2016 Mission Projects

1)      Ministry at the Friendship Church

               

                We began serving at the Friendship Church since 2012. Initially, we served voluntarily as missionaries, assisting wherever there was a need. At this time there were approximately about thirty church members. Most of them were college and university students. The church was struggling to grow as there was not a consistent leadership. This new church could not afford to hire a permanent pastor. Also, because most of the members were students, there was a constant fluctuating in attendance making it difficult to retain permanent church members who could grow to become leaders within the church.

Members of the Friendship Church at our annual church retreat (October 2015)

By 2013, I fully took on the role of the fulltime volunteer pastor and began to lay foundations for the church. Our main focus for The Friendship Church was to build discipleship and leadership. We primarily worked with the young adults to enable them to serve in various areas of the church. We want to equip them to become the next future church leaders. We also focused on teaching them about the Gospel so that once they completed their education and move away from Chiang Mai, they could share the Gospel whenever they are.

The youth and young adults make up the majority of the church members. These were the young adults that attended the annual youth retreat (November 2015)

Another goal that we had in mind was to build up the members who are couples, families and the working class. We feel that since Chiang Mai has become their permanent home, they can become the permanent core members of the church even if the student members’ attendance fluctuates throughout the year. As of 2015, our church members have grown to over seventy people. We now have more families, couples and the working class attending our church on a regular basis. The church now has elders, men’s group, women’s group, the youth and young adults as well as children.

The fathers at the church praying over the young adults during an outdoor father's day service (December 2015)

The men and women's group singing a special song during the Christmas special service (December 2015)

Pastor Dan praying over the growing numbers of children at The Friendship Church (December 2015)

                Currently, there are some challenges that the church face. First and foremost, the limited space of the building. Because our numbers are growing we are struggling with providing adequate space for gathering and parking. In the future, we hope to find a new building that can accommodate the growth of the church. We are praying for God’s guidance in finding a new location as well as funding for the future church building.  

The church members lining up in the parking lot for a luncheon after church service (December 2015)

                Secondly, many of our church members are newcomers to Chiang Mai. They came from the countryside, and lack the education and experiences that would allow them to be successful in the big city. Most of the church members work for a daily wage; hence, their income is always low and they often struggle financially. In our hearts we wish to see our members become successful. We want to encourage them to pursue and establish their own businesses so that they can be self-sufficient and thus contribute to the needs of the church. We are praying that the Lord would enable us to build up businessmen within the church. We also pray that the Lord would provide a fund for us to help our church members to start their own businesses.

2)      The Friendship Church Dormitory Project (See proposal document for more details)

We were inspired to establish dormitories for our male and female student church members as we saw that many were struggling to make ends meet while independently trying to study and live in the big city. We want these young adults to be successful at their education, be relieved from their financial burden, as well as maximize their serving capacity at the church. Therefore, we want to provide them with male and female student dormitories, which will create safe gathering places for the students. It will also allow us opportunities to closely minister to the students while they are living in the city. Currently, we already have an established male dormitory with six students residing in the building. We are looking for funding and a potential building to create a female dormitory.

The members of the Covenant Church (Mississauga, ON) visited the male dormitory (2014)

3)      Remnant Ministry Headquarter and Leadership Training Centre/Life Skill Centre

   

Through many months of prayers and fasting, God blessed our ministry with a property located at the outskirt of Chiang Mai in early 2015. We envisioned this property to be: our living space, the ministry headquarter and office, lodging for guests and visitors, and a meeting place for leadership and discipleship training. In the future, we hope to expand the current building to create a larger meeting space and classrooms for training purposes.

House of Grace (December 2015)

The office building for the Remnant Ministry Headquarter (December 2015)

Since many of the pastors serving the rural Hmong villages do not have adequate income to support their ministry and family, we want to find a way to help them to become financially self-sufficient. Through Sarah’s passion for raising chicken, she hoped to develop this hobby into a small business plan that can help create small incomes for the pastors and their family. At our current property, Sarah envisioned a life skill centre where pastors and their family can come and learn about raising chicken and other livestock in order to make a small income for their family while serving the Lord.

Sarah feeding the "black" chicken that she has been raising at our new property (November 2015)

In the future, not only do we want to see our ministry grow, we would also like to enable our ministry and those we serve to become self-sufficient. We want to expand our ministry to not just sharing the Gospel, but also enabling the Hmong people to develop life skills.  In our hearts, we envisioned an agricultural community that can become a centre of learning and agricultural development. It would be a community where the Hmong people can live near the city, serve the church, build a career, and acquire life skills. The agriculture community would also be a mean to fund the ministry. We are praying for God’s will in allowing us to purchase an agricultural land for this purpose.    

We are praying over the rice field behind our property to see if the Lord could use it to develop into an agricultural centre for our ministry.

4)      Leadership and Discipleship Training

                Since 2012, we have held three leadership and discipleship trainings. The main focus of the training was to lay foundations of the Gospel Message for the leaders so that they can minister to their congregation adequately. The main resources that we used were The Gospel Letter and The Gospel for the Field. Those who attended the training were Hmong leaders from Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. We held a leadership training session in Hanoi, Vietnam during our visitation in 2013. There were church leaders from around twenty different churches that attended the leadership conference. In 2014, there were twelve leaders who attended the training which was held at our old rental home in Chiang Mai; three attendees were from Laos, two from Vietnam and seven from Thailand. We held another training session in 2015 at our current new property; three attendees were from Vietnam and one was from Laos.

Church leaders from over 20 churches in Vietnam attended the leadership training/conference at the Bible College in Hanoi, Vietnam (2013)

Leadership training in 2014. There were attendees from Laos, Vietnam and Thailand

Leadership training in 2015 at our new property in Chiang Mai

Since these leaders are mainly lay leaders who came voluntarily and had to find their own way to Thailand, we fully covered all their costs while they participated in the training. The training usually lasted approximately one week. During this time, we freely provided lodging, learning materials, and food for the attendees. We are hoping to raise more funds in the future so that we can continue to provide training as many more leaders expressed interests in attending future training. We estimated that it would cost approximately ฿100/person/day ($4 CAD) making a total of ฿700 ($28 CAD) per attendee for the training. For the third training, we would like to sponsor 10-12 people to attend the training.

As a part of training, we hope to be able to translate the contents of The Gospel Letter and The Gospel for the Field into the Hmong and Thai languages so that they can be used as references and resources for the leaders attending the training.

5)      Student Sponsorship

The majority of the Hmong students come from the rural countryside to pursue further education in the city. However, many of them come from poor families and lack adequate financial support for their education. In particular, there are many enthusiastic young Hmong men who desire to serve God in their rural communities and want to pursue Bible College. Many of these young men come from rural villages and the mountainsides of Northern Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. We would like to enable these young students to be successful at their studies so that they can go back to their home villages and continue to minister to their people. 

In 2013, we have received scholarships from the Covenant Church (Zechariah Christian Fund) in South Korea to sponsor two Phayao Bible College students. The two sponsored students, David Lor and Yer Xiong were young men who traveled from Laos to attend the Bible College. Unfortunately, Yer Xiong was unable to complete his studies and his scholarship was relegated to provide a monthly salary for a Phayao Bible College student, Chalee Lee, who has already graduated and is now completing his internship at The Friendship Church. We hope to hire him on to help out at The Friendship Church once he completes his internship. David Lor, who went back to Laos during his internship, was imprisoned for three months for his faith and was just recently released. He has missed his registration for the new school term. We have not been able to contact him at this time, but will continue to try to keep in touch.  We pray that he will be able to return to school to continue his studies.  

Chalee Lee

David Lor

In 2015, the Covenant Church in Mississauga provided scholarship for one of the university student members of our church, Sukulwat Sae Vang. He is currently studying third year in art education at Chiang Mai Rachaphat University and plans to become a public school art teacher once he graduated. He also hopes to continue his education so that one day he could become a university professor. Sukulwat had gone through many hardships since his father passed away and his mother was unable to support him financially. For the years that he has been at the church and the dormitory, we have seen much transformation in him. He serves the church using his skills in arts and design. Sukulwat mainly creates and designs banners and posters for all of our church events. We would like to continue to support him so that he can become successful and continue to serve at the church. For Sukulwat we estimated that his tuition and student expenses are approximately ฿25,000 per year (CAD$1000).

Sukulwat Sae Vang

Thongchai Sae Lao-Thao

There is also another student that we are interested in finding sponsorship for. His name is Thongchai Sae Lao-Thao. He is currently studying second year at Chiang Mai Technical College to become an electrician. In the future he also hopes to become an electrical engineer. We were inspired by Thongchai as he has only been saved for two years, but was able to bring his entire family to Christ! Currently, his family is attending The Friendship Church. Hence, we would like to find scholarship for him so that he can continue his education while we build him up to serve within the church. His tuition and student expenses are approximately ฿15,000 (CAD$600) per year. Thongchai regular serves the church by help maintaining the church building. He is a brilliant young man and we are praying for God’s guidance for his future. In our hearts we would like to build him up to become God’s servant. The Covenant Church in South Korea has asked us to consider sending a young man to attend the Bible College in South Korea and we see that Thongchai may have the potential to be moulded for God’s work in this way. We will continue to pray for God’s guidance in this matter.

6)      Outreach Ministry in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Laos and Vietnam)

Sharing the Gospel with the non-believers (December 2014)

Distributing donated clothing (December 2014)

Sharing a message with a rural community church (December 2014)

Burning "house charms" as a symbolism for turning away from the "old way" and accepting Christ (2014)

We are singing a hymn with the new believers while burning away the old beliefs (2014)

                We have been visiting the Hmong rural communities in Northern Thailand on a regular basis and have been keeping in contact with the Hmong leaders of these communities. Several times a year we would visit and encourage them to grow in their faith. Although the Gospel has been shared with many of the Hmong villages and churches have been established throughout Northern Thailand, the churches struggle to grow spirituality. This is primarily because the churches and the leaders lack the visions, the proper training, solid foundations and encouragement. We want to continue encouraging the churches and the leaders to serve and grow in their ministry. We also want to help train and provide them with adequate ministry resources. We are also actively involved with the Hmong Christian communities throughout Northern Thailand. Throughout the year, we participated in Hmong Christian conferences, youth retreats, and revivals.

Sharing the Gospel in Laos (2014)

 

 

Meeting with the Hmong church leaders in Vietnam (2013)

Sharing the Gospel with a group of Hmong women in Vietnam (2013)

In 2013 we have traveled to Laos and Vietnam to survey the Hmong churches and their ministries. Both of these countries practice communism, which makes it challenging for the Gospels to be shared openly. Christian persecution still exists and many Christians have been persecuted and imprisoned. In some instances, ministry and worship have to be done in secret.

                During our visit we also saw that the Hmong people in these countries were hungry to know more about the Gospel, yet their spiritual leaders lack the knowledge, encouragement and proper training for ministry and evangelism. Many leaders have traveled to Thailand to ask us for help and guidance. Now that we have an established property, we hope to be able to invite more leaders from these countries to participate in leadership and discipleship training in Thailand. At this time, we continue to keep in touch with some of the leaders from Laos and Vietnam. Also, in the future we hope to be able to visit these leaders again in Laos and Vietnam. We want to continue to encourage them in their ministry and provide them with the right ministry resources.