At Calvary we have a saying that "every person has a story and every person and story matters to God." What a beautiful day of hearing and learning about local ministries, people and worshipping our Living God who transcends language and cultural barriers!
In the morning we rode tuk tuks and visited Don and Tabitha Nguyen at the Vietnamese church as they taught the children in Sunday school. It was beautiful to be able to sing songs like "Our God is an awesome God" and "Deep and Wide " in both English and Vietnamese and strikingly beatiful to so sharply be reminded of how our God is the same God regardless of language or people group and loves each so very dearly. Going over John 3:16 it was precious to see the Gospel presented so beautifully and simply and the model that was demonstrated as the children confessed their sins and prayed over one another for forgiveness and talked about what repentance is, who the Holy Spirit, Father and Jesus are and what they've done and do. Please pray for the Nguyen's ministry and the precious work they are doing.
Afterwards we went to have a delicious lunch at Pastor Pisal and Siphorn's and got to hear a bit about their heart and passion for a vision for a future student discipleship center, how God provided the land and how they are now praying for funds for the center. We got to hear the story of how their house helper came to meet Jesus as Sophorn and Jody discipled her and the story of Joshua's adoption which was super rocky with his health problems (survived an abortion and wasn't supposed to survive as his mother died birthing him and has continued health problems) but how his whole life is such a testimony of God's goodness and faithfulness and even how the prayers of his grandmother carried forward towards him. We also got to hear precious testimonies of the work that Brian and Jody have done and are doing in the lives of Pisal and Sophorn. Please pray for the continued work of Brian, Jody, Pastor Pisal and Sophorn.
In the afternoon we went to Pastor Pisal's church held at the preschool they run and got to hear and share testimonies of what God is doing in our own lives.
We received word that the conference yesterday was 85 total in attendance and this upcoming week's conference has increased to 60! This puts our total count at 145 and to think it was thought that the two conferences would be lucky to see 40 total. Praise God for the work He's doing and please continue to pray for us that we would stay healthy in the coming days, have wisdom in adjusting the curriculum based on what we've learned from this past conference and also prep future plans for what a translatable model of this might look like in other countries. Please also continue to pray for these women coming and for the prep work for this upcoming conference. Please pray for Lisa as she's not feeling well. Thank you church family for following along with us!
In the morning we rode tuk tuks and visited Don and Tabitha Nguyen at the Vietnamese church as they taught the children in Sunday school. It was beautiful to be able to sing songs like "Our God is an awesome God" and "Deep and Wide " in both English and Vietnamese and strikingly beatiful to so sharply be reminded of how our God is the same God regardless of language or people group and loves each so very dearly. Going over John 3:16 it was precious to see the Gospel presented so beautifully and simply and the model that was demonstrated as the children confessed their sins and prayed over one another for forgiveness and talked about what repentance is, who the Holy Spirit, Father and Jesus are and what they've done and do. Please pray for the Nguyen's ministry and the precious work they are doing.
Afterwards we went to have a delicious lunch at Pastor Pisal and Siphorn's and got to hear a bit about their heart and passion for a vision for a future student discipleship center, how God provided the land and how they are now praying for funds for the center. We got to hear the story of how their house helper came to meet Jesus as Sophorn and Jody discipled her and the story of Joshua's adoption which was super rocky with his health problems (survived an abortion and wasn't supposed to survive as his mother died birthing him and has continued health problems) but how his whole life is such a testimony of God's goodness and faithfulness and even how the prayers of his grandmother carried forward towards him. We also got to hear precious testimonies of the work that Brian and Jody have done and are doing in the lives of Pisal and Sophorn. Please pray for the continued work of Brian, Jody, Pastor Pisal and Sophorn.
In the afternoon we went to Pastor Pisal's church held at the preschool they run and got to hear and share testimonies of what God is doing in our own lives.
We received word that the conference yesterday was 85 total in attendance and this upcoming week's conference has increased to 60! This puts our total count at 145 and to think it was thought that the two conferences would be lucky to see 40 total. Praise God for the work He's doing and please continue to pray for us that we would stay healthy in the coming days, have wisdom in adjusting the curriculum based on what we've learned from this past conference and also prep future plans for what a translatable model of this might look like in other countries. Please also continue to pray for these women coming and for the prep work for this upcoming conference. Please pray for Lisa as she's not feeling well. Thank you church family for following along with us!