Greetings dear brothers and sisters! I would like to thank you all for your prayers and thank our Lord for His great works here in Vietnam. Our Lord blessed us with the opportunity to visit the city hospital almost every Sunday now, where we tell people of God’s love, give them a Bible verse of encouragement, and pray for them.
At first, we told the people in the hospital in Vietnamese that Jesus loves them and would ask them if they would like us to pray for them. Now, people start asking us on their own if we may pray for them, and we saw that as a working hand of God, praise and glory be to Him! Yet, we still come across those who ask us not to pray and to leave them alone, and I would like to share one of those moments with you.
We came into a room once and as we walked up to the beds, we asked if we may pray for the sick and couple of them agreed, so we prayed. Then as we came to the very far back corner, we saw a man in his bed who was fully immobile, and a family relative was feeding him from a spoon. When he saw us, he shook his head wildly and tried to scream so we would leave but all that came out of his mouth was whisper. Each week patients changed, this same man was always in the far back corner, lying in bed and would have his head covered with a blanket when we came and prayed for people in the beds next to him.
Over a month later, we came into this same room as usual and prayed for the people in the beds near him, but this time during our conversation with patients in that room, I heard someone whisper in a hoarse voice, “amen…amen…” and as I looked toward the sound I saw him looking at us and with all might as loud as he could, he was whispering the only word that is pronounced same in Russian, English and Vietnamese when we pray. Not knowing how to get our attention he tried as hard as he can to call us by saying ‘amen.’ We came to him and asked if he would like as to pray for him, and he nodded excitedly, and though we prayed in Russian, since we don’t speak Vietnamese yet, when we told him the phrase in Vietnamese “Chúa Giêsu yêu bạn (Jesus loves you),” he started repeating over and over again the name of Jesus: “Chúa Giêsu…Chúa Giêsu…” For us, right away came to mind the verse from Acts 2:21 “…whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” and we praise our Lord for letting us be witnesses to His great works within the hearts of others! Please continue to pray with us for this man, and may God bless you all!
I have over 300 children as each month more children are registering. The children who do not know Jesus are just too many. I would like to bring more children to Christ. There are serious threats for our children as Islam is growing so fast and they are enticing children to join Islam. The Muslim Community takes advantage of the poverty in our community and uses money, food, clothes, and scholarship. Most of our children are coming from very poor families, who cannot afford such things.
Camp meetings will help to bring many children & youth to Christ. I will invite them to attend such camps in order to reach them for Christ. This concept is new in Malawi that is why I would like to invite your team to come and train us. After training we will be able to train other congregations.
I am also a youth leader. Youth Camp will also be required to reach out our youth I will need your assistance. We have limited resources to motivate and reach out other youths. This will be treated as a training of youth or empowering the youth spiritual growth and training them to reach out the lost.
National youth leaders need your assistance too to develop it to reach out its fellow youths in the country. Our youth needs recourse to enable it trains its leaders for effective leadership. Major priorities are training in discipleship and spiritual leadership. We would be glad if you can assist us with such training or funding such trading programs. We have a little over 10,000 youthmemebrs who we would like to train and use for the great commission.
The youth program has been extended from churches to public institutions like primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities. We have access to both government and private institutions to share the word of God. With your help we could do more as far as training and equipping the church for ministry. Well trained youth is a very important tool for the expound of Gods kingdom.
Psalm 127:3-5 3 Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.
GIRLS BRIGADE
We also have another department of girl child empowerment. An African girl is disadvantaged because of cultural beliefs. Women have been treated not as equal partners but were taken like a property of a husband. Because of this cultural understanding, girls has been denied opportunities to go for higher education like their male counterparts.
This department helps young girls to rediscover her identity as God created them in His own image. Young girls are freed from bad cultural practices and develop them to serve her family and God as intended. Girls are trained how to take care of her home, children and her husband according to the Word of God
On this picture are the national leaders of the department of the Girls Brigade. I will need your support to equip this group as well as to make resources available for training needs.
Girls are the majority of our members. They are dedicated but without resources we have too many challenges.
Recently, new opportunities have opened up to participate in the lives of children with blood cancer. We have became participants in this process more than three years ago. We help children and parents along their hard journey. Many children recover and get cured, some do not, and we must be there for all of them. Children who are about to die are in pain and frightened but our care for them gives them strength, and most importantly, God’s love for them revealed through us, gives hope. This is very important for them, because for these children there is only today, tomorrow may not come.
Thank you for your prayers and your participation in our ministry. This week I was with a 6-year-old girl, her name is Dasha and her mother’s name is Nastya. After a operation on her the doctors found that her brain atrophied. Surgeons did not even tell her mother about this, for her not to lose hope. Now she will be transferred to a different department and they will try all the known methods to save the child. We spend a lot of time with this family and are participating in their lives.
It is our need to pray for this girl and to support this family financially. Nastya raises Dasha all alone. May God bless you to help them. Thank God for you!
The Lord prompted my heart to describe the life of Vladimir, he is 61 years old. We met him on Christmas Eve in 2017. We were on our way to the worship service, and suddenly we saw a man crawling along the road. We stopped and picked him up. He was crawling because he had lost both legs after a car accident in 2016. As we found out later, he was crawling to the railway, where he wanted to commit suicide. The Lord destroyed the plans of the enemy and he didn’t do it. In the accident, Vladimir not only lost his legs, but also all his documents were burned at the same time.
He comes from the Donetsk region and because of the conflict, everything is destroyed there, and the requests sent to the archives remain unanswered. This is how he lives – without legs, documents, and pension. All that remains is, to trust in the grace of the Lord and the sacrificial hearts of His children. Once every 2 months, we need to take him to a paid clinic for examinations and to pump up fluids that have been built up from the patella. Vladimir needs a wheelchair or protheses, in addition to this a monthly medicine expense. He needs bandages, ointments and pills but without documents, none of this can be obtained for free.
When he began to live with us, he was a very rude and was disappointed in people, refused to receive help and lived with the idea of dying. But today, Christ is changing his heart, and he is already beginning to invoke the Name of the Lord in prayers.
Vladimir and all 19 people living here (9 of them are disabled and many have similar stories) are very grateful for your participating in the life of the “Bethesda”.
Dear Brothers and sisters in Christ! Greetings from Thailand! Thank you very much for your prayers and support! God is at work!
It was a usual Wednesday evening when we were having our Bible study. The last few weeks were very active, and many questions were asked, and it and the bible study took us longer than usual. This week we were learning what the Bible tells us about sin and the work of Jesus Christ. We had more people because some of our older girls visited us during their summer break from their University. We explained the Gospel, and now the question was: “Have you ever made the decision to follow Jesus? Would you like to make it today?” and one by one, all who were there, decided to pray and ask Jesus to come in their lives, some for assurance and some for the first time in their life. It was a usual Wednesday evening but for some, it was a turning point in following God. God is at work and His Word can change the hearts. We are also praying for them to take the next step in their faith and get baptized. It’s an important decision as they might face conflicts in their families.
When we visit elderly people in our village, they are very encouraged and surprised about our care. This is the best way to show God’s love and introduce them to the audio Bible in their own language. When we came by to one lady and offered her a small speaker with easy access to the Bible story, she refused to take it. First, as she said her family members don’t like when she is listening to Mien, also she was afraid that someone will steal it. So, we found a solution for her and invited her to come to church at any time and listen there since she is our neighbor. She liked this idea. Two days later, this lady came and asked if she can listen to the story, we offered her last time. After she listened to it she came to one of our girls and started to retell the story she just heard. It’s so nice to see how God is talking to everyone in different ways, so they would understand it. Another lady is listening to Jesus story every day from the day she got it and really like it.
There is one more prayer that God answered. Ching is a young girl who is growing in her faith and is now playing the piano for our worship time. She wanted to grow and learn more in this area. She was so thankful when we found an app for her to learn the piano, but after a while, it was hard for her to understand because of all the explanations in English. We prayed for God to send us someone who can teach piano, God answered, as He does it every time we ask! Eveline came for two months to teach piano and Choir to our children! We are very Thankful for God’s care!
Please continue to pray for Cheetah and for God’s plan in his life. The most important part is for his family is to be saved. Cheetah is the a 6-year-old-boy, who is sick with an incurable disease, the one we asked you to pray about before. At this point he has a feeding tube in his stomach, his immune system is not strong, and he is getting sick very easy. Please pray for the family as they are going through this hardship and also for their salvation.
Please pray for:
1. Our teens to grow in their faith and make a decision to be baptized.
2. Our protection from snakes and other dangerous animals.
3. The ministry with the elderly as they are listening to Jesus story, and their hearts would be open to understand and accept the salvation.
Thank you for every prayer and your support, because together, as Church in Christ we can do so much more!Many blessings to you and your families
Right now, three children are fighting for their lives. Doctors, parents – everyone asks one question – how can they help? What can they do? Two children from Abkhazia – Samwuel and Dato, and one girl from Krasnodar named Sasha. We cannot feel the pain they go through and for a long time, we have been going along with them and with their parents helping and supporting them. We bought the necessary medicines for Sasha. She and her mother came to Moscow. They are very grateful that we helped them pay tor the plane tickets.
Dato’s mother was forced to go to Turkey to buy imported medicine, as the domestic ones are ineffective. And here is what she wrote us: “I am very embarrassed, even ashamed in front of you … you have helped us so much.”
Samvel is a nine-year-old boy who steadily endures all the hardships associated with his illness. Doctors refuse to treat him. He has been assigned to only palliative care and that means the boy is dying. We believe in the miracle of God and will do everything so that he lives. Since he is in Abkhazia, it is very difficult to deliver medicines to him; they are not allowed to cross the border. He is already completely blind, does not get up and eats badly since he has lost all appetite.
Thank you for participating in the lives of these three little heroes, if you can help with prayers or financially, we would be very grateful.
