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.