From Long Beach to Longmont

We flew back last Monday from Long Beach, California and the next morning drove from Lincoln to Longmont, Colorado to the Hopewell Baptist Church. We were able to catch the last two nights of their missions conference. Pastor Seulean and the church were great hosts and we enjoyed the preaching from their keynote speaker, Pastor Darryl Reeves. He preached some inspiring messages.

Pastor and Mrs. Seulean 

On Wednesday morning I went out soul winning in the town. It was raining and I was having a difficult time finding people to witness to in the rain. Then I received a text on my phone stopped to read it. I responded to the text and then looked up to see a man on his porch. I approached him with a Gospel tract in my hand and said good morning sir. He said, "That depends on who you are and what you want." I felt like this might go nowhere, but then I proceeded to introduce myself and hand him a Gospel tract. He responded in a favorable manner and I was able to lead him to Christ ten minutes later. His name was Dan and he thanked me many times for talking to him.

Pastor Reeves and myself

While I was doing this, my wife was witnessing to the clerk at the hotel we were staying in. Her name was Kyong Bok and she is originally from South Korea. Turns out that she had actually gotten saved at a Baptist church in Georgia before. We wife was glad that she was saved. I was glad that my wife was taking advantage of an opportunity to talk about the Saviour!

Kyong Bok and my wife

Missions Revival in Long Beach

Bro. Pechardo and Pastor Meyers

This past week and weekend was spent at the Pacific Baptist Church in Long Beach, California for their Missions revival. They had veteran missionaries David Board and Johnny Esposito as their guest speakers and the Lord really met in a special way. We had an opportunity to present the ministry several times while there and I preached to their teens in Friday chapel and during Sunday school on Sunday. On Saturday we went soul winning and my wife and I had a chance to each win a soul to Christ.

I was truly thankful for the opportunity to visit this church and learn some very helpful things for the church side and the mission field. They have a very successful missions team in Cambodia and I was able to glean from these veteran missionaries. I also want to thank Bro. Castle, Pastor Meyers, Bro. Rall, Bro. Joseph Esposito and of course our host family the Fierro's for all the wonderful meals and fellowship. I will be praying for these folks as I travel and I know they will be praying for us to get to Thailand to help reach the land of idol worshipers! 

The Fierro's

Packed Hallways

International Dinner on the grounds

Set Sail with Missions

My home church was having their missions emphasis this past Sunday with the theme of "Set Sail with Missions." They had several special guest in with Missions Director Mark Bosje from First Baptist Church of Hammond and Missionary Tim Shook. Bro. Shook taught Sunday school while Bro. Bosje preached the morning service. Both men did an excellent job and the church had a great increase in their Faith Promise giving.

Bro. Shook and Bro. Bosje

The church had great attendance and the special music also was very good. In fact, my wife and several ladies sang a special in the Karen language. There also were five professions made at the invitation time with one following the Lord in believer's baptism. I was able to lead one to Christ myself at the invitation and had seen three trust Christ the day before while out soul winning.

Please be praying for our support to be raised as I will soon be setting sail myself for California. The next eight weeks will see me in California, Colorado, Kansas, Tennessee, and Texas. I have multiple meetings in each area. Please pray for our safety and for the souls of Southeast Asia to be saved.

Some ladies sang in the Karen language

Bro. Shook taught Sunday school

Finding Burmese Refugees in Every Nook and Cranny

Kyin and her boys

Bawi and his family

Pastor Brown and his wife

I recently had to opportunity to visit the most fantastic church in Washington, Iowa. The Marion Avenue Baptist Church led by Pastor Joseph Brown has the most wonderful missions emphasis in their church. I am not sure I have seen many like it.

While there someone in the church mentioned to me that there were a couple hundred Burmese living in a small town about 20 miles away. So I arranged through the church to find someone who could show me where these people lived. On Saturday Brother Sosa took me and my wife soul winning to them. We were able to sit down and present the Gospel to multiple households and several were saved. In fact Kyin and her two sons even came to church on Saturday night.

I want to give a special thanks to Marion Avenue for all their hospitality. Also, Pastor Brown and his wife for all their effort into this special weekend. Of course the Fear family did a tremendous job hosting us and I am also appreciative to the Sosa family for allowing us to go soul winning with them and having us to their home. So many others should be mentioned here as well, but time will not allow me to list them all. Please pray for us as we move forward with our mission for the souls of Southeast Asia.  

Brother Sosa and wife

Never Sitting Idle

2 Thessalonians 3:11 "For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies." I was always taught by my parents to stay busy. So even though I have a little stretch without meetings, I have been staying busy remodeling the home churches auditorium as well as consistently preaching the Gospel every chance I get. 

On Saturday morning I was able to win three people to Christ, including Poe Dah. He doesn't speak a ton of English and I can sometimes witness to folks like Poe Dah in the Karen language, however, he wasn't understanding much of my Karen, so Paw (from our church) helped me out by translating the Gospel for me. 

Then later on Saturday afternoon a Karen lady from our church called my wife and wanted to know if her Thara Doh (Me) could come that evening and preach at her husband's birthday party. I agreed and preached on having two births. The majority of the people there either go to our church or have been before and already gotten saved in the past. However, there were two Vietnamese co-workers of the husband that were there and ended up trusting Christ as their Saviour! Praise God! I was able to lead seven people to Christ for the week...

A Great Week at Home

Karen family visiting church

My wife and Nan Mary

The Strilkivsky's

I have a short break for a few weeks while we are remodeling our church auditorium. I am helping do a large part of the remodeling effort along with two other men in our church. However, after spending most of July from New Mexico to Indiana, we were ready for a little break from travel. This Sunday we had several visitors at church. One family visiting was Ber Wah with his wife Desea Nar and their daughter. They are a Karen family from Burma. What a joy to have new families at church.

Also this weekend the Strilkivsky's wanted to get together with us for some Thai food. So we took them to eat at Blessings Thai Restaurant. Blessings is owned by one of our members named Nan Mary. She is a former Buddhist led to Christ by my wife a few years ago. She is a faithful member of our church who shuts down her restaurant on Sunday's for church and Wednesday nights for Bible study and Thursday night for soul winning. God has blessed her business greatly because of this. So Saturday night we spent the evening with a Ukrainian family from our church eating at a Thai restaurant owned by a lady from our church who is from Burma! God is good folks. We led five folks to Christ this week also. Please pray for Southeast Asia, they are 99% lost over there.  

Two Great Midweek Meetings

Masoka and Peter with Pastor McCurdy

This week I had a meeting rescheduled for the upcoming Wednesday, so I decided that I would stop by Cedar Rapids, IA and take a family to church with me that are from of our church in Lincoln. This family is in the process of moving to Cedar Rapids and part of the family already moved several weeks ago. I knew of the Gospel Light Baptist Church in that area and we already had a connection with a family in that church that use to be members of our church about 9 or 10 years ago. So we got the pastor's number and contacted him. After telling him what we were going to do, he decided to have me preach and present our ministry. It was tremendous blessing to us and we were glad to take Masoka and her son Peter to visit the church. They were made to feel very welcome by everyone there.  

Then we traveled to our Thursday night meeting in Berne, IN at the Faith Baptist Church. Brother Travis Combest is the pastor there and we were made to feel very welcome. I had a chance to give my presentation and preach to his people. It is a fine church. They have a new pastor coming next month as Brother Combest will be moving to Texas. God blessed our stay as we received a tour of the Popcorn Farm the next morning which is where we stayed overnight. It truly was a great week and we ended up having three saved for the week.

Myself with Pastor Combest son