Grateful For The Past Year

This past month delivered me some good news. The news is that I have a new visa here in Thailand. This visa allows me to stay here without leaving the country but also allows me to leave at least once a month with a multi-entries. Having to leave the country every three months can be quite expensive. Now I will be allowed to cross to the Burmese side of the border. This past month my wife and I ministered in a local Burmese fellowship. I am really proud how my wife has stepped up and is preaching the gospel. God has great things for Elizabeth. Also in the first month of September I attended our Asia Summit meetings. It was a great success...lots of good preaching and inspiration. Dr. Al Purvis and the team in Sriracha Thailand job hosting the conference. It is almost a year since we have been here and we are grateful. We have really been stretched financially. We have purchased additional land, had it registered and also have had some of the land landscaped. Believe with us to move forward quickly....Thank you very much.

Teaching Together

This past month my wife Elizabeth and myself for the first time taught together. We taught on the subject of faith at a local Bible School with mostly Burmese students. This is the also the first time that my wife had the opportunity to interpret for me for an extended period of time. The founder of the school has asked me if we could come back and do a couple more classes for him. I know that as I sow into other ministries God will have others sow into ours. My wife has also had the opportunity to minister over on the Myanmar side the past couple of weekends. Unfortunately I will have to wait for about 2 months as my being reviewed for a 3 month period. After the 3 month trial period I will be able to cross to Myanmar and go to other countries on a multiple entry visa. God is making a way for us...but patience has been required on our part.

Schumacher Family

Just wanted to update you on the family. We are still located in Mae Sai Thailand and we truly like the area that we are in. As for Jeremiah we have him in Kingdom Kids Childrens Care during the day. They have a wonderful staff and I am truly grateful for that (hopefully they are also teaching him Burmese). Jeremiah is really growing fast. Most people when they see him think he is 5 or 6 years old. In reality he will be 3 years and 9 months at the end of June. Because of some of the new visa laws in Thailand numerous families have left the country. So some of the young children that played with Jeremiah are now gone. We are believing that God will bring in some other children to Kingdom Kids. The weather here has been extremely hot and humid and we put in a new air conditioner last week. I could no longer stay awake until 2-3 Am every night, I was getting very exhausted. My wife, Elizabeth and her sister Sarah had an outreach to the Children last week a few miles outside of city Teckiliek, Myanmar. It was great as they had about 40 children. They will be doing this on a weekly basis during the summer months. Believe with us that having these outreaches to children will help bring families back to the church. The village they are ministering in has a rich Baptist heritage but many of the families have completely stopped going to the church. We feel this is a first step making our ministry known to this village. Here is a picture with my wife in the village outreach and a couple pictures with Jeremiah (He loves rides on the motorbike with his auntie or with his daddy!).

Kathmadu Nepel Ministry Trip

While the land was being leveled, I took a trip to Kathmandu, Nepal. Prem and Lalita were former Bible students of mine and I promised that if they started a school that I would come and teach and minister for them. Wow what a great trip. I flew from Bangkok to New Delhi and then on to Katmandu on the 4th of May. For the next two weeks I ministered on the Gifts of the Spirit. Prem said this would be a perfect class to end the school year as the students were getting ready to go back to the villages that they had come from. Along with the daily classes I was able to go with the students on the outskirts of Kathmandu and witness with them to the locals. Right now Prem and Lalita have eight bible students and they are excited to bring the Gospel message to the outermost parts of Nepal. I saw wonderful change come into their lives from the time I first got their to the time I left two weeks later. I certainly look forward to returning to the ministry base in Kathmandu, Nepal in the future. The last time I had ministered in Kathmandu was with Pastor Greg Runyon. Pastor Greg always seems to make those trips memorable trips. Here are some pictures from this trip and of course one pic that I took of Mount Everest from the airplane.

My Trip To Myanmar

During the month of April I was able to cross into Myanmar and attend the 50th anniversary of a Christian Village. This was a great experience for me. The village was settled by the Ahka in 1964 as a Christian village and people came from all over Myanmar to attend the celebration. Two weeks later I was able to minister in the Church and as the first missionary to ever attend the church! The people from the congregation said, "we have never heard these things before." I ministered on your connection to God, your connection to people and your connection to the church. I trust they were blessed by the message as my brother-in law translated the message for me.

Update On The Purchased Land

Here are some pictures of the land that we had leveled this past May. It turned out to be a bigger project than originally expected but God was faithful. Actually the land looks very good and we feel blessed to have this land for future use. The next step will be putting some fill in dirt on the south side of the Land. The step after this will be getting a wall put up around the property. The proper paper work with the government also took a little longer than expects (al more money) but that has also been accomplished. Thank you so much.

Philippines March 2014

This past March I had the opportunity again to minister at Victory Church the Philippines in Fairview Metro Manila. Wow...what a great time. Pastor Rich and Pastor Ning Conte have done such an outstanding job building this local church and others like it in the Philippines. During my time their I ministered in the local church and two other churches as well as the night bible school on Mondays and Tuesday evenings. The thought kept going through my mind that God wants His Glory in the local churches. As we believers allow ourselves to be transformed by His power, God's strength and power will be poured our in the our midst. I also had the opportunity and I should say most of my time was ministering at the VCA Bible school which was held in the afternoons from 1:00PM to 6:00PM. This is the second year in a row that I have had the opportunity to minister in their local bible school and the Victory Church in the Philippines is definitely building disciples to impact their nation. On the Saturday before I left the Philippines I ministered at the closing session of the men's conference. I was so blessed to see all the men in Love with God and His Word! What a dedicated group of men.