Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Back from Asia and Celebrating all God did!




What an amazing God we serve! He is at work accomplishing His will for His glory whether we are here in America, in Cambodia, in India or anywhere His people are abandoned to Him.  It was a true blessing to see God at work calling many to be His disciples across Asia.  God said through the prophet Hosea, “My people perish for lack of knowledge.” Hosea 4:6.  Jesus said, “The fields are white unto harvest.”  Luke 10:2.  The reality of both statements hit Joan and I square in the face as we visited villages across Cambodia and India.











By simply sharing the story from Creation to Christ we had the privilege of seeing close to 1,000 new believers enter God’s Kingdom.  The simple sharing of these truths gave hundreds the knowledge needed to know where to put their faith.  Yes, the fields are white for harvest!  When the message was told the people responded!







The heavy persecution in some of the areas we worked does not permit us to share the specific details of the places and people we worked with.  However, we saw hundreds of Buddhists and Hindus leave their tradition and respond in faith after hearing of God’s love and plan for their lives.  Our main purpose was not simply evangelism.  Our purpose was to connect these new believers in house churches that would be a witness to reach their villages with the gospel.  We saw 45 new house churches started in areas where no gospel presence was known.  Each of these churches were left with a leader ready to continue the follow up we had already begun.  Each seemed to catch the vision of both reaching their village and establishing under the direction of the Holy Spirit new house churches in other villages as well.






Our hearts were especially touched one day by the resolve of a certain man of peace to reach his village. It was the second day that we had been in his village modeling the principles of leading a discipleship group with the many new believers when he brought the translator to us to share this heart, “ I know you have come a long way from the US to share with us and I want you to know that your labor has not been in vain.  Although it will take some time we will reach this whole village and beyond!” What words of faith!



That  fresh faith and boldness displayed by these transformed new believers ministered to us and strengthened our resolve to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission.

We witnessed miracles of healing, deliverance and provision.   We saw baptisms in villages of over 10,000 people that had never recorded a baptism in the history of the village.  We saw people of peace raised up, leaders established and the spread of the Gospel continue on... all to the glory of God!


We want to thank you for your participation with us.  Many of you gave very sacrificially.  Without those gifts we could not have had the opportunity to go.  Many others prayed faithfully for our protection and our availability to be used by God.  God was faithful on both accounts.  We would love to share in more detail the countless victories God had while we were ministering in Asia and would have greater freedom one on one.  Please feel free to give us a call.  We would enjoy bragging on God!

Until the Nations Hear,
Mark & Joan
Romans 15:20-21