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JULY/AUG NEWSHistoryMakers Engage South-East Asia
Welcome to our bi-monthly news section – created especially for those of you who have joined us and share our passion for the unreached peoples of this world. This month we look at the summer short-term trip, next steps in missions discipleship, Vietnam and the awesome new mission photographs available to download.
Three weeks. Three nations.
During August we’d appreciate your prayers for our short-term team. The group of eight will travel from the UK to spend a few weeks in Laos and Thailand. This is one of the most spiritually dark corners of the world. It's a melting pot of unreached tribes, Buddhism, spirit worship and Communism. Throw in a cruel military regime and some of the poorest people on earth and it's not hard to get the picture.
Whilst in Laos, the team will be taking sensitive materials to our contacts. Please pray for safety, traveling mercies and a successful passage through the country as it is a very difficult place in which to be a Christian – it's still in the Top 10 most persecuted countries.
Following this we'll be spending five days with Burmese orphans at a jungle camp on the border with Thailand. These precious kids have fled genocide from the autocratic government, hell-bent on wiping out tribal people - with particular emphasis on Christian tribes such as the Karen and Chin. The things these children have seen and experienced are simply beyond the comprehension of most of us. Their friends and family have been shot, raped, tortured and burnt alive. As if that isn’t bad enough, those that escape the persecution often lose their lives to malaria in the jungle, or to starvation. There is a desperate need for Prayer. Pray for the Burmese. God has saved many, but many more are still without hope. Pray that the team can be effective in ministering Bible stories to the children. Pray also for good-health for the team.
Camp Mission
Every year our Youth Officer has the immense privilege of speaking in churches and Christian camps. A (personal) favourite of ours is CCYC (aka Cumbrian Christian Youth Camp). The dates this year were 28/29 July. If you were there then hopefully you were able to attend the two seminars that we hosted to encourage passion and vision for the mission of God to all peoples.
Mission Photography
Since the launch of our new website in December 2009, more than 2,000 people have accessed our ‘wallpapers’ page. From a database of 12,000 images from across Asia, we’ve selected the very best images that capture Asia in a way that few westerners ever get to see. Every picture is downloadable in high quality. Recently we added a few dozen more wallpapers. We like to update our website as often as possible, and not just the wallpapers! Keep your eyes peeled for new articles, news and videos!
‘Bought the T-shirt’
You may have met a missionary. They’re (usually) very interesting or inspiring. Perhaps you’ve heard a few of them speaking in your church or at a conference - it’s always riveting stuff. There’s nothing quite like a swift kick up the seat of your pants from a challenging missionary! But there’s a problem...what happens next? When the dust settles, what DO we DO? Not everyone can jump on a plane and fly to China. In fact, some of the least reached places on earth are the most difficult to access.
The Command is to ‘GO’. But this Christ-given command doesn’t always mean a plane ticket to somewhere remote. We can all obey the Great Commission right where we are.
Physically going or praying about foreign countries is not the only practical application to His command. Missions also begins in your school or neighbourhood before you even set foot in a jungle, desert or on a mountain. There are so many ways we can get involved. With the help of The Traveling Team, we’ve got 12 lessons together to guide you as you move from being an inspired Christian to a world-changing, history-making disciple of Christ. Topics include things like the Biblical basis for missions, the 10/40 Window, major religions, people groups, and your role in world evangelization. These lessons are only available to registered historymakers. Click here to find out more.
Emerging Economy
Vietnam (a country just to the right of Laos) is comparatively wealthy to its neighbours. In fact, many people consider it to be one of the most important economically emerging economies. As China and India have been doing for the last ten years (providing large amounts of cheap labour and manufactured goods), so Vietnam is following in their steps. Vietnam’s law even gives religious freedom to its people. However, this is not true in practice because the government controls all religious movements and it is hard to be a Christian. Particularly in the North. Many churches are burned down and families banished from their villages, or even killed. Please pray for courage and strength in God’s people there as they be the salt and light to their people.
You can also pray for ‘Project Smile’. As a result of this massive economical growth and expansion, the Northern section of Vietnam has been particularly damaged by pesticides. Not just the land, but the people. Not just that, but the people there abuse it like a drug. Children are frequently deformed or become very ill because of their close contact with the chemicals. One major problem is children being born with cleft palates.
Your palate (pronounced ‘pallet’) is basically the roof of your mouth. If you feel with your tongue, you will notice there are two sections of the palate – the hard palate (near the teeth) and the soft palate (near the throat). A cleft palate is a gap between the hard and soft palates and can range from an opening at the back of the soft palate, to total separation of the roof of your mouth. Many people are being born with cleft palates, and also cleft lips (vertical gap between your top lip and nose). AsiaLink supplies people in these areas with a range of care - from operations, to wheelchairs and rehabilitation. There are many things to pray about in this project – from the doctors, their operations, and the conversations they are able to have with the people, to the children as they adjust to a more normal lifestyle, or to the rehabilitation centres and the workers there. Find out more about Vietnam here.
