A Handful of Rice’ Ministry

In the church at Nanongthum Chaiyaphum province, where Rina and Puii ministered they have the ‘Handful of Rice’ ministry. The idea is that every time, rice is cooked in the family, a handful will be scooped out and put aside as the portion for Jesus. It is a ministry in which every household can be a part of. The rice collected during the week is then brought to the church, where it is sold at a much cheaper rate than at the market, to church members, who need help. The money is then used for outreach by the church. In the village, rice is a crop that is harvested by almost every household. So, it is not necessary to remind them of this ministry too often. Depending on the season, sometimes we have church members donating whole bags of rice. 

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Being Church, While Doing the Dishes (2)

7/2/2018

Sijmen and Annelies den Hartog 

So Being a church can be done during the dishes.

Last week, being church became visible in a different way. In the village of Baan Waai Luum, not 2 or 3 believers came together this week. For a day and a half we were supported and encouraged by Thai students and staff from the city, helped by American staff members of Campus Outreach. With 50 men this group could not remain unseen.

Although the local believers are familiar with the villagers, this group conducted English classes at the local primary school and continued to build bridges at school after school time to share the gospel. Connected in Christ, American, Dutch and Thai believers mixed up to hand out leaflets and to invite an evangelistic meeting in the evening.

The next day ended with prayer for the 1000 people in this village and the other 80,000 people in the district who do not know the Lord Jesus yet.

Being church physically connected for a day and a half and then again connected by God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the creator of the (world) church!

Being Church, While Doing the Dishes (1)

6/26/2018

Sijmen and Annelies den Hartog 

‘If someone is unkind to me. I better keep my mouth shut, right? “For the second time in 2 weeks, I hear this remark. This time while doing the dishes, after the church’ lunch on Sunday.

On my knees, I clean the dishes with a sponge, while the Thai believer washes the rinses the plates with clean water and places them in the drying basket.

This conversation reminds me again that a lot of rubbish can come to people online. But not only online. An elderly church member has joined us and starts to pull the grass from the garden behind the church. “Yes, try to bless the people around you and wish the best of God,” she says as encouragement. “I try again and again. The Lord Jesus encourages us from the Bible. It helps my own heart not to get angry and it usually does not make a situation worse.”

The young Thai believer confirms that it is not always easy, but that she slowly learns that she has the choice not to let situations escalate by reacting in anger.

A God-given conversation, so encouraging for each other! After the dishes everyone goes home again, to the village where he or she is the only Christian. Or they are online on social media where their group of friends for the most part consists of non-believers. But fortunately everyone is connected to the fellowship of Christians through God. We pray that God’s Spirit surrounds us all, wherever we are.

We meet again next week to worship God together, to encourage one another, thank and pray for our daily life as a Christian.

Grief in the Neighbor’s House

7/4/2016

Mark and Anne-Marie Bak

It’s the middle of the night, we are awoken suddenly because of the sound of fireworks. A desperate cry chases the silence of the night away. The corps of the neighbours son has arrived home. It’s just another tragic story we hear about a young person – only 36 years old – he has died in a traffic accident. Earlier that day, we saw many of our neighbours working together to clean the floor. When we asked as to the reason for this, they told us that they were preparing for the funeral ceremonies.

The ceremonies take 3 days, because the neighbours are poor people. That’s why there are only 3 monks coming to chant every day. The less money you have, the shorter and more simple your funeral is. These days are full of loud music and monks saying their prayers loudly into a microphone. It makes us feel  uncomfortable sometimes. Even when we are inside of our house, we cannot talk with one another because of all the noise! Yesterday, we turned on worship songs in order not to hear them. Meanwhile, we saw dozens of people kneeling solemnly before the monks. In the eyes of the neighbours we see total despair. The younger brother of the victim is drunk and keeps on screaming: “He will be born again, he will come back!”

Another family member, also drunk, has a conversation with Mark. He can share The gospel with him, but as soon as Mark starts to tell about the redeeming work of Christ, he doesn’t want to listen any more.

It makes us aware again of the fact that we live among people who haven’t been saved yet. Creatures who don’t know their Creator. It makes us sad and sometimes dispirited. After more than 3 years we still see many of our neighbours are worshipping their idols. Nevertheless, we keep on trusting that The Word they have heard, will not return without bearing fruit.

The Story of Auntie N and the Rice Harvest

5/4/2015

Jared and Stacy Haechton 

We have seen that Thai Christians are really aware of God’s provision and protection in stories from their lives.  As they share these personal testimonies with one another, the local Christians are built up and encouraged.  The following story had this effect on the Christians in Kham Muang District.  

This past rice season, Auntie N and her husband had a number of rice fields to gather harvest.  They did not get the help that they were hoping for, so they ended up harvesting it mostly themselves.   This meant that Auntie N, who is a Christian, was mostly not able to attend many worship gatherings during that time.  She expressed that she did not like having to miss worship gatherings in order to harvest rice.  One of the final days of their harvesting, they were loading a truck with bundles of harvested rice stalks.  The truck was loaded high with these bundles of rice, and although Auntie N usually doesn’t ride on top of the bundles, on this particular day she and her 3 year old granddaughter were riding on top of the rice bundles as her husband drove the truck from the rice field.  

While they were riding together on top of the rice truck, her granddaughter began to sing a Christian song about how Jesus has victory over Satan.  As the truck was leaving the field, it was very rough to the point of the truck overturning.  The bundles of rice spilled out and although Auntie N and her granddaughter were riding on top and could have been badly injured, God protected them from any harm.  Auntie N said that they amazingly slid gently down the spilling rice bundles and onto the ground.  

This story was a great encouragement to Auntie N and her granddaughter!  It was also an opportunity when Auntie N’s husband was more accepting of Auntie N being a Christian, as he heard his granddaughter singing the Christian song and saw how God protected them from injury.  Praise God for these stories of protection and provision!  Please pray for Auntie N and her granddaughter as they walk with Jesus day by day in victory over Satan.  Please pray that non-Christian relatives will be open to the gospel as Christians are able to share stories of God’s provision and protection.

Evangelism through Family Lines

4/28/2015

Reinout and Arenda van Heiningen 

”Who will most likely become a Christian?’ That was a question that got answered in research by Marten Visser several years ago. The research showed that family members of believers would convert a lot easier then people who just heard the gospel and didn’t know any Christian.

During our recent years as church planters we’ve seen this over and over again.

When the church first started in Yang Sisurat we had ten members. In the first one and half year seven more people were baptized. Out of the seven people, six were family members of church members. A niece, a wife, a sister etc. Only one person didn’t have Christian relatives, but he worked in South-Korea and got to know the Lord there through believers he worked closely with in a factory. This man is an example of another point. People that are taken out of their context will believe quicker then people who stay in their village where there’s a lot of social pressure.

The Serpent or the Fruit?

1/15/2015

Jared and Stacy Haechton 

I was recently discussing the temptation and sin of man in the Garden of Eden with a small group of Isaan people.  I talked about how the serpent, which in the Thai Bible is the same word as snake, tempted the woman to eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  They listened to what I had to say, and we talked about how the first man and woman chose to listen to the serpent and disobeyed God.

Then at the end of our conversation, one of the Isaan people said that they understood the teaching, but did not know why fruit was so tempting to the woman.  She said that in Isaan, fruit is easy to find, but how snakes are hard to find, and Isaan love to eat them.  She went on to say that if it had been an Isaan person in the Garden of Eden, the snake would not have had a chance to tempt the woman with the fruit, because as soon as she would have seen the snake, she would have grabbed it to eat!  May we have this same characteristic in our lives and not allow the serpent to tempt us!

God Continues His Work!

9/24/2014

David and Grea van der Lee 

Two weeks ago we celebrated the third baptism in the history of the church of Nong Rua.

It is very encouraging to see how God builds His church in this place. After a few difficult years we are encouraged by the growth we see both in numbers, but also in the lives of the church members.

The three people that were baptized came to know Christ in the first place because  a family member of them is a believer. Believers in the church are not shy to tell others about Jesus and their witness is fruitful. Very often they bring their friends, family, or just someone they’ve met to church. This is very encouraging, as real growth can only occur when the church members take up the task of proclaiming the gospel alongside the pastor or missionary.

Another thing we are very thankful for, is the fact that two of the three baptized are youth. Gad and Gik became more open to the gospel after their mother and younger sister (9 years old!) were baptized. It is hard to reach out to young people, but we believe they can give such a positive contribution to the church. A strong church consists of people from all ages, both male and female. We want entire families to come to know the Lord. That’s when the power of the gospel can have the greatest impact.

A Genuine Peace

9/1/2014

Jason and Jenn Beyers 

In May of this year, we had a Christian baptism in our district.  As far as we know it is the first baptism to ever be conducted within the district.  The man, who was baptized, shared about his life prior to knowing Jesus Christ.  He grew up in a poor home and had a great fear of evil spirits.  He lived according to the instruction of his parents and at age 20 entered the Buddhist monkhood for 1 month.  It was a time of searching and although he considered Buddha to be a good teacher, he found no peace in his life.

The man’s wife became a Christian while living in Bangkok and after a time; he also began to call himself a Christian.  He began to listen to his wife read the Bible to him and they began to pray together.  He said that he believed the stories that his wife read about Jesus and he saw how God began to answer his basic prayers.  He began to pray for joy and peace in his life and he found that his prayers were answered.  He worked as an engineer at a factory and would also pray for solutions to mechanical problems at work, and would find that he was the only one who would be able to fix the problems.

For many years he and his wife were the only Christians to live in the district, and he greatly wanted to have other Christians to meet with and fellowship with.  He said that he prayed about this often.

Today, there is a small but faithful and growing fellowship of Christians meeting in the district.  This man is faithful to assist in any way possible and after coming along for a day of evangelism, said that if he is ever not working when we are doing evangelism, he wants to come along.  He is also excited for his parents to learn of the gospel and to believe in Jesus Christ.  He exhibits a simple faith and it is exciting to see how his prayers are answered and how he takes steps of faith according to God’s leading.  Please continue to pray for this man and for ministry in the Province of Kalasin!

Happy Birthday

8/9/2014

Rina and Pui Renthlei 

‘Three children?!!? Why did you have so many?’ a Thai school teacher once said that to me with a disgusted look in her eyes. Sometimes my husband and I feel that the Thais, for whatever reasons, are afraid of having more than one child. I haven’t yet met a new generation family, who has more than two children. The Thais, however, love babies. When our littlest one- Joanna- was born, we would take her to malls and other public places and if you’re in a hurry, it can get really bad because everyone wants to pinch her cheek or talk to her or ask you how old she was or her gender and etc.

This July 29th, Joanna turned 2, and since we had moved to a new neighbourhood not very long ago, we thought that it would be a good opportunity to invite neighbours for a drink and get to know them better. So we had this little party, where we invited a few neighbours and friends. During the party, my husband shared from Psalm 127 verse 3, where it says that children are OUR heritage and reward from the Lord.

He shared about how grateful we were that God gave us three daughters.

The next evening, during our prayer meeting, one of our Thai friends mentioned about the previous day’s sharing and said that Thais did not want to celebrate birthdays in the past because it was a day when mothers felt very great pain bringing a child into the world, and to celebrate that did not seem right to them. But in the light of the Bible passage that was read, our Thai friend said he now felt that it was really very appropriate to celebrate birthdays. Hearing him say this made me feel very happy inside. I’ve heard people say that children don’t get a lot of attention and toleration in social gatherings, especially in villages. In our own fellowships too, children were served food only after all the adults were served. After a while, I made sure that they were served first, so that even when the food was not enough, the children at least would have been served.

I think “Jesus loves the little children” is a wonderful message we can pass on to the Thais. Babies are loved around the world but once they have crossed the ‘toddler’ stage, children are often neglected in many cultures, the Thai culture being one (although the degree may vary from region to region or family to family). Our positions as missionaries give us a good opportunity to show them that we love their children as much as we love them, and that God loves the souls of their children as much as He loves theirs. The next time someone says to me ‘Three children? Why?’ I’d probably say- ‘Because God chose to give them to us because he loves us so much.