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Sit back and listen

Sit back and listen ….

is what the Lord seemed to tell Mary Kay and me (Fred). We were in the middle of our second session of our first student church.  We meet with 8 graduate students, all men, who have been reading the Bible from several months to over a year.

This time, when we started prayer, everyone wanted to participate, and the one man who was afraid to pray last time, he prayed a few times!

It seems just one or two of them are Christians while others are thinking seriously of commitment.

This time we asked them what they had been reading, and then one shared from the Sermon on the Mount. They talked and shared illustrations.

So wonderful to see the Spirit of the Lord teaching them through each other!!

Another ‘preChristian’? shared about how much the worship song “10,000 Reasons” really encouraged him during the week when he was hard pressed.

Please pray that the Spirit will continue to have freedom to teach them the Scriptures, and that commitments would come leading to new births!

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God forgives!

In China I knew that God is all powerful, but this year I learned that God loves, and He forgives.

One Way

We just finished our Winter VT retreat. During the retreat we taught about God and relationships. All of the students were preChristians, except for our son Joey who also attended.

During a game time one student shared how he learned that God forgives. The other students all shook their heads in agreement. For many Chinese, this is a new idea for them.

This semester many of them will continue to read the Bible with me (Fred).

Now we pray that they will learn that:

God forgives them!

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Tears began to flow …

mom

“I don’t think there are Christians in China”

that was the comment made by one of my Chinese students. But another student that is a believer chimed in and said , “Oh yes, in my family’s village there are many Christians and in fact my cousins have a stationary store and they use it to be able to sell Christian items and to connect with people.” This is the kind of interaction that we long to see and hope will happen all the more as we have invited all of our Bible class students over for a Thanksgiving meal and want them to connect and be encouraged by the faith of each other.

Last night after our Thanksgiving Squanto movie a student came up to me (MK) and told me that another student had invited her to church. We desire that these students catch the vision to share their faith. And another student signed up to study the Bible for the first time, with Fred.

delicious Bubble Tea
We drank ‘Bubble Tea, which is black tapioca pudding sucked up through extra large straws.

A newly married Taiwanese couple opened their place to us to have our monthly married couples meeting. We bring extra chairs and a table but it is beautiful to see them be willing to extend hospitality. Another young mother offered to host the mama’s group in her small apartment and she invited her other friends to come. It becomes their’s instead of our meeting!

It is up and down at times with who shows up for various activities. I was encouraged to remain faithful to the still small voice of the Lord. That one meeting was one of the best and as the 4 of us sat around the table, tears were shed and prayers went up to the Lord. He who calls us is Faithful!

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Exactly what I want!

Asian womanWe met her at our yard sale to welcome new international students. We also offered classes in English, dinner, and English Bible study, when she heard about the Bible study, she responded

That’s exactly what I am looking for!

Susan (not her real name) was from China; she shared how her grandmother is a Christian, and recently her parents were ‘washed’. She was born in China when there was the one child policy and so when she came along as the second child , her parents hid her by sending her to her aunt’s home.

Praise God,her aunt was a believer as well!

But she is now married and her husband is not interested in God and so she was too fearful to go to a church. But recently, since her parents were “washed” ( baptized), she has had a desire to turn back to God.  So when she saw a chance to study the Bible, she was so excited.

The yard sale was all worth the trouble just to reach her!!!!

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They need you

These new international students need you, so keep doing your work.

Summer English Class
Summer English Class

Our friend said this to MK at the new international student yard sale, the place where we started the 2013 season 3 years ago. We met her soon afterwards in an English class, and our church friends took her to a local festival, and then to our church. I later discipled her husband until he became a Christian, about two years later. Recently her husband and her were baptized. She wrote:

For the last three years we continued to receive so many blessings from you. The very best one is your guidance for us to God.

Those were three years that you, our supporters made possible, by allowing us to work full time with so many students. We usually only see part of the process, as students leave so quickly. But this was a great blessing of encouragement as we add new students to our existing Bible studies.

Thank you for ‘being there’ in prayers and gifts for these beautiful new Children of God from China!

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We want to be baptized!

“We want to be baptized!”  What joyous words, we have waited for months to hear them! An international friend and his wife are making their faith more public tomorrow in the cold New River!

river baptism
river baptism

We got to know the wife through an outing, then the husband also wanted to study. We started with Genesis, then skipped to Matthew, then Acts.  They started attending church with us, and one day the wife asked for prayer that her mother would become a Christian! We didn’t know if she was a Christian at the time!

The husband also studied the Bible with two other internationals that wanted to learn about baptism, because one of them has a relative who is a Christian. They are so close too. And they consider it an honor to come to the baptism! Pray for a good testimony and for them to be encouraged to surrender to Jesus too!

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How would I pray?

“Can you …? Can I …? I mean, how would I pray?” –These are the words from a near Christian, an international friend, you can call him Ray, who has a health problem that he really wants to overcome. He has been with us for three years; he attended a retreat, and church once. I (Fred) found out that God was still calling him!

healingPrayer

I shared with him the Lord’s Prayer, that Jesus’ teaching assistants also wanted to know how to pray. He said he had little faith, I told how a man took his sick son to Jesus, and he had little faith too, but he asked Jesus to help him. We had just read of the three men in the fiery furnace in Daniel. He said he didn’t have their type of faith (of following God no matter what), but that if God would only get him out of this problem, then he would follow Him forever.

“Faith comes from hearing”

I shared, and that best comes from reading the Bible, just as he had studied the Daniel story with us. I did pray for him, and I encouraged him to keep reading in order to have more faith, and to keep praying the Lord’s Prayer in principle, for example, that God’s kingdom would be here on earth just as it is in Heaven.

Keep praying for Ray, that God’s kingdom would live in him!

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Do only special people get to go to heaven?

“I look forward to seeing Abraham in heaven some day” was my response to one of my students.  She then asked me the question, “Do only special people get to go to heaven?”  Oh what a joy to share with her that heaven was a place for her too as she read for the first time John 3:16:

God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die.

This is a student that wants to meet together twice a week — as she is so hungry to learn!

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Indian invasion

indiansWe just finished with a short Saturday trip to a recreated Indian village in Virginia, a real novelty for internationals who have heard so much of their culture. (Actually we had Indians who invaded a deserted Native American village!)

One Korean wrote afterwards:

I really enjoyed the trip today. 
And I want to say thank you for you and Mary Kay 
for this wonderful trip!
I feel lucky to meet such a great teacher like you and Mary Kay. 
Thank you again! And have a wonderful weekend! 

We know that she is not lucky, but God is working through us to give her something she doesn’t even know she needs.

Please keep us in your prayers!

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Explosion!

Yes, yes, yes and yes!

mossyTreewere the answers to my question about a Bible study!

We have gotten to know four guys over the last year (or years), and after coming to Charleston, they were all interested in learning about the Bible!

We had a great time in Charleston, but we didn’t have the quality time with many of them that we desired. But we have been praying and they are eager!

bibleNot only that, but a young Christian has joined our advanced English Bible study, a second person (non-Christian) said they want to start in April, and a third young woman ‘found out’ that Mary Kay teaches the Bible, so she asked for Mary Kay to teach her!

We have never had so many opportunities at once! Your prayers are being fruitful beyond our belief!

Helping internationals