Jesus in Vietnam Ministries

VBS 2017 PRAISE REPORT

We praise God and thank all of you who prayed and supported this year’s VBS. What a blessing to be here to see God’s love showered on His precious children. We had a few less attending (110 children) this year (picture above) due to free tutoring classes offered at school for the first 2 weeks of June, teenage children taking summer jobs, and one family of 5 from Teo Neo going to visit relatives in Hanoi. God gave us 4 joyful days of fellowship, fun, and the opportunity to show and share the love of Jesus with His children. In a country that worships so many false idols, the children were first taught about the one true living God who created heaven and earth through the Eternal Way message God gave Mai many years ago (picture below). The use of the visual presentation really got the children’s attention and made it easier for them to understand God’s power, majesty, and love for them. The teaching also covered man’s disobedience to God and our need for a Savior in order to be forgiven of our sins and have a personal relationship with God through His Son Jesus.

Then the Gospel was shared with each class over a 3 day period. We yielded to Pastor Nghia, the pastor in charge of the youth ministry from Saigon, to give the altar call as he requested. Pastor Nghia’s group of young people from different churches travel around Vietnam putting on evangelistic outreach performances of the Gospel. They do this free of charge as the church only has to provide the people to attend. They arrived in the morning and spent most of the day setting up a stage on the patio behind the kitchen. Then that night they presented a program of songs/skits that shared the Gospel. At the end Pastor Nghia asked all who had sin in their life to come up to the stage. All but 2 kids came forward (picture above), even our church kids who had already accepted Jesus, but knew they still had sin in their lives. Pastor Nghia then led them in prayer asking for forgiveness of their sins and asking Jesus into their heart. Later, the VBS teachers followed up with the non-believers in their classes to make sure they understood what they had done. Praise God as 18 children asked Jesus into their heart for the first time! Please pray we will be able to schedule this ministry to return to Binh Chau to perform at our Christmas Evangelistic Outreach. Pastor Nghia was very excited about the open space we had on our soccer field and bringing even a bigger stage to reach a large number of people with the Gospel in one night.

BIKES, BIKES, AND MORE BIKES

Thanks to the generous donations of Mrs. Bigelow’s class and many more of you at CFC, we gave away more bikes than any other year (40 bikes in all). We gave away 25 bikes at VBS for Scripture memorization (picture above) and then another 15 the week after VBS to deserving children whose names weren’t drawn at VBS. When Tod Newman called us up to pray for us at CFC the Sunday before we left for Vietnam, he commented on he would like to see how God uses these bikes to affect a child’s life when they are 40. Well, God, in His providence, gave us a “wink from heaven” with such an encouraging story on one girl (Tram) who years ago won a bike at VBS. We don’t have room for this precious story in this newsletter, but will put out a different email to share it with you. It brought tears to our eyes and such joy in our heart seeing a glimpse of how God used a bike to impact this young girl into adulthood. Chua La Toc Lanh (God is good) Muoi Luc Muoi Noi (All the time)!

THE HARVEST IS PLENTIFUL

The week after VBS ended we took a 7 hour van ride to a small town close to the Cambodian border. What we witnessed was nothing but a miracle from God as He showed us the depth of His love and mercy for all who call upon His name. No room here for details, but we will put out another email soon. We promise you will be blessed by this story:)

PRAYER REQUESTS

Please pray for Thuong’s protection as he is a 5 year old boy who attended VBS every day and then was beaten by his father and uncle for attending.

Please pray for God to give us wisdom, discernment, and strength in mentoring the Binh Chau Church leadership as we now address some issues that have brought division between some.

“How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you.”
1 Thessalonians 3:9