by Dennis & Mai Spencer | January 24th, 2024
CHILDREN’S CHRISTMAS OUTREACH
We held our Children’s Christmas Outreach on Saturday, December 23rd with 51 children attending. Even though the start time wasn’t until 6 pm, the children began showing up around 3 pm. They had a sweet time of fellowship with plenty of soccer, basketball, and foosball going on. Then they sat down to enjoy a hot meal cooked by Loan, our orphanage housemother. Once the Christmas program started, they were shown an animated video of the birth of Christ, interspersed with Christmas carols sung by 2 of our youth choirs.
This was followed by Pastor Tu sharing a message on the true meaning of why we Christians celebrate Christmas. As always, the highlight of the evening came when Pastor Tu gave an altar call and 8 children came forward to ask Jesus into their heart as their Lord and Savior. To God be the glory!
Afterwards, each child received a Christmas gift, which included a Gospel tract to share with their family back home. We thank God for blessing us with another wonderful Children’s Christmas Outreach where we were able to share with these precious children how much Jesus loves them. We love holding our Children’s Christmas Outreaches as the children are always so filled with excitement and enthusiasm. And most importantly, open to hearing the Gospel.
FAMILY CHRISTMAS OUTREACH
We held our Family Christmas Outreach on Sunday evening, December 24, with 71 people attending. We followed the same format as our Children’s Outreach with a showing of a video about the birth of Jesus interspersed with 4 different choirs and 3 solo performers singing songs about Christmas.
Pastor Tu then shared his message of the true meaning of Christmas and gave an altar call. What a blessing as 15 people came forward and asked Jesus into their heart as their Lord and Savior. Chua La Toc Lanh (God is good) Moi Luc Moi Noi (All the time)!
Each child in attendance received a Christmas gift and every person received a Christmas bag with a sandwich, a drink, and a small gift inside. The bags also contained different Gospel tracts. We praise God for blessing us with another year of fruitful Christmas Outreaches where the Gospel was preached, God gave them understanding of their need for a Savior, and He softened hearts to come forward to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
2024 BUILDING CAMPAIGN UPDATE
We shared in our last newsletter our desire to build a second orphanage/love house and asked for you to join us in prayer for God to provide the funds for us to start construction before the end of the year. We also asked for those praying about your year-end giving to consider helping us jump start the funding for our new building. We praise God and thank each of you who prayed and gave generously to our request. God now has provided over 27% of the funding needed for this project. We still have a long way to go to reach our goal, but we are so excited and encouraged to be off to such a wonderful and blessed beginning.
PRAYER REQUESTS
Please pray for God’s protection on the 23 new believers from our Christmas Outreaches against persecution that will come their way from non-Christian family members and friends. Please pray God will give them strength to stand firm in their new faith and use them to influence their family/friends for Christ. Please pray God will draw them closer to Him and give them the desire to attend church so they might grow in their walk with Him.
Please pray for God’s protection to cover Mai and her family and all our brothers and sisters in Christ in Tanh Linh from further persecution from local authorities. Please Pray God will give them the strength to stand firm in their faith in Jesus and to seek to know Him more deeply.
Please pray for God’s favor and protection on our witnessing team going to Tanh Linh each month. May God give them many Divine appointments and shield them from the local officials. Please join us in praying God will raise up a Vietnamese missionary (or couple) to move to Tanh Linh to serve Him in telling others about Jesus.
We pick a motto for the church each year and we came up with 2: Share Jesus more in 2024 or Love Jesus more in 2024. We decided on the latter as the Holy Spirit reminded us the more we love Jesus the more desire He will give us to share Jesus with others. Please pray the Binh Chau church congregation (young and older) will embrace our motto this year to show and share the love of Jesus to all those around them.
Please pray God will provide the funding needed to build a second orphanage/love house to be able to take in more children and separate the boys from the girls as most of our current children are now starting their teenage years.
Please pray God will bring a person to Binh Chau with plumbing skills to resolve our ongoing water issues.
Please pray God will open the door for us to publish Mai’s Eternal Way Gospel message on our next trip to Vietnam by providing someone in Vietnam to edit her presentation in Vietnamese.
“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
Jesus in Vietnam Ministries, is a compassion ministry founded by Dennis and Mai Spencer. Vietnamese families suffer from deprivation, lacking sometimes even the necessities of life. In obedience to the many Scriptural commands to help the poor they are enabling families to survive in difficult circumstances. When shown mercy these families are very receptive to the Gospel. The Spencer’s also focus on children, who are the future church of Jesus Christ in Vietnam.