Greetings!

Our 2 weekends of COSBT Missions Festival finally concluded last Sunday and we would like to thank all brothers and sisters who have contributed through their giving and prayers to this missions fund raising event. We would also like to appreciate the fest committee from the COSBT missions committee to the various stall members! Last, not to forget our church administration team who selflessly assisted the fest team in making this event a huge success!

Missions have always been an integral part of the church. Christ died that all might be saved and the existence of the church serves to propagate His love for all men. In this post of Illuminations, we bring you a harvest update on one of the mission fields, Khon Kaen, Thailand.

Through the work of our missionaries and support by the various mission committees, we see lives changed and transformation taking place in the fields. Indeed, the church has this great privilege in being a part of His great harvest! So let’s be united as a church and receive this great commission in praying unceasingly, giving to the work and going forth to the fields!

                                                            ***

Thailand

Located in Khon Kaen province (North-eastern Thailand), the work in Thailand centres primarily in church planting which includes setting up of village churches, children ministry, a small transient Chinese teachers’ fellowship and ad-hoc collaboration efforts with other missionaries.

COSBT currently have 2 full-time missionaries (husband-wife team) based in Khon Kaen, Vincent Lai and Judy Ng. They also have 2 adorable young children, Marielle and Elliot.

As a couple, Vincent and Judy have been working with Thailand church planting works from 2007. Thailand, especially Khon Kaen was conceived as a designated mission field by COSBT for various reasons, primarily due to the way the Holy Spirit led church planting efforts in the Mekong region and Brother Vincent’s desire and vision for the Isaan peoples.

              Family on a mission! Vincent, Judy & their little ones.

Prayer Pointers

1.The Churches

Pray for our 3 Churches in District Khao Suan Kwang (Church Ban Na Poh & Church Ban Pa Wai Nang) and District Nong Rua (Church Nong Rua). Pray that the three churches will be a light and blessing to the villages and communities and that we will form good and long lasting relationship among these villages. Pray that our Churches will go indigenous as we continue to disciple and train them. Pray for our Children ministries in all our Churches. Pray as we sow into these children lives, they will know Jesus intimately and love Him passionately. Pray we will raise up the next generation of leaders among the children.

2. Souls Transformation

Pray for more families (not just individuals) to accept Christ. Pray for God's protection for our Church members despite family persecutions, relatives and their neighbours. Pray that God will speak and bring back those who left the churches. Pray for God's children to follow the Great Commission.

3. New Harvest

Pray for our weekly outreaches and home visitations to other villages every Wednesday and Thursday. Pray for His signs and wonders to follow us wherever we go and souls to be saved. Pray for more labourers to be sent to God's harvest field. Pray for effectiveness in reaching out to younger populace to sustain aging church demographics.

4. The workers

Pray for our co-workers (Por, Thanom and Nong). Pray that they will work in unity and passion and for renewed strength everyday. Pray that we will remain faithful and focus on His calling. Pray for protection and journey mercy as we travel from place to place and to develop more local co-workers of different age segments and with linguistic abilities in both English and Thai.

Indeed the harvest is plentiful! Please continue to pray for the work in Thailand and keep the missionaries in your prayer list at all times!

Looking Back & Soaring Ahead

We had an emotional and heart-felt last prayer meeting of the year, and are excited at all that 2012 promises to bring. :) For those of you who missed it, here are some recaps on our last Taste Missions event. May the new year bring Christ's love, joy and peace to you and your families!

Feature story on 4/14 in The Philippines

The crowd descends! Everyone wants a taste of missions! ;)

Tasty yak meat from Yunnan, China

Getting to know more about the work in Lijiang, China.

Explaining the whats and wheres and whys.

Could it be? Someone from the Yi minority tribe from the mountains of rural China?

Alas, no. We were fooled by the costume!

Our Thailand booth with their very creative pop-ups!

Chefs at work!

The Thai salad was a hit!

Captivated by the myriad of Cambodian street food.

Cambodian street game for the young and old alike!

Cambodia church planting and iAim programs.

Cambodia children homes support.

Mala hotpot from our China City Church team!

"Only one each please!" ;)

Something for everyone!

Last but not least, our feature missions location - The Philippines.

Tasting Filipino delicacies! ;)

Arise To Missions!

That's all from us for 2011! Please keep your contributions and feedback coming, and write to us if you are interested in knowing more about our mission fields or going on a mission trip. Drop us a comment or e-mail us at missions [dot] editorial [at] gmail [dot] com! :) See you in 2012.

For those of you who missed the newsletter back in October, you can read them here:

We Are Back!

We've been busy behind the scenes, but this coming missions weekend is proving to be our biggest yet. Come join us for some fun and food, and get to know more about your missionaries and mission fields! :)

Vincent and Judy's New Bundle of Joy!

Congratulations to our missionaries, Vincent and Judy, on the birth of their daughter, little baby Marielle!

This precious little one is indeed God's gift to them, and her parents both believe that she will bring God's favour and blessings to the nations.

All of us are looking forward to that. God's favour and blessings be on you, baby Marielle.

Check out pictures of lovely Marielle and her proud parents on Vincent's blog.

Surviving the Mission Field

Most days, the editorial team runs around chasing people for write-ups of their trips; we do this not because we have to populate the blog, but because we know first-hand how quickly and easily we forget even the most profound experiences, and strongly believe in the value of journaling, both for ourselves and to spur others on. :) As we quoted way back in our first post, we would not have had the epistles otherwise. ;)

Today's post is a special one (because we did not have to smoke it out, for one) from Judy, one-half of our missionary couple in Thailand. Judy talks very candidly about her struggles in her first years in Thailand, the experiences both bad and good. We hope that it will encourage and inspire you as it did us! :)

In February 2009, I entered the mission field with my husband Vincent. Unlike Vincent who had spent some years in Thailand before and was fluent in the language, I was a complete newbie. Back then I was a newlywed with illusions of marital bliss.

Since I was 19, I knew God had called me to missions. I also knew that I would never be fulfilled living a life apart from His calling. The Lord graciously opened doors for me through the years to gain experience in a mission agency as well as on different short-term mission assignments.

When I joined COSBT, again the Lord provided me with a position with the mission department and then sent me out to Khon Kaen, Thailand. At first I assumed that my adjustment to Thailand would take only a short time. I had gone on a few short-term trips to Thailand and had spent a semester in university studying the language. Little did I know what I was headed for!

I still remembered our arrival in Khon Kaen. We were warmly received by the local AG church pastor and his wife who were kind enough to put us up in the church. We ended up lodging in a spare room for two weeks. That first night, the pastor threw a welcome BBQ party for us -- we had grilled pork neck and fresh leaves for dinner. This was the beginning of my cultural adjustment to Thailand.

In my first weeks in Khon Kaen it was like living in another universe; time flowed differently from Singapore. Nothing I ever studied for or went through prepared me for THIS! I felt like I was surrounded by unintelligible words and undecipherable behavior. No one spoke English and I could not communicate with anyone. Two days after our arrival, I could take it no longer and I went to cry it out in “our” room.

I struggled with the “backwardness” of the city and its dismal lack of amenities. When we first arrived in Khon Kaen there were only two small shopping malls. The fact that Khon Kaen was the commercial hub of the Northeastern region (known as Issan) held little charm for me. The city was mostly dusty and grey; it had the air of an industrial town and was surrounded by nondescript double-storey buildings.

I was plunged into a time of culture shock, which turned into depression. I mourned the loss of my identity as I knew it. I struggled with the loss of my independence, my social circle, and even the ability to communicate and to string together simple sentences. I became frustrated at my lack of language skills and I blamed my leaders, including my spouse for failing to prepare me beforehand. I clammed up completely before the locals and imagined everyone to be mocking at my inability to speak Thai.

The fact that Vincent and I were newlyweds did not make things easier. We had a lot of miscommunication, which thankfully never escalated into major eruptions. I constantly struggled with his ministry as it sometimes took him away from me or demanded sacrifices from us.

However God was faithful to preserve me while I was going through all the cultural adjustment. Even when I felt I was the last person to be of any use, He used me to start up a women’s cell group in the church, teach English at the university and shepherd a Youth English cell group.

Two years on, I can now look back and say that my first years in the field were a painful but necessary time. When I was going through it, none of it made any sense to me. God used that time to break me down -- I learnt to die to self and to see things from another perspective. It was only then did I start to enjoy living in Khon Kaen.

In retrospect I learnt some lessons from those first years in Thailand. They are:

• Protect your devotion time with God: As simple as this may sound, our time with God is a basic discipline we cannot do without. Yet it is always the first thing to come under attack when we meet with spiritual opposition. I spent a few months without praying when I was under a lot of stress in Khon Kaen. Similarly I have heard of ministers who go for long months without prayer when they are depressed or down. We need to recognize this and be vigilant always in guarding our time with the Lord.

• Find some local friends: This can be anyone from a church member, a neighbour or even your local food stall seller. These new friends will help you get through your days and speed up your cultural adjustment. Most importantly these are the friendships that will sustain you when friends at home stop keeping up with your life on the field.

• Keep going: Do whatever it takes to keep moving forward, even if it seems like you are inching slowly or just maintaining your momentum. Take up a new hobby. Establish a routine. Find a quiet spot or a favorite café you can unwind to. Or even set up a new support group on the internet.

• Talk to experienced missionaries: Spend time to learn from them because these are the people who’ve survived, who know what it’s like to be marooned in a foreign culture and prevailed against it. I met an Australian missionary who advised me to “either get on or get out. After all if you can’t survive, you can’t minister!”

• Find your satisfaction/fulfillment: Some people find their satisfaction earlier than others. My satisfaction only clicked into place last November when I met our Chinese friends in our new Chinese cell ministry. They were the ones for whom I counted it worthwhile leaving Singapore and staying in Thailand for!

Thank you for sharing your journey with us, Judy! God bless you and Vincent and little Marielle! :)

Stories From The Field

It's that time of the year again! For those of you who missed it, here is the bi-annual missions newsletter that we released over the past two Sundays. :) We hope you will be blessed and inspired by the stories. This time around we introduced to you the 4-14 Window, in the coming months we hope to bring you more info here.

If you would like to get involved in any of the mission fields, or contribute to the editorial work, or just have any questions, please feel free to write to us at missions [dot] editorial [at] gmail [dot] com, or leave a comment on this post. :) Don't worry, we promise not to bite!

What did you like in this issue? What would you like to see in the next issue?

Missionary Updates from Thailand

It's been a busy few months for us -- mission trips, Christmas celebrations, catching up with old friends and making new ones. :) Our schedule looks to have finally settled down, and we hope to bring you more regular updates here. For a start, we have now included an email subscription feature (scroll down to the bottom of the right panel)! Yes, now you can sign up to receive an email whenever a new entry goes up on the blog. Yikes, has it been a whole month since the last post? :S

Today we thought we'd catch up with our friends Vincent and Judy in Thailand. This is a rather belated update, but here goes anyway... Let's check out what they've been up to in the later part of 2010! :)

Every Friday afternoon, the church runs a class for training and equipping cell group leaders and potential leaders. As Vincent is part of the team that runs the training, it has been gratifying to see the leaders gain more confidence in leading their groups. At the same time, God has also blessed the cell groups with new members.

Leaders' training

Since August Vincent has been reaching out to a group of boys living in the Don Pathana slums, which is one of the poorest slums in Khon Kaen. As Vincent is already acquainted with these boys aged 10-15 from previous ministry work, he is now working on strengthening his relationship with them.

Most of these boys are school drop-outs and live in a very harsh environment. Many of them come from broken families, while some have alcoholic parents who are addicted to gambling. With no one to care for or teach them, their literacy level is very low. Their priority in life is solely to have fun, which can sometimes lead them to danger. Presently Vincent hopes to share God’s love with these boys and impact them someway somehow. Your prayers are much coveted in this work!

Outreach to slum boys

The English youth cell that Vincent and Judy oversee have seen many changes over the past few months. They have found ourselves competing for the time of the youths alongside with their many extracurricular activities. Like the typical Thai youngster hailing from a well-to-do background, these youths have many commitments such as extra music classes, tuition, cheerleading, etc. Often cell attendance has been reduced to but two or three persons.

Also the cell now consists exclusively of girls as the boys have either moved away or dropped out. This means that the cell is now mostly under the charge of Judy, who unfortunately struggles with meeting even the basic communication needs of the members. Please continue to keep this cell group in your prayers.

English youth cell

Please continue to keep Vincent and Judy in your prayers, for them, for their ministry, and for their family back home. And just to add an exciting piece of news... God has also blessed them with a precious baby girl, the proud father-to-be has uploaded her ultrasound pictures on his blog! ;)

Finally, here's leaving you with a clip of the women's ministry work that went on in the past month. Tammy and Ps Yvonne were there, and looking at the photos, I wish I had gone too! :P

You can read more about Vincent and Judy's work from a previous update here, or on their blogs found in the sidebar. :)

Big Welcome! :)

While it seems that this blog has been around for some time, we've kept pretty quiet about it so that we could slowly work on its contents and design, leading up to the missions weekend in church. Since its official launch over the past weekend, we have seen our page views spike drastically, so WELCOME! ;)

We have received some really nice comments since then about the new newsletter and the video that was shown during the main services. Thank you all for your kind words. Keep them coming, and let us know what we are doing right, and what we can do better. What was your response to the message? What would you like to see in the blog/newsletter? What do you think our next video should explore? We won't be able to please everyone, but we will value every single input for future efforts!

At the same time, keep your contributions coming in, either through the missions committee, or you can send it to us at missions [DOT] editorial [AT] gmail [DOT] com! Space in the newsletter is limited, but the blog is not. ;) If you would like to contribute your skills and be part of our team, we'll be glad to get in touch with you as well! We had a lot of help along the way, so a big thank you to all those who helped us with the newsletter and the video, sometimes on very tight deadlines, you know who you are! ;) We need all the creative energy we can get, and are particularly looking out for Chinese editors/translators and print layout artists.

Lastly, for those of you who missed it, here is the newsletter (English and Chinese versions) for your reading pleasure. We already have requests pouring in for us to upload the video, which we will do in our next post, together with the correct answers to satiate you curious cats, so keep checking back for updates! :P