Prayer Letter May 08 Written on May 21, 2008, by admin.

Dear Friends,
Many things have been happening over the last 5 months; I do not even know where to start! Shall I start by telling you about moving Kham Siri to its new location? Or about all those baptisms we had? Or about my (Stefan’s) health problems?

Let us start with the family:

Family

We are doing well as a family. We enjoy life here in Chiang Mai and feel satisfied that we do something meaningful at the same time. However, the downside to all of this is my (Stefan’s) health, which has not been good for quite a long time now: Bronchitis, trapped nerve, and an ear infection, just to name a few. In addition, 2 months ago, I had Dengue Fever. This is a tropical disease like malaria, where you are infected through a mosquito bite. Symptoms are severe body pain and a high fever. It takes a long time to recover fully.
Tobias and Tina are well. They do not seem to have any health problems and we thank God for that.

Ministry

Moving Kam Siri Community Centre

For quite a while we felt it was time to move Kham Siri, our center where we teach the Bible and English, and build relationships, to its new location. The old place was great for 3 years but we had outgrown it so we prayed for a new place. God provided a great location right at the market. It is still part of and close to our original community but also has the potential to reach new people as well. We moved with the help of many locals from the community.
It was also great to have a small team from our home Vineyard church in London coming to Chiang Mai to support us.
During the opening day, it was wonderful to see so many locals, young and old from the community come for the occasion of introducing our new community center. We had a lot of food cooked by our close friends from there and everybody enjoyed the day playing table tennis, games and eating.
Since the opening day the center has been busy. Besides teaching English and German, we teach the Bible and pray together several times a week. On one of those days Joy, a 25-year-old woman from the community, phoned to tell me she wants to study the bible on Tuesday. From that time I met with her and laid the foundation about the gospel. She realized the good news in the Word and gave her life to Jesus! She is a real example of someone coming to Jesus because of community. She saw that Annush’s life had changed by the power of God, that we teach for free and spend a lot of time building relationships, and that, most of all, she is accepted in our community, which is a big thing for someone like Joy, being mentally slow and also different looking. She is one of the group who has been baptized.

Baptisms

As we spend time together to share our lives, pray together and support for each other we really are developing a sense of family, a sense of community. I suppose that is the way it must have been in the early church where the followers of Jesus shared their lives, prayed together, studied the Bible, had meals together and went out to share the good news with their neighbors (Acts 2:42-47). Our new believers grow in their relationship with Jesus and their understanding of the gospel.
I felt we should baptize some of those new believers immediately. It is just another level of declaring their faith and of commitment in a public setting. We went off in our pick-up truck. Before we left we met Suun Tam. He knows Jesus now for over a year and really loves him. He is 73 years old and rides a Tricycle to earn an income. Sombuun, Anushash’s grandmother who God healed of TB, came too. All together, there were 16 of us, young and old, fat and thin, tall and short. Everybody ached from the walk by the time we arrived at a beautiful waterfall. Those aches were forgotten quickly as we stepped into the water.
Joy, Anushit and Anushon were baptized first. They really sensed God’s presence and were pleased about it. After we baptized those three in deeper water, we went back to the shore, talked, and explained more about baptism to Suun Tam and Som Buun. It was beautiful. We all had that real sense of joy and peace as we simply took a plastic cup filled with water, poured it over their heads and prayed with them. I was especially glad for Suun Tam and Som buun, as their lives were previously filled with so much tragedy. They both lost their spouse and most of their children due to disease or drug/alcohol abuse. Because of these tragedies, both of them had real alcohol problems and suffered from depression. Now their lives have changed. They are not addicted to alcohol anymore and God lifted the depression, as they surely know their Lord and Saviour.
Shortly after those baptisms, I fell 3 meters deep into a gorge, which left me with a deep cut in my leg. It could have killed me. Nevertheless, I thanked God for a wonderful, satisfying day.

God is certainly doing something here: extending his kingdom and building a community of believers. God also opened a door to ministry to working girls, drug addicts and HIV victims. I will tell you more about that in our next letter.
Tina is still faithfully looking after and caring for Matthew. She is part of a team now, as he needs constant care and attention due to his many infirmities. Matthew is the orphan, who was born with severe brain damage due to a lack of oxygen at birth. Tina will extend God’s mercy to him as long as he is alive.

Prayer points

Please pray for Stefan’s health. It seems to be an ongoing problem, which is hindering the ministry now.
Please pray for all those new believers, especially those who have been baptized
Pray that the kingdom of God will break in and the light of the gospel will penetrate that community more and more
Pray for our new community centre. May everybody who comes into the centre sense God’s love.
Please pray for Matthew that God shows his mercy in and through his life.

Read more from the Prayer Letters category. To comment, click here: 1 Comment
Or stay up to date with this post via RSS

Prayer Points May 08 Written on May 10, 2008, by admin.

Pray for all those families whose lives have been touched, who found Jesus already or are still in the process of searching. For example, Anusha’s family; his 2 brothers received Jesus, his grandmother is Sombun, his mom is very close, but his dad is still not open.
Others who are on our heart at Kham siri are Uan’s family, Manit’s family, Um, Joy, Diaw, Bung, Gar and many others
Pray as we start worship on Sunday afternoons for youth, children and eventually adults to see them draw closer to God.
Continue to pray for the ministry the new location, the landlord and our new community.
Please continue to pray for Matthew, the little orphan boy, whose health is still not improving. Tina is now part of a team to care for him

Read more from the Prayer Letters category. To comment, click here: Comment
Or stay up to date with this post via RSS