SE Asia Short Term

SE ASIA REPORT

South East Asia: Tropical jungles, rugged mountains, Mekong river, Buddhism, Communism, Animism. It's a place of diverse people and diverse beliefs. It's also one of the least reached parts on the planet.

July 2008

The task: Deliver Bibles, teaching aids and gospel tracts.

The team: 9 young people from around the UK and Ireland led by AsiaLink’s youth officer.

After we made it across the border on our first night, we were cautiously able to share our faith with a man who was sitting playing his guitar in a shop front. ‘N’ spoke good english and had already heard of ‘Yesu’ (Jesus) from the work of missionaries and was very close to becoming a Christian.

Soon after, we spent 10 hours travelling by mini-van to meet members of the underground church. We were able to safely deliver materials to the believers and as a real bonus we also managed to spend a few hours with one of the housechurch leaders. ‘S’ told us how the Church is growing, particularly among some of the tribal people groups. He also gave us a few prayer needs, especially for imprisoned Chrisitans like the retired government official who has served 10 years of a 15 years sentence for evangelizing other officials.

He also told us about a government-granted licence that Christians need in order to share the Gospel with others – a card that only a handful of people have been given! ‘S’ mentioned that in each housechurch, only two out of three people have a Bible of their own... a sobering reminder that even though we have been taking teams for a number of years now, we are only scratching the surface of the need of the Christians here. Needless to say, ‘S’ was extremely grateful to the whole team for carrying rucksacks full of God’s Word to be distributed among the tribal house churches.

Each day the team was blessed with opportunities to share about Jesus with Buddhist monks, nationals and English speaking minority tribal people. One such instance led one team member to make friends with a new believer. ‘T’ who was only 17 years old, invited us to join with a small gathering of believers who were studying God’s Word together every week. The topic for that day – Persecution! We were all humbled as we spoke with ‘T’ and with others about persecution they were already experiencing from their families and authorities.

Later that week we went to visit a local housechurch Sunday gathering. ‘S’ had assured us it wouldn’t cause any problems for the local believers. What a tremendous privilege to join in worshipping Yesu and listen to God’s Word in a tiny building which over 70 Christians squeezed into each week. The team even had the opportunity to sing Amazing Grace to the congregation–a melody which some of the older believers knew already and brought tears to their eyes and to ours too!

We travelled on to another part of the country to distribute in villages. One of our drivers spoke good English so a team member shared about Jesus. He had owned an English Bible years before in the capital city but could not remember any of it. Amazingly enough, we had kept back one copy of the Bible to bring home to the UK to use in meetings about this country. Later that night we met again. He was overjoyed to receive the Bible in his own language, even though he was Buddhist. We instructed him to read the Gospel of John and told him we would pray that he would give his life to Christ. He said he would like to but that his grandparents, who were Buddhist, would be offended if he did.

Please pray that God would continue to bless the persecuted Church in SE Asia. Pray that those who have been imprisoned for their faith would continue to stand firm and that the Holy Spirit would bring comfort to them in their time of need. Pray that minority tribal groups would be reached with the Good News.

Here's a testimony from two of the team members:
"What a blessing it was to be part of the short term mission trip, not only were we able to bless the pastors as we gave them Bibles and literature but we were each personally blessed by God as well. The team was great and I think it was a mix between their enthusiasm and the solid wall of prayer backing us up that allowed God to work over and above our expectations during the trip. When we prayed, God even provided a great English-speaking driver whom we were able to witness to, and when we prayed for opportunities, God gave us 4 people to talk to on the first day. God has blessed me, through the people we met, the people on the team and the amazing things He has taught me. I thank him for sending me to XXX and showing me how much he loves the unreached people over there." Chris, Oxfordshire

"The mission trip with AsiaLink's youth dept. HistoryMakers, was something I'll never forget. God showed me that although the people are being persecuted for their faith, that He hasn't forgotten them and that He is blessing them as they serve and obey Him, despite the consequences they could face in doing so. We, in Ireland and the UK need to learn from them and start obeying God when it comes to sharing our faith, or we'll never experience the blessings and growth that they see. Attending the underground church was a highlight for me and I left XXX, feeling encouraged in my faith and challenged at the same time. It was a wonderful experience and something that anyone of us could do."
Suzie, Ireland