Little Tam Sue

My wife holding "little" Tam Sue

After a great holiday weekend and looking forward to a day off on Monday, my wife discovered early that this would be no day off. Her phone rang a little before 8 a.m. and it was Shun Nun Tun one of the ladies from our Karen ministry who is pregnant. She asked my wife to take her to the hospital. So my wife called Tamaner another Karen lady in our church and cancelled her plans with her that day. Tamaner asked my wife if she would like her to come with her to take Shun Nun Tun to the hospital. So my wife readily accepted since Tamaner is one of our interpreters in our Karen ministry and Shun Nun Tun's English is limited. My wife speaks some Karen, but Tamaner made things easier for my wife to communicate between the hospital staff and the would be mother. By afternoon time Shun Nun Tun and her husband were the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl.

When it came time to fill out the paper work for the name, the parents asked my wife to fill it out and to name the girl after herself. My wife's name is Tamara Sue, but I often call her Tam Sue. So the parents decided that would be the name. So now our church has gained another Tam Sue. Praise God for the opportunity to serve and love people and influence their lives for God!

Ending the Year with a New Beginning

This is the Reed family! The mom and the children have been coming to church for several months. However, the dad was off of work today and able to attend our services. He had been led to Christ several weeks ago and the mother several months ago. They both followed the Lord in believer's baptism this morning at the invitation time. Praise God for ending the year with a new beginning in their lives. Next week starts the new year, so please pray for this family to grow in the Lord in 2017!

It's the Exciting Time of Year!

Christmas time is always the exciting time of year to me. Often times I get the opportunity to receive some money from someone who wants to remain unknown and give some gifts to some people who could use them. Then my family and I always add to that or give extra for a family that is in need. This year I did not have anyone approach me about giving gifts, however, we still continued with our practice of giving gifts to folks over the Christmas season. This year we gave to four separate families. I will tell you about two of the households that we gave gifts to and that I captured some pictures from.

The first was a family of new comers from Vietnam that just arrived December 1st. They are a very sharp family, but seem to have a special need since they are just arriving here and trying to establish themselves. They were very excited to receive their gifts.

Second pictures are from a Karen household who regularly attend our church. Their father is still in Thailand and so the mother and two children just barely get by on what they have. I wanted to be a blessing to them and so we brought a gift for the mother and for each of the two children. They fully enjoyed their gifts as we brought them on Saturday morning and they were definitely surprised by the arrival of them. It is a great joy to bring happiness to others. Upon our departure we also had the opportunity to lead two Congolese people to Christ in their back parking lot. Praise God for the best gift of all... eternal life through His Son!  

Dong  and his family receiving gifts from me.

One of our little Karen girls giving her approval

It All Starts with Thursday Night Soul Winning!

Dong Tran Family

For us the weekend always starts with Thursday night soul winning. I was able to meet a family of new comers from Vietnam that just arrived December 1st. This precious family actually could speak English very well having studied it before their arrival. I was able to lead them all to Christ at their home on Thursday night. Then I picked them up for church Sunday morning. All five of them came down the aisle at the invitation time and followed the Lord in believer's baptism.

Thao and my wife

Then my mother had one of her converts from Thursday night come also. Her name was Ja'Selena and she also came forward at the invitation time and followed the Lord in believer's baptism. So we ended up having a total of six make professions of faith and six follow the Lord in believer's baptism. We also ended up having 112 in Sunday school which is definitely a little lower attendance, but given the fact that we started out with -11 degrees this morning and lost a bus due to gelling in the fuel, we did pretty good. Praise God for His goodness to us!

My mother with Ja'Selena

Ja'Selena getting baptized!

Karen Ministry makes a Boom!

Mrs. Painter waiting with two riders for the bus.

  

Shwe Thei and Htoo Eh 

  Today we had 53 Karen (pronounced Ka Rin) folks come to church which is a really good boom in the Karen ministry that we have at our church. We have had a few larger days in the past, but this is definitely a good Sunday with 30 riding the bus route and 23 driving in. We fight the Jehovah's False Witnesses for these people which means that I spend a lot of time teaching them the truth about the Bible and exposing the error of the JFW's. I have even written a tract exposing what they believe and having it translated into the Karen language. God is really blessing this ministry. In fact last Summer I had the opportunity to travel to Thailand and even reach some of the relatives of our people to Christ over there. Please pray as we hope to take advantage of this tremendous opportunity working with this people group and eventually start churches on that side of the world!  

Htee Say gets the quiet seat prize

Sunday School Christmas Party

Ter Kaw Wah video's Tamaner and Mrs. Miller in contest

This past Friday night we had an adult Sunday school class Christmas party with a Lumberjack Theme to it. Everybody had a great time. We had Chili and Cornbread to eat and played Lumberjack themed games. Christmas time is a great time to gather with brother and sisters in Christ and fellowship. We enjoyed ourselves and then got back to work on Saturday morning out visiting and soul winning for Sunday. We had 12 saved Saturday morning despite the cold weather! I have included several pictures from the party....

Bro. Williams having a good time

Picture over the "logs" that had to be sawed

Record Drive In Crowds

Thursday night soul winning with Peter

  We did some calculating the other day for an information project for our church and I discovered the drive-in numbers for our church during a four week period was the largest four week stretch we had ever had in the history of our church. They were 96 (150 total), 98 (159), 94 (157), and 100 (159). That is a great stretch of drive-in attenders!
  Last Thursday night I was able to lead a Buddhist lady to Christ while out soul winning. The lady to the right of me in the picture runs an Asian grocery store and is already saved. I have met her before in her store and she speaks very good English. I used her to interpret the Gospel presentation to this Buddhist lady on the floor in front of me using an illustration book given to me by Dr. Bowen. Praise God for willing servants!
 On Saturday and Sunday we delivered several Christmas presents to some needy refugees. We also saw three trust Christ while out. The snow hit Saturday night and dropped several inches bringing our weekly attendance down to just 111 for Sunday school. However, the Karen route had a banner attendance day with 38 riders. It was so funny to watch some of the riders come in their sandals trudging through the snow as if it was nothing. My wife and I got a good laugh out of it asking them if their feet were cold. They told me "NO." AMEN!

Beka and Debbie helping deliver presents

First Christmas Tree

This weekend was a holiday weekend which is usually a little slow for us on the production end of the ministry life. It is the one week a year we don't have Thursday night soul winning. However, on Saturday we went out visiting for several hours and saw 9 souls trust Christ. I even had four visitors lined up to come which unfortunately none of them did. However, late Saturday afternoon we dropped by the home of a newer couple in our church that have been coming since last Summer. We brought with us a Christmas tree and full decorations. My family set this tree up and fully decorated it in about 25 minutes. I have never seen smiles so big on the faces of people before in my life. Even on a slow holiday weekend we received a lot blessings in our heart by bringing happiness and gladness to a nice young married couple. They have only been in America from Thailand for a few short years and have never had a Christmas tree before. This was their first one, but I believe they will enjoy it much! I also believe they will always remember us bringing it by their house! Feel free to click on to see the tree being decorated...

Building Relationships

I often teach the concept that you must build relationships with people in order to reach them more effectively. I not only pass that on to my church memberships, but also to my own children. This past Saturday they had a friend over from Sunday school that had gotten saved over a year ago, but just recently started attending more faithfully. My wife held a crafting activity with the girls to make notebooks. My daughters and their friend Paw Ku Moo had a great time. Of course they were all in church the next morning. We had a fair attendance day with 2 public professions of faith being made during the invitation time. There was a great spirit and many eager to learn truths from God's Word overall. Praise God!

It's a Party!

Pea Soe and Rae Mia Htoo mixing

 This past Saturday we had a party for the campaign winners of the Karen route. We had 24 meet the requirements by attending all four weeks and bringing their Bibles and wearing proper church dress. At this party we had many activities and games, however, the hit of the party was making cookies with Mrs. Painter. They absolutely loved it. In fact 3/4 of them wanted to get involved with having a hand at helping to make them. Of course they all wanted to help eat them when they were done baking! All of these party attenders came the next day to Sunday school. Our attendance was a little down with only 133, but that is not uncommon with the campaign ending last week. Please view all the pictures I have posted of the party....

Paw Ku Moo pouring in an egg

Yo Nay Htoo takes a hand at mixing!

Eh Sae Ki Wah putting them on stone

Some of the boys eating snacks

Listening to directions from Mrs. Painter

Great Finish to Our Campaign

Letty getting baptized!

 God blessed us with a great finish to our four week Sunday school campaign. We were shooting for more than 167 in attendance to break our record and fell short with only 159 in attendance. However, it was still a great day overall. We had 7 public professions of faith made with one following the Lord in believer's baptism.

Dr. Bowen signing Bibles

 We also had Dr. Bowen with us who is our missionary to Thailand. He is getting ready to head back to Bangkok soon. Oddly enough the one convert who got baptized is a Filipina whose grandfather was born in Bangkok. Her name is Letty and we were glad to see here get gloriously saved at the invitation time.

  The campaign overall had us seeing a record attendance stretch of four weeks over 150 each week. We had 150, 159, 157, and 159 the last week. Praise God! We also saw 126 people get saved with 21 of those coming to church and making a public profession of faith and 7 following the Lord in believer's baptism. Praise God all the way around!

Sunday Night Preaching

Reaching a Whole Family

It was the third week of our Sunday school campaign and God blessed. First blessing was the chance to see Shirley and her family get saved and baptized. (That is always a blessing to have five baptized!) Second blessing was to see a third week in a row of being over 150 in attendance, we had 157 today. Third blessing was to see 47 on the regular bus route come in and 29 on the Karen route. The fourth blessing was to see several new visitors come  along with several second time visitors come back. God is good, please, pray for our big day next week!

Mission of Compassion

We had a fantastic second week of our Sunday school campaign with 159 in Sunday school. We had a total of 15 visitors come and six making public professions of faith in Christ. There were 39 riders on the regular bus route and 35 riders on the Karen route. I had my picture taken with Will John Tut who recently moved here from Sudan. Mrs. Miller also brought a lady from Cameroon named Catherine and another lady from India named Sujata. I also had my picture taken with Tharek who was sporting a new African outfit. Praise God for His goodness.

The Matney Family

The Matney's

This is Missionary John David Matney and his family, missionaries to South Africa. It was a blessing to have them here for the first week of our campaign. They went out soul winning with us on Saturday and spent all day Sunday with us. Bro. Matney preached on Sunday night and did a fantastic job!

Overall we had a great Sunday with 150 in attendance overall. I had 23 in my class alone. We had 2 public professions of faith made at the invitation time and one follow the Lord in believer's baptism. On Sunday night we had 55 in attendance with a couple of visitors. Praise God for a wonderful day!

Home and Family Class

A.J. getting baptized!

In Memory of Miss Lucille

Miss Lucille

Miss Lucille Garcia was a faithful member of our church who passed away last night. She was 102 years old and until about 6 or 7 weeks ago, she lived in her own apartment by herself. She faithfully attended until her health began to slip more recently. We will miss Lucille, but our loss is Heaven's gain. She was ready to go home!

Ka Haw Moo

We had a very good Sunday despite many regulars being gone. God blessed with 5 adult visitors attending and two getting saved at the invitation and making a public profession of faith. Ka Haw Moo was a first time visitor with her children. I met her two Saturday's ago while out visiting. We were very honored to have her come and attend. We were also pleased to have Yoo Mu visit today. Her children have been riding on the Karen route for almost a year. It was a great honor to have her attend too. Then Quy Nguyen came and got saved at the invitation today. He is a native of Vietnam and was invited last Thursday night by two of our lady soul winners. Praise God for a good day!

Yoo Mu and her children

Quy Nguyen

Santo

This is Santo who has been coming to our church for several years. He is a saved and baptized member of our church. I was at the post office earlier this week and a voice shouted out of a crowd "Pastor!" I looked around and didn't see anyone. Then I heard them shout "Pastor, it is me!" I looked again and saw Santo. We spoke for a few minutes and then he told me he would see me on Sunday. Sure enough he was here like every week. I thank the Lord to see some of my converts still coming to church all these years later. Santo is a Sudanese refugee who has lived here since 2008. He is fluent in several languages. Please pray for him as his work schedule keeps him from attending many of our other services. I would like to see him grow in the Lord even more and get involved in our soul winning program! God could use an Arabic speaking soul winner in our diverse community!

More Adult Visitors

My wife and Tha Ben

We had another week with many adult visitors coming to church. My wife had a visitor come that she met while out soul winning Thursday night. It is interesting how going soul winning every week keeps the visitor flow coming. There is no better plan than God's plan! Somebody say Amen! We had two professions made Sunday morning and another two on Sunday night with one following the Lord in believer's baptism. Praise God for a good day!

Myself with Joseph who got baptized!

My son and grandson on Sunday morning.