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.

Great Decision for Christ

This is Amiot pictured standing behind my wife. She is fluent in Arabic, and has translated some of our Gospel tracts into Arabic. This past week my wife and I led three Muslim's to Christ from the Middle East. She helped us confirm their faith in Christ and they made a public professions of faith in Christ. We took a nice picture of them with Amiot, but we are not using it or their names for safety reasons. It is a glorious Easter Sunday when one turns to Christ!

Also, pictured is Chigozie Obioma and his wife Christina. They have been coming regularly to our church since around the beginning of the year. Chigozie is originally from Nigeria and is a professor at the University of Nebraska. He has also written several books that have been published in over 30 countries around the world. His wife Christina is currently completing her doctorate from the University of Michigan. We love having so many great people coming to our church!

We had several visitors for our campaign this week. One was Sandico from Sudan that came with my son. He came forward at the invitation time and was given assurance of his salvation. We also had a great special this week with some of the children singing with the adults the song "Celebrate Our Saviour." God gave us a very good Easter Sunday!

Set Sail with Sunday School

Brandon and my son

 Today was the second week of our campaign "Set Sail with Sunday School." God blessed us with a very good day overall. We had 30 on the Karen route. We had several visitors in the kids classes and also in the adult classes. Brandon who came last week and said he was saved, decided he was unsure of his salvation and decided to get saved. He then followed the Lord in believer's baptism. My wife brought several visitors to Sunday school including Shanon who recently moved here from Cameroon. Also, Sha Ku who is Karen came as my wife's visitor. I also caught a picture with Calvin who got saved at our church in April of 2011 and has been coming all these years. The Lord has truly been good to us! Somebody say Amen!

Shanon and my wife

Sha Ku and my wife

Calvin and me

Special Guest

Looper's with their folks.

We had the first week of our campaign this past Sunday and were blessed with very good attendance. We had a variety of visitors come. One particular couple that visited was Brother Looper's folks from the state of Washington. We felt very privileged to have them in our services for the entire day. I preached on "Set Sail with Sunday School" during the morning service. There were many who don't already attend that said they felt motivated to come to Sunday school the next week.

Then on Sunday evening I preached on "Failing to Recognize the Preeminence of Christ." The altars were full at the invitation time and we had a return visitor from the morning back for the evening service. His name was Brandon and he brought another visitor with him named Chelsea. Chelsea got saved at the invitation and followed the Lord in believer's baptism. Praise the Lord!  

Chelsea getting baptized.