HIM FAMILY NEWS
South American Leadership Training Conference (SALT) - Lima, Peru
We learnt about Bible interpretations and inspiration, and spent some time putting into practice together the exposition skills we had learnt. We saw that expounding the Word and staying close to the truth is definitely a challenging task; one that requires much hard work, discipline and research. However, as pastors and preachers (or future ones) there is also much joy and satisfaction in gaining insights into the truth, as well as great value in allowing the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to speak and bear fruit for itself.
We also spent some time in our teams, planning for the year ahead with Julian and Serene's guidance. We gave updates of how our churches were doing and then put our heads together, planned and bounced off ideas from each other’s teams. Each team came up with their theme and strategies for the year and the Hope Ecuador team returned home, refreshed and recharged to embark on a year of Making Disciple Makers. :) We thank God for the encouraged by the fellowship and service of our fellow brothers and sisters in South America and thank the Hope Peru team for hosting and organizing this year's SALT!
The South American Leadership Training Conference was held in Lima, Peru in January 2012. It was a great time of fellowship (and food!) and a refreshing time of learning and hearing from God. The theme of the conference was “An Expository Preaching Church”. We were truly enriched by the depth of teaching by our teacher, Julian. We were also encouraged by the Holy Spirit and the fellowship of believers – our fellow brothers and sisters from the South American teams who were so eager to learn from the Word.
We learnt about Bible interpretations and inspiration, and spent some time putting into practice together the exposition skills we had learnt. We saw that expounding the Word and staying close to the truth is definitely a challenging task; one that requires much hard work, discipline and research. However, as pastors and preachers (or future ones) there is also much joy and satisfaction in gaining insights into the truth, as well as great value in allowing the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to speak and bear fruit for itself.
We also spent some time in our teams, planning for the year ahead with Julian and Serene's guidance. We gave updates of how our churches were doing and then put our heads together, planned and bounced off ideas from each other’s teams. Each team came up with their theme and strategies for the year and the Hope Ecuador team returned home, refreshed and recharged to embark on a year of Making Disciple Makers. :) We thank God for the encouraged by the fellowship and service of our fellow brothers and sisters in South America and thank the Hope Peru team for hosting and organizing this year's SALT!
Written by Ho Shen Teng, Hope Quito
Fiji Missions Trip, Hope Auckland
A team of five people, Angela Soh, Kathy Wu, Kwadwo Ofori, Li Hsien Yoong and Alex Goh went to Fiji. We had meetings at Lautoka, a one-night rally, a youth rally, a Sunday Service and also informal prayer meetings and ministry and worship training.
We also had night meetings at three villages in the Raki Raki area and visited the Raki Raki Hospital where we had permission to walk through the wards to pray for the sick and pray for all the nurses (about 20) on duty at that time. We had the privilege to visit and pray for two High Chiefs, one over 9 villages, the other over 18 villages.
At all the places/meetings, there were instant healings, including healing from pain from different parts of the body, return of mobility to a stroke patient, a breast lump disappearing, clear vision to people with blurred vision, woman with two poorly set broken legs who could walk again; many healings. There was salvation, re-dedication of lives to God, almost instant Holy Spirit baptisms evidenced through speaking of tongues and deliverances.
Team members also spoke several prophetic words and words of knowledge that brought conviction and hope to many people. One highlight was when the team was praying for a young man whose house was out in the bush; it did not even have a house number. We had prayed for his mother, the Sister of the hospital we visited the day before. She gave details of her son’s condition to Ps Mark but not to us. Upon finding his house, we received permission to pray for him and we received many words of knowledge revealing his present condition, including wrongful relationships, drug and alcohol abuse and occultic practices.
Pastor Mark had told the young man that we did not know anything about him. The fear of God came upon this young man and he repented and re-dedicated his life to God. It was wonderful to reunite mother and son the next day when we persuaded him to move in to live with his mother whom he had not seen for a while.
Gong Xi Fa Cai! A blessed and prosperous New Year to all of you brothers and sisters in Christ! Our Chinese church always placed much emphasis on CNY, as this is the most awaited for celebration for most Chinese, whether you are a believer or a non-believer. Every year, we conduct our normal service, with CNY decorations lighting up the atmosphere and singing CNY songs to set the mood. Of course, the church is packed with more people than usual, with many flying back from different places around the world to be reunited with their family during this meaningful occasion.
However, we decided that this year, we would do something out of the ordinary. Apart from having the usual service and “usual visitors”, we also invited a handful of Chinese families adopted by the Breakthrough organization. We invited 14 families, with 10 families in attendance. Praise the Lord for the great turnout. If you have not heard of Breakthrough, they adopt different needy families around the city of Kuching and help them in different ways possible, including financial support, providing tuition to young children, and even helping some to apply for identification cards. Since all of them are needy, we decided to reach out to them to share with them the love and provision of God in our lives by inviting them to join in our CNY celebration together. It was definitely awesome to see the love of God extended to even more people in the community. After all, God’s love is for everyone.
We started the service later than usual this year, as we needed to fetch the Breakthrough families to church. They came from all over the city of Kuching, from as near as Batu Kawa to as far as Semariang and 17th miles. During the whole service, we had a few quizzes and many ang pows were won by different people, young and old. We also had a few games that required the participation of the whole congregation. People were involved in sporting activities, singing a whole verse of CNY songs and some even had to swallow bread with wasabi. When coming to answering questions, everyone was always excited as it meant a chance to receive an ang pow!
As mentioned earlier, we invited everyone for a reunion in the house of God; and for the Chinese, reunion always means food! We had everyone move down to the BM Hall (many thanks to the BM congregation who kindly let us use their hall) and everyone really enjoyed the meal. Apart from the main courses, a lot of brothers and sisters also kindly sponsored their CNY goodies to add to the variety! The most exciting moment for everyone came during the blessed draw. There were four prizes to be won and Ps Denis who drew for the grand prize (a hamper) managed to bless an uncle from the Breakthrough family. It was indeed a great CNY celebration to be able to bless others in need. As we all know, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Let us in this year of the Holy Spirit continue to stretch our hands and enlarge our hearts to help those who are really in need. The only way to do that is to be able to discern from the Holy Spirit and to live out the Word of God. May our good Lord bless you all abundantly and prosper you in all ways. God bless.
HIM Chiang Mia Business Fellowship
Thank God for the "HIM Business Fellowship" event that we held on Tuesday night. This was our first fellowship event for the year. Thank God for everything going well today! We had a buffet dinner with a professional violinist providing background music. Brothers and sisters came and shared their vision for their businesses.
We had around 60 people attend this special gathering, including some members from HIM Lampang church. We invited three business people in our church: Paula Vigilante, Wirat Phoejaroen and Arunsir Ninjaroon, to share about how God had blessed their businesses. We had Peter Truong as a guest speaker on the topic of "How to be Successful in Business".
Many of us were blessed and prayed for God’s leading and help. We believe that in the next quarter, we will be more blessed and successful. If possible, we are looking to hold this event every six months. We will invite successful business people as speakers. We want to see our people be successful and the blessings flowing from Chiang Mai to all of Thailand to encourage all Christian business people as well. Praise the Lord!
A team of five people, Angela Soh, Kathy Wu, Kwadwo Ofori, Li Hsien Yoong and Alex Goh went to Fiji. We had meetings at Lautoka, a one-night rally, a youth rally, a Sunday Service and also informal prayer meetings and ministry and worship training.
We also had night meetings at three villages in the Raki Raki area and visited the Raki Raki Hospital where we had permission to walk through the wards to pray for the sick and pray for all the nurses (about 20) on duty at that time. We had the privilege to visit and pray for two High Chiefs, one over 9 villages, the other over 18 villages.
At all the places/meetings, there were instant healings, including healing from pain from different parts of the body, return of mobility to a stroke patient, a breast lump disappearing, clear vision to people with blurred vision, woman with two poorly set broken legs who could walk again; many healings. There was salvation, re-dedication of lives to God, almost instant Holy Spirit baptisms evidenced through speaking of tongues and deliverances.
Team members also spoke several prophetic words and words of knowledge that brought conviction and hope to many people. One highlight was when the team was praying for a young man whose house was out in the bush; it did not even have a house number. We had prayed for his mother, the Sister of the hospital we visited the day before. She gave details of her son’s condition to Ps Mark but not to us. Upon finding his house, we received permission to pray for him and we received many words of knowledge revealing his present condition, including wrongful relationships, drug and alcohol abuse and occultic practices.
Pastor Mark had told the young man that we did not know anything about him. The fear of God came upon this young man and he repented and re-dedicated his life to God. It was wonderful to reunite mother and son the next day when we persuaded him to move in to live with his mother whom he had not seen for a while.
Hope Kuching Chinese New Year
Gong Xi Fa Cai! A blessed and prosperous New Year to all of you brothers and sisters in Christ! Our Chinese church always placed much emphasis on CNY, as this is the most awaited for celebration for most Chinese, whether you are a believer or a non-believer. Every year, we conduct our normal service, with CNY decorations lighting up the atmosphere and singing CNY songs to set the mood. Of course, the church is packed with more people than usual, with many flying back from different places around the world to be reunited with their family during this meaningful occasion.
However, we decided that this year, we would do something out of the ordinary. Apart from having the usual service and “usual visitors”, we also invited a handful of Chinese families adopted by the Breakthrough organization. We invited 14 families, with 10 families in attendance. Praise the Lord for the great turnout. If you have not heard of Breakthrough, they adopt different needy families around the city of Kuching and help them in different ways possible, including financial support, providing tuition to young children, and even helping some to apply for identification cards. Since all of them are needy, we decided to reach out to them to share with them the love and provision of God in our lives by inviting them to join in our CNY celebration together. It was definitely awesome to see the love of God extended to even more people in the community. After all, God’s love is for everyone.
We started the service later than usual this year, as we needed to fetch the Breakthrough families to church. They came from all over the city of Kuching, from as near as Batu Kawa to as far as Semariang and 17th miles. During the whole service, we had a few quizzes and many ang pows were won by different people, young and old. We also had a few games that required the participation of the whole congregation. People were involved in sporting activities, singing a whole verse of CNY songs and some even had to swallow bread with wasabi. When coming to answering questions, everyone was always excited as it meant a chance to receive an ang pow!
After all the blessing portion of giving ang pows away, we then had a short and sweet session of praise and worship where God’s name was glorified. It reflected the theme for the day: “把乐带回家” (bringing joy back home). We were focusing on homecoming for the day. Although CNY was a time of reunion with our natural family, we thought that it was important to remind everyone that it is vital to come back to the family of God as well. For believers who may have backslided, we prayed that they would be touched by the love of God once again; and for the non-believers, we prayed that they will experience God’s love and will desire to come back every week. We watched a short video clip, which moved some to tears. Although I have watched it many times, it still touched me so much. During the preaching, we had a brother who left God and came back to God last year to share a testimony. It was a truly honest sharing and everyone felt his sincerity.
As mentioned earlier, we invited everyone for a reunion in the house of God; and for the Chinese, reunion always means food! We had everyone move down to the BM Hall (many thanks to the BM congregation who kindly let us use their hall) and everyone really enjoyed the meal. Apart from the main courses, a lot of brothers and sisters also kindly sponsored their CNY goodies to add to the variety! The most exciting moment for everyone came during the blessed draw. There were four prizes to be won and Ps Denis who drew for the grand prize (a hamper) managed to bless an uncle from the Breakthrough family. It was indeed a great CNY celebration to be able to bless others in need. As we all know, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Let us in this year of the Holy Spirit continue to stretch our hands and enlarge our hearts to help those who are really in need. The only way to do that is to be able to discern from the Holy Spirit and to live out the Word of God. May our good Lord bless you all abundantly and prosper you in all ways. God bless.
