The Lord’s Move to Asia (October 2012)
Cambodia: Training for the Responsible Brothers
A training for the responsible brothers in Cambodia was held from September 12th to 14th with a total of twelve messages, taken from “A Pattern of the Healthy Words”. Thirty-three brothers from nine localities attended the training. Two brothers also came from Hong Kong to help us with the lessons.
The brothers testified that the lessons covered in the training were so enjoyable that many responded to the messages. Some brothers from the newly established churches were very impressed by the lessons, such as Consecration, the Sense of Life, the Fellowship of Life, Calling on the Name of the Lord, Pray-reading the Word of God, Praising, and Speaking the Word of God.
Receiving the maximum benefit from this kind of training, the leading brothers in Phnom Penh felt that the number of trainings per year should be increased. The brothers all said that they would get into all these lessons together with the saints after they got back to their localities.
During the training there was also a special session for reports on the Lord’s move in each locality. Among them was the report given by the brothers from Battambang Province. They shared that they would go from village to village to contact the new ones and to fellowship with them. Although there is not yet a church in any of the villages, the saints seek to have fellowship to encourage one another. Now there are many small groups in the villages.
May the Lord strengthen His move in Cambodia through the local brothers.
Visiting the Churches in Myanmar
From August 23rd to 30th, two brothers from Malaysia visited the saints in Yangon, Myanmar. On the 24th, they went to the Full-time Training center and fellowshipped with the trainees on consecration. On the 25th, the two brothers met with the serving ones from four localities, the Gospel Bookroom and FTTY, encouraging them to serve in the ministry for their whole life. Then on the 26th, which was a Lord’s Day, the brothers attended a blending meeting with the saints from four localities, and shared with the saints regarding the oneness of the saints for the building up of the Body of Christ.
On the 27th, the two brothers went up to Kachin State in the north of Myanmar, where there has been a civil war, and met with the saints in the church in Myitkyina, the capital city of Kachin State. They had sweet fellowship together. On the evening of the 28th, the brothers fellowshipped with the serving ones there and especially encouraged them to carry out a campus work. On the 29th, two free groups invited the brothers to share a word in their Bible schools and all the attendees enjoyed the speaking released by the brothers. On that evening the two brothers returned to Yangon.
On the 30th, the brothers visited Myanmar Gospel Book Room and fellowshipped with the serving ones there. They then returned to Malaysia on the same evening.
Sri Lanka – Fellowship on the Recent Situation
Since the church in Colombo rented a meeting hall in the urban district on July 26, the saints experienced a week of working together in one accord (doing the paint job, offering and purchasing needed items, hiring a plumber and an electrician to fix some of the old facilities) to complete the renovation of a floor of an old house about 30 pyeong (approx. 99m2) in size. Currently two couples and a working sister live there, exercising to have a corporate God-man living.
On the evening of Friday, August 10, the first gospel meeting was held in the meeting hall with about 30 attendees. The spiritual atmosphere was good and the meeting was followed by a love feast. Both the gospel friends and the saints were very encouraged. Subsequently, in the serving brothers’ fellowship, it was decided that a gospel meeting would be held at the end of each month to build up an even stronger spirit of the gospel among the saints and to stir up their organic function. Then on Friday evening, August 31st, we had a second gospel meeting, and the Lord continued to add the seekers to His church.
On Lord’s Day, August 12, because of the coming of two brothers from Taiwan, the saints invited more of their relatives and friends to attend. A total of 52 people were present in that meeting. We witnessed that if every member would function organically, the church in Colombo would have a great potential to grow.
From August 13th to 14th, the first national serving ones’ perfecting training for the six churches in Sri Lanka was held in the meeting hall of Colombo. Twenty-eight saints attended this training. Two brothers from the church in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, were invited to coordinate with us to share from the messages of the 2009 Spring International Training for Elders and Responsible Ones—“The Vision, the Person, the Living, and the Responsibilities of a Serving One”. From the saints’ eager response after each message, it was clear that the serving ones in the churches received much help from the supply and perfecting of the brothers’ messages.
In this training, the serving ones from the various churches were also afforded the opportunity to blend together, and to compile a list of contact information to facilitate communication and registration for blending conferences and trainings in the future. This time the brothers also came up with a calendar of events, covering the period from now to next year. We hope to establish the golden lampstands in three target cities by 2013: Gampaha, Kalutara, and Kegalle.
Currently, the church in Colombo is gradually getting on track in the various aspects of coordination and building. Beginning from September 2nd, the saints were divided into two groups for the prophesying meeting following the Lord’s table: one group for prophesying, and the other for new believers’ perfecting. In this way, the new believers and gospel friends can be taken care of. We have also established a service fellowship for the serving brothers every Wednesday. Each fellowship time is only about 30 minutes to an hour, after which the brothers would go on to the join the prayer meeting. We believe that continuing steadfastly in this way will help in the building up and going on of the church.
Beginning from Saturday, September 1st, we also began to have young people’s meetings for the young people and college students. For the first meeting, a total of eight saints came, three of whom were serving ones. The young people told their parents that they enjoyed such a meeting. May the Lord draw and gain more young people to become useful vessels in this age through these channels for His propagation in Colombo. As Haggai 1:8 says, “Go up to the mountain and bring wood and build the house, and I will take pleasure in it and will be glorified, says Jehovah.”
In the past weeks we also strengthened the visitation and home meetings of the saints. We hope in the coming weeks, we will be able to turn the Bible Reading Meeting held every Friday in the meeting hall into Bible Reading Small Groups in the homes to care for the saints during the week.
The Intensified Propagation in Jaffna
Praise the Lord for His testimony in Jaffna! Between September 17th and 23rd there was a week of intensified propagation in Jaffna. The goal was that through the coordination of the Body we would gain three stable homes to strengthen the testimony there.
In this intensified propagation, a total of ten brothers and sisters from Sri Lanka came. Among them, there were three brothers from the church in Kandy and seven brothers and sisters from the church in Colombo. There were also two brothers from Kaohsiung and Tainan, Taiwan. Seven local saints from the church in Jaffna also participated in this move. A young working brother even took a week off from work for this. Since early September, through the speaking of the ministry, the local saints have gradually been receiving the Lord’s burden and commission, and the fire of the gospel has been burning within them. The brothers and sisters prepared a name list of gospel friends and relatives for possible contact (taking the household as the unit), and steadfastly prayed for them every day. Whenever the saints came together, they prayed desperately and in one accord in order to pave the way for the Lord’s move.
During this time of propagation, every morning we came together to fellowship and pray. In the afternoon, after our corporate prayer, we would divide into small groups to visit the listed contacts one by one, with a local saint in every group as our guide. On the fifth day of the propagation, the saints invited two pastors from a denomination to join us. Our fellowship was very sweet. They treasured the books of Brother Nee and Brother Lee. One of them has already bought several spiritual books that have been translated into Tamil. They enjoyed the speaking of the ministry very much and have a heart to take the way of the Lord’s recovery. After fellowshipping for about two hours, the two pastors each bought an English Recovery Version Bible. One of the pastors also invited the serving brothers to minister and fellowship on Lord’s Day morning at their congregation.
During this time, we gained a total of four open homes and baptized one brother, all of whom attended the Lord’s Day meeting on September 23rd. Twenty-eight people attended the bread-breaking meeting, with 17 from Jaffna, which was much more than the usual 9 people. Through the coordination and support of the churches, the spirits of the local saints were touched and the fervency of their love for the Lord was once again stirred up. This intensified propagation caused us to experience God, “who is able to do superabundantly above all that we ask or think, according to thepower which operates in us.” (Eph. 3:20).
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