the holy place and enter straight into the holy of holies, where His shechinah glory dwells.

Like a little lightstick which has to be thoroughly broken before it can shine, the team was 'broken'; where the 'Self', the 'I' is broken ... where we decreased and Christ increased in our lives. Well, more is to come until we are truly broken, completely crushed in the Lord.

House Visitation Day One

Sawatdii khrap! Sabaay dii may

Greetings from Khek Noi once again, we wish His grace and peace upon you brothers and sisters in Christ!

Today the team awoke from long night's rest despite the F1 car engine that relentlessly roared throughout the night (i.e. snoring souls).

A key element in any mission trip does not concern the field or our programs, but rather it concerns our heart preparation. Worship and devotion today was serious business as well. Not business with the Hmongs or with Radion, but business with the Master of our souls.

The team's inward-looking spiritual posture was confronted mid-way through the worship and we went into another time of intimate self-reflection to examine our hearts; to ask ourselves whether we were more concerned with our own weaknesses, or with His strength. Marvin's devotion in particular reminded all of us not to be "lao jiao pings" (Matthew 11:25-26). Being an older team than Wave 1, with many of us either church/ministry leaders or university students at home, we were indeed a bunch with much to "unlearn" in this trip so that we could all humbly ask for more of Him and less of us.

After a sumptuous lunch of rice (what else), fishball soup, roasted pork in special thai sauce (Yvonne says it is "simply shiok"), papaya salad and kangkong, we proceeded to head out for our first home visitations.

The first home we visited were a slightly mentally challenged couple whose children were malnourished due to lack of food, especially milk. The dire look on their faces was enough to 'floor' most of us. The four packets of kuay-teow seemed very inadequate and all we could do is to pray for them and to show them love.

In the second home was a family of four. What struck me most was the story of one of the daughters who was staying with them. What happened was that a guy actually took advantage of her and left her all alone when he found out that she was pregnant. As I (Yvonne) held her hand to pray for her, I felt a surge of emotions. The feeling of being obfuscated, not knowing what to do next or what the future holds. But one thing I know, that the Lord will be holding her hand and will see her through the trials. Just fyi, the head of this particular household came to accept Jesus Christ into his life today! Praise God! We are excited for the salvation but not surprised because we know that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

We moved on to the third and last home. For the third house, it was pretty run-down with a damaged roof. Thus, when it rained, water seep in contiously and caused the interior of the house to be wet and soggy. Apart from the physical condition was the spiritual state of the lady we ministered to. The weathered look on her face speaks of hardships and a weary heart. There was nothing much we could do but to pray, hug her and give her a heart-shaped origami representing that we love her. Those were our five loaves and two fishes but God used them. As we were about to leave, Eunice told Ben to tell the lady that she truly admires her for bringing the kids up single-handedly and encouraged her to continue to perservere on. This word from the Lord stirred up the heart of this lady and she started sobbing. Her sobs revealed many suppressed hurts and loneliness. Before we left, I felt a word from the Lord from Revelation 7:17: For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. I passed her a packet of tissue, telling her that it would only temporarily wipe the tears off her eyes but I encouraged her to hold on to the promise that God had given, that is one day her tears would definitely be wiped away permanently (itaics mine). We're truly blessed by these home visitations.

Blessings,
Derek, Yvonne

Cold Wet Orientation

Dear all,

We are safely in Khek Noi... praise the Lord. We arrived in the village on Monday evening and quickly settled down to rest. Thank you for praying for us, and special appreciation to all of you who came to the airport early in the morning to send us off!

Today we had our "cultural training" and "village orientation". As I am typing now, we are at the shophouse, cold and wet. This was largely due to a part of the "orientation" programme which took place at a muddy river with the "street kids" in the rain. How could we not follow when they jumped into the water instinctively??? It was a classic sight to see the drivers' faces when they saw us walking back to the vehicles all wet and dirty. And this is only Day 2! By the way, they are the same two drivers who were with the Wave 1 team.

Please pray for our good health. The weather is really cold and pouring, and we are still adjusting to the new environment.

Okay, just a short and simple update.

More to come!

Jacob =)

PS: Aun's cooking is aroy mak mak mak mak mak mak mak mak !!! :)

Sawadee! After a two hour plane ride and a seven hour bus ride, we have reached Khek Noi Village in Phetchabun. We thank the Lord for granting us a safe journey. We also thank our supporters who have sacrificed their precious sleep to send us off at the airport as early as 5am! We also thank our prayer warriors for keeping us in prayer. Our hospitable hosts have kindly opened up their house for us to stay over the course of the next ten days.

We are now blogging at RADION's headquarters which is a ten minutes drive from our hosts' house. It is a three storey shophouse which provides shelter for the street kids. We spent some time mingling with the kids before dinner and found out that they really wanted watches. One of our team members, Alvin presented the street kids with watches and they were really happy and excited.

Come back soon for more updates.

For greater things, I ask of the Lord.

"We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish," they answered.
"Bring them here to me," he said.
- Matthew 14:17-18

Lord, the "five loaves and two fish" will remain as "five loaves and two fish" in our own hands. But we offer the little that we have unto You, our lives and everything. Take them, break them and use them for Your purposes. May we be a blessing that will glorify Your name in the land.

I feel strange as I am writing this post right now. On 27 March 2008, I made my previous blog post here on the final day of the Wave 1 mission trip, signing off as "my last blog post in this website" and was certain that I would never blog again. I have never posted any blog entries in my life before the last trip, and was only using this website to provide some quick updates from the mission field for our prayer supporters back in Singapore. Once again, the Lord is showing me that He is full of surprises. So here I am, happily eating my own words and preparing to make my way to Phetchabun again in a few hours time with the Wave 2 team that will be there from 2nd to 11th June! Wa ha ha ha ha =)

Some quick updates on what God has been doing between my previous post and the current one:
1) The Wave 1 team gave thanks and glory to God for the 100+ lives who came to know Jesus during their short stint in the village. For many of the team members, the trip marked the first time they witnessed how real and powerful the Holy Spirit is. When the Holy Spirit swept through the refugee camp with the Hmong-Laos people breaking down in tears responding to the name of Jesus, everyone could only stand in awe of His presence. Their hearts were broken, and they wept and wept with the people there.

2) Before the trip, the Wave 1 team members thought they were called to a village to give. During the trip, God outgave them. At the end of the trip, they knew they could never see lives in the same light again. They came back to Singapore and heard testimonies of how the reports of the mission trip had encouraged many people, and is continuing to use the lessons that God had taught them to encourage many more people. They also "adopted" children in the village through the "Street Kids Outreach" project by RADION International.

3) The Wave 1 Team Leader was burdened to return to the village one day to serve the poor, and she quickly linked up with RADION for the next project. A Wave 2 team, made up mostly by university students from Singapore Campus Crusade for Christ, was formed to make a trip to the same village and resume some of the work there from 2nd to 11th June 2008.

4) The Lord taught an awkwardly out-of-place and over-aged member of the Wave 1 team to "number his days aright that he may gain a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12), and the fellow quitted his full-time job so that he can use more of his numbered days on earth to do more crazy things for Jesus. For now, he is reportedly seen tagging along with this new Wave 2 team so that he can resume his blogging career on this website again. He needs to reach the airport in about 4 hours time, and he has not started packing his bag yet.

Oh well. God is full of surprises ya?

Right now, I am praying to God that for this coming trip, I will not be relying on the things I think I already knew from the previous trip, because I know the Lord is going to do something new. I am asking Him for more... for greater things. For more surprises :)

I thank God for all the supporters who had partnered us with prayers during the Wave 1 trip. Your prayer support had meant so much for us and for the people in Thailand. Please continue to do so for this Wave 2 team.

I thank God for the supporters of the Wave 2 team members. Please follow us closely in this trip, and watch how your prayers will make a difference to God's work in this place.

I thank God for the Wave 1 team members. All of you are absolutely awesome!!! I know you are interceding for us even as you are reading this :)

I cannot thank God enough. Watch this page for more thanksgivings to come!

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Jacob Ng