Return from Indochina

The past three weeks we have been in the Indochina area of Thailand and Burma. God truly blessed our trip as we surveyed many towns for potential churches. We also spent a good amount of time with one of our missionaries that our church supports, Brother Andy Long. We went soul winning and saw 26 precious Buddhist souls trust Christ. We also saw 26 first timers come to the Bible Baptist Mission that Brother Long just started in the last five weeks. God did many great things while we were there. Our hearts were stirred about our mission more than ever and it was difficult to leave an area that is 99% lost with only a few people looking for them...

Meanwhile we had a great Sunday at our home church this past weekend while we are still shaking off the jet lag. We saw several trust Christ on Saturday and one follow the Lord in baptism Sunday morning. Then on Sunday evening we saw another one follow the Lord in believer's baptism.

We are really looking forward to getting out and promoting the ministry that has laid on our heart this next month. Please pray for us as we strive to get churches started in the Indochina area and get the needed support raised.

Celebrating 15 Years

Members enjoying pizza after services

Mother and daughter

Really enjoying some pizza

Angelo gave incredible testimony about our church

Little Tam Sue and Peace Soe

For 15 years our church has been about reaching people. Today we celebrated our anniversary as a church with pizza and cake after the service. God has been good to us by allowing us in 15 years to see 2,255 people walk the aisle of our church and profess their faith in Christ. People from every corner of the globe! We have reached and will continue to reach people in our city. We will also start to stretch out across the globe and start churches in other sections of the world. Please pray for us as we move ahead into the future! I will be surveying potential cities in the the next month....  (Please enjoy pictures of our day.)

They Get Saved on the Road Too!

Last weekend I was preaching at the Lighthouse Baptist Church in Aurora, Colorado. Then during the week I was able to attend a conference in Colorado Springs at the Grace Baptist Church. God blessed the services and I was able to present our new Indochina Missions ministry. While I was there I also had a chance to do some soul winning. I was able to lead Kayla to Christ who is from Payton, Colorado. While I was away our church had nine visitors.
Then I returned this past Sunday and we were able to have several first time visitors attend including this couple from Columbia that my mother brought. Overall we had 30 riders on the Burmese refugee route, 50 adults in the two adult classes, and three public professions of faith made at the invitation. God is blessing our church so wonderfully right now!

A Couple of Good Stories This Week

Helen and my wife

On Thursday night my wife and I were door knocking in a neighborhood and ran across a lady named Helen Moo. I mentioned to her that she just recently got married. She seemed surprised and says to me, "How do you know?" I told her that a man and his wife in my church told me they were going to Helen Moo's wedding a few weeks ago. I told her that another man in my church texted the same day and told me he was going to a friend's wedding that the name he gave me was the same name. I told her that since she said her name was this, I figure that it must be her. My wife and I were able to see her trust Christ as her Saviour that night. I was also able to led her brother to Christ, her sister and her sister's husband to Christ too. Praise God for a small world sometimes...

Then on Saturday while out visiting our Karen route we stopped at one of our regular riders homes. When I knocked on the door there were a couple of Jehovah's "False" Witnesses there. They were feeding a line of false doctrine to our church members just like a pack of wolves luring in a flock of sheep for the kill. I began to denounce their lies and one of the JFW's slammed the door in my face telling me they were having a private conversation here. I started to walk away and thought to myself, wait a minute. I was invited in by the people that come to my church every week for almost 2 years now and all of a sudden I was being kicked out by some strangers. I figured as a pastor I have an obligation to protect my flock from false doctrine. So I went back into the house and began to denounce these lies being told against my Saviour Jesus Christ. The JFW's finally got frustrated when I continued to interfere with their lies and they left. I was then able to witness to the kids Aunt who was there and she accepted Christ as her Saviour. My wife and our translator were surprised at my boldness, but were glad that I did what I did. What kind of a shepherd runs from the wolf that is trying to slaughter the flock?

We had a good mother days service today with multiple visitors coming. God has been good to us!

Celebrating a Birthday IN Church Instead of OUT

When I was out visiting on Saturday, I visited Hla at his house and he told he had to go to church the next day because it was his birthday. These were refreshing words to the ears of a pastor. Usually, I hear that one cannot make it to church tomorrow because it is their birthday. Sure enough, Hla and wife and daughter were in church. I took them to lunch afterwards to help celebrate his birthday some more. Hla and his family have been coming to our church since 2010. They are a very nice family. In fact Hla's wife Tha Be will be in Burma this Summer when I am in Thailand and wanted us to come and visit her family there. I told them that maybe we can do it the next year.

Saw Pwah

This is Saw Pwah who I ate dinner with Saturday night. His daughter is going to start translating for us this next week for soul winning. He has a very talented family and they are wanting me to to travel to their village in their homeland and see about us starting a church there. I told him that we will make plans for that trip in 2020 when we will be more ready to take on such a task. He said he will be planning and saving his money.

Overall we had a good Sunday. Three adult visitors came and we saw one follow the Lord in baptism. The attendance was a little low as many battled the city marathon trying to get to church.

Anto was wearing a new dress.

Tamaner brought her sister in law

Some Good Visitors

Wa Sa Na and my wife

Taween and my daughter

 We had some really good visitors today. The first was Wa Sa Na and her two sons. She is a Karen lady who was born in Thailand and speaks Thai, Karen, and English fluently. She seemed to enjoy our Sunday school class and said she would be back next week. The second one is Taween Deng who is from Sudan. She came with her child and seemed to enjoy herself very much. God blessed with some other visitors as well, but I do not have pictures of them. Our church is blessed to have such fine visitors!

Vietnamese Tracts Are Hot Off the Press

Thao and her son at Jason's Deli last week.

This past week we finally got our Vietnamese custom made tracts back from the printers. It was something we had been praying about for several years. We have tried to get our custom made Gospel tracts put into as many languages as we possible can by using our members to translate them. Last December we ran across Thao and her family from Vietnam. They had only lived in America for 12 days at this time, but spoke English very well. I was able at that time to lead the whole family to Christ and see them get baptized the following Sunday. They have been faithfully coming every week ever since. Recently, my son asked Thao if she could translate a tract for us. She said it would be no problem and went straight to work on it. Now we have our custom tracts in Vietnamese as well as Burmese, Karen, Spanish, French, and Arabic. God has been blessing the use of these Gospel tracts.

We had a pretty good week overall with one being saved in Wednesday evening service. We topped off our Sunday school campaign with several visitors and good attendance on the bus routes. We will now be marching ahead into March and looking toward our Anniversary Sunday on June the 4th when our church turns 15 years old.