HIM FAMILY NEWS
HIM Thailand Northern Camp
We held our H.I.M. Thailand Northern Camp on 15th – 17th October 2010, in Chiang Rai Province. More than 700 people from six churches in northern Thailand joined us: HIM Chiang Mai ,HIM Phoophing , HIM Lumpang, Nana chart Mae Hong Son, Saanrak Chiang Rai and Chiangsan Church.
Our H.I.M.Thailand leaders, Ps.Chuhcart, Ps.Aomsilp, Ps.Chaipreung; and from Hope Manila, Ps.Sorradej, were the speakers. They encouraged our brothers and sisters in Christ by their teachings about the topic of wisdom. We thank God for the great time we had together at this camp. Our love and commitment in Jesus Christ is stronger than any situations in life. With the words of wisdom, we intend to apply godly principles into our life.
New Daughter Church in the city of Chiang Mai, Thailand
HIM Chiang Mai opened a new daughter church “HIM Mae Jo” on Sunday, 24th October, 2010. We thank God for this new church. It was set up for the locals and students who live in nearby Mae Jo University. We hope God will help us fulfill our vision to building biblical churches in Thailand.
Hope Nairobi, Kenya 
We had the privilege to host our brothers and sisters from Hope Singapore in July 2010. They inspired us to balance shepherding with our work/study life so we can make disciples. Thank you, Hope Singapore!
Of course, we had fun too. Soccer is more than a sport; it is a passion that transcends national and cultural boundaries! After a keen contest, it was a 2-0 victory for The Fishes against The Bananas. Let us meet again next year at Uhuru Park! May the best team win!
Thanks to Michael, CN and Lean Choo’s example of servanthood, whether in person or email, we saw ourselves maturing and shepherding our young people regularly. It is a practice which is strange and peculiar in Kenyan society. We are now starting to see our young people sincerely hunger for the Word of God. The proverb “iron sharpens iron” is a reality, not just mere words. We were constantly pushed beyond our comfort zones to serve others. Leading praise and worship used to be our weakness. However, although it is still scary (and some of us sing off-pitch), we can lead free worship!
We always ask ourselves whether we can be relied upon by others to serve. Faithful servants never retire. They serve faithfully as long as they are alive. We can retire from our careers, but we will never retire from serving God. For the last few months, we have been praying for more of our new young people to mature to be shepherds. To our surprise, God and their shepherds have grown them so well. Now we know we can grow in numbers because of the increase in available shepherds.
On 31st July, 2010, together with Hope Singapore, we visited Cheryl’s Children’s Home. The aim of our visit was to provide some of the material needs of the 232 Kenyan children who call this place home. Joyce spent countless hours scouting for the perfect stationary gifts for the children. Our Kenyan brothers and sisters managed to raise 22,000ksh which went into oil, ugali, sugar, washing powder and foodstuffs for the children.
During the visit, everyone had a lot of fun with a variety of games being played. It was a joy seeing children and adults running around and laughing together despite the dirt and the cold. The climax of the event was marked with a birthday celebration for all the children. We eventually heard testimonies from two of the children on how God is blessing them through the home. We know that the little we did is not enough, but we know we cannot stop doing the little we can. One day, we will see Jesus multiply our efforts like he did with five fish and two loaves.
Hope Prague - Life Transformation Story
[A photo of Marek Bazant in Prague, Czech Republic]
One afternoon in 2007, I decided to play football. I knew there was a game played at a playground that day. I did not expect much from the game; just that it would kill some time and keep me occupied.
After playing for an hour, I was already tired. At that point, I saw some guy come up to me. I did not know him and I had no plans to start. He looked 20 and his appearance suggested a hip-hop fan or a skateboard nerd – maybe both. Either way, I thought they were mostly vain people. I was 14 at the time and this guy came up to me and started asking some questions. I do not remember my answers but we started talking. He introduced himself as Martin. Martin told me about his break-dancing brother and invited me to train with them. The only problem was I did not have a phone. So I had to remember his number before I went home.
After I called him, I went to the first training session. There was one dude called Timmy and later, other b-boys, and they had a discussion night hosted with a spiritual theme. It was here I heard about God and Jesus Christ. I saw these people living a life different from others – there was something more. It was there I tried to pray for the first time and I believed that God existed and accepted Jesus into my life.
I got to know other Christians and later went to Hope Church Prague. The church became my Christian family. I believe my meeting was God working in my life and proof that He lives. He is real. Even though it is not always easy for me, I am very grateful. Written by Marek Bazant
Hope Kuala Lumpur Bible Conference
In fact, to call them “sessions of teachings” would not be an accurate statement, when more than half of the time we were on our feet shouting, singing, and prophesying. From the very first session, we could already sense that this conference would be very different. In a typical conference, we would expect to receive information, teaching and anointing from the speakers. But for most parts, Dr. Ron Sawka empowered the congregation: we were empowered to do what the Bible says we can do, which we never thought that we were capable of doing.
We were challenged to intimidate the devils and ruin the plan of Satan by our shout of praises to God, literally like a war cry which threatened to bring the house down. We were taught how to prophesy: sometimes restricted to a few words, sometimes in the form of “wheel of prophecy” where a few people would take turn to prophesy for a person, forming a continuous prophetic flow. In one of the sessions, we were singing the book of Psalms using whatever tunes that came to our minds. In another session, we were forming a human train that ran around the conference room, like a mighty army of God running into the battlefield.
For some of us, all of this might have been a very bizarre experience. But to many others, it was indeed an incredible faith adventure into the spiritual realm, where we were challenged to discern the voice of God, as well as to fight against the devils with spiritual weapons of praises and declaration. Dr. Ron Sawka sha
red that the ultimate goal of a movement is to restore the long-forgotten truth of God into the church. Indeed, this conference has truly awakened many to the biblical truth that “we all can prophesy”.It is truly only a matter of time before we will experience a heightening spiritual atmosphere in our church, and with the warrior anointing, we will witness the tumbling of the devil’s stronghold in our community, and a spiritual breakthrough in our nation.
Like a rocket, the activation button has been pushed. There is no turning back.
Hope Taipei, Taiwan
It is a great blessing to have HIM President, Pastor Simon, visit and encourage our Hope Taipei brothers and sisters. Due to the love for God’s people, Pastor Simon made an extra effort to stop over at Taipei after teaching at the recent Hope Japan camp.
Pastor Simon first shared with the leadership team on the topic of Excellent Teamwork. He encouraged and challenged the leadership team to commit to excellence in quality, appreciation and relationship. Everyone was very much inspired by his sharing. We then had a great time in prayer.
The brothers and sisters were so eager to see Pastor Simon again that most of our church members came to the teaching session on Friday night. Pastor Simon taught from Philippians 1 and 2. He inspired the whole church to progress in the faith. Pastor Simon used every opportunity to share with the brothers and sisters till very late at night during his visit in Taipei.
Even though he had to leave Taipei early next morning, he still spent some time with several brothers, who are medical doctors, by sharing his life experience and faith in the Lord.
Hope Christian Church Melbourne: Twentieth Anniversary
Each year, as we come together to celebrate the church’s anniversary, we give thanks to God for the blessings He has poured on the church. This year was extremely special for Hope Melbourne as not only were we celebrating 20 years of God’s blessings upon us, we were also privileged to have many of the pioneers of Hope Melbourne with us to celebrate this special day as our anniversary service was held directly after the Melbourne Global Conference.Our venue was the Monash University Clayton campus. This was the first testament of God’s goodness to us as we had finally been able to establish CCM on the Clayton campus after trying for nearly 20 years. More than 400 members came together from the 4 Melbourne centres as well as a number of international delegates from the Global Conference on this day to glorify God and to give thanks for His blessings upon our 4 centres.
We had the opportunity to acknowledge members who had been with the church for more than 10 years and to even meet various pioneers of the church 20 years ago, some of whom have pioneered other churches themselves, such as Pastor Wilson and Lai Ling and Pastor Brendan. We had the privilege to have Pastor Denis’ wife, Hai Eng, share her testimony about how she came to be involved with HIM as a student in Melbourne, and going back to help with Hope Kuching, that Pastor Denis leads today. We were also blessed with photographs from various leaders from the early days of Hope Melbourne, especially with the wedding pictures of Paul and Poh Eng Cattermole, who were the first couple to be married in the church.
Ps Ian shared about the future direction of Hope Melbourne. Then Pastor Simon Eng gave a presidential address on the Parable of the Sower, challenging all of us to have hearts like that of the good soil; and if any of us were in either rock, shallow or thorny ground, the call was to migrate to good soil. Pastor Denis then blessed us with the sermon that day. Based on Philippians 3:13-14, he encouraged us to get to move on with God’s vision and to commit to building His church. All in all, it was a truly memorable and enjoyable day and we look forward to many more years ahead with God leading the church.
Written by: Ian & Ivy Song
