May
Cambodia
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the government announced school closures and suspension of various religious gatherings in March. More than 30% of the saints have left Phnom Penh and returned to their hometowns since then. We brothers fellowshipped together and felt that we must not forsake our own assembling together. Hence, we decided to change the meeting format and meet online instead. Over the past few weeks, we have discovered that this arrangement is extremely helpful for prayer in small groups and for mutual shepherding. The brothers emphasized again and again the burden to change the saints’ concept and to have more people participate in the organic Body life. In particular, the newly saved brothers and sisters who are learning to serve in coordination have taken this opportunity to tightly connect with one another and increase the frequency of their praying and pursuing the word together.
At present, the saints in Phnom Penh are divided into six groups: four groups for the local saints, one group for the Chinese-speaking saints, and another group for the Korean-speaking saints. Each group comprises 15 to 20 people, with actual weekly attendance of 5 to 6 or more. Dividing into groups allows the saints to practically care for one other and to have more prayers and blending. Some saints who were unable to regularly attend the meetings due to distance and some who had been somewhat dormant are now recovered. If we include those who left Phnom Penh during the pandemic and are now in the church life in their hometowns, then the number of active saints is even higher than in the past. In the online meetings, because the number of attendance is smaller, each one must labor more and function to speak for the Lord. The ratio of saints who prophesy to the number of attendance has increased from 50% to 80%. Moreover, we have eight prayer-watch groups with an average of 24 saints participating in prayer-watch every day. In total, 42 saints have participated in at least one prayer-watch.
A few saints who got saved in Phnom Penh were opposed by their families when they returned home. However, as we continued to care for them via video chats or conference calls, several families gradually opened up and even took the initiative to interact with us. The pandemic also opened the hearts of some saints and gospel friends, causing them to consider the meaning of human life and “forcing” them to return to the church life and to spend time pursuing the Lord.
In our consideration of the current situation and the online meetings, the following are some key points in terms of meeting, shepherding and gospel preaching:
1. Increasing the number of vital groups: We hope to form three to four more vital groups so that more saints can participate in smaller yet more frequent online meetings and be nourished.
2. Making lists of saints for contact: According to Brother Lee’s fellowship in the ministry books, each serving brother should make a list and contact three saints every day or twenty saints every week. With this in view, we hope the number of saints being shepherded will increase.
3. Supplying the members in the groups: By sharing Bible verses and audio messages to members of each group, we supply the saints even when they miss the online meetings.
4. Sending little gospel cards to friends and relatives: We learned recently that the saints in New Delhi made little gospel cards and shared them with friends and relatives through various Apps to preach the gospel to “warm doors” and determine the open ones for revisit. We plan to make similar gospel cards (the content of which are Bible verses or good quotes from the ministry) to send to the ones under our care and encourage them to do likewise. By doing this, we hope to not only shepherd these new ones, but also help them develop a burden for men.
5. Holding online Lord’s day meetings for the new ones: Some vital groups have tried to use the last 5-10 minutes of the online Lord’s day meetings to specifically care for the new ones so that they can take part in the Lord’s Day meetings and be blended with the saints. During this time the saints mainly sing hymns and pray.
6. For saints in areas with poor internet connection, we help them stay connected by getting them on the phone while an online meeting is taking place so that they don’t miss out. Telephone conference meetings are also arranged.
Thank the Lord! We truly believe that in His Sovereignty the Lord has prepared such an environment for His move. We need to see and know His will in this kind of situation and cooperate with Him for the building up of His Body to bring Him back.
Prayer Burden
Pray for the saints to be more burdened and function for shepherding and for more saints to separate their time to join the Lord’s day meeting.
Turkey
Since the declaration of lockdown and weekend curfew in mid-March, saints have switched to online meetings. Online meetings are less interactive, but because they are conducted at home, saints who could not attend the physical meetings for various reasons in the past can now participate in online meetings. The Chinese-speaking district meeting is on Saturday afternoon, and a brother in South Africa joins in to enjoy the Lord together; the English-speaking district meeting is on Lord’s day morning with some saints in Cyprus and Israel participating; the Turkish-speaking district meets on Sunday afternoon and a brother from Hong Kong joins the singing part. In addition, we meet with the saints in Baku, Azerbaijan once every two weeks to get into “The Economy of God”. From April 10th to 12th, we joined the London conference held online, which over a thousand saints from Europe, Asia, Africa, the United States and the Middle East attended virtually. The content was the 2012 Thanksgiving Conference messages. Such online meetings are very helpful for the blending of the Body and the appearance of the one new man. May the Lord speed up the development of the internet infrastructure here for the blending and building up of His body and for the saints to have freer and smoother fellowship online for the practical manifestation of the universal one new man.
On April 1st, the co-workers in the Lord’s recovery sounded the burden of 21-day (later extended to 30-day) global prayer. We translated a relevant website into Turkish, hoping to bring the Turkish saints into this burden. A brother mentioned in his fellowship on the website that in the Bible every time God had a crucial and dispensational move, such as opening up the seventh seal and the sounding of the seven trumpets in Revelation, the prayers of the saints were mentioned. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about significant changes in global politics, economy, and many other aspects. At such an important time, the Lord needs more saints to pray in cooperation with Him to bring in a breakthrough of His move.
In order to grasp the opportunity to spread the gospel during this time, new gospel leaflets have been posted on the website of Rhema distribution. We are working on translating these leaflets into Turkish and have put up advertisements on Facebook. Moreover, some saints had the burden to produce a gospel video which the saints are free to translate into different languages and share on social media. The link of the Turkish version of the video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB0X9NWh3aQ&t=3s
Prayer Burdens
1. Pray for the saints of all languages to adapt to meeting online and to set aside the time to get together for prayer. May the Lord strengthen all the saints to enjoin and live Christ more in spite of the negative effects of the pandemic.
2. Pray for the online propagation of the Rhema books that more pure-hearted seekers can be brought into the Lord’s recovery.
3. Pray for the Lord to open the door of the gospel and establish His tesimonies in the following twelve strategic cities: Adana, Ankara, Antakya, Antalya, Bursa, Diyarbakir, Gaziantep, Izmir, Kayseri, Kanya, Sanliurfa, Trabzon.
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