Photo above is a view of Ch-village from top of a hill
First and foremost, I want to confess and apologize to you. I have not invested the proper and enough time to update you all on my journey here in Artesia. Instead, when I have tried to update you, I have been rather vague and focusing too much on the delivery of my words rather than the depth of my content; it was wrong that attraction was my priority when writing updates. I was convicted by the fact that some, or many, of my partners do not have an idea what kind of work I am doing here. My heart was that you would be disappointed in the lack of outreach or results during this season, and I let that have a huge factor in what & how I wrote my updates. So, here: straight-forward, detailed, and honest updates.
Schedule
I share with you my brief weekly schedule:
- Monday - Morning pr. on education, lang. lesson, study, receive coaching
- Tuesday - Morning pr. & wrshp, lang. lesson x2, study, team meeting
- Wednesday - Lang. lesson x2, study, fellowship/rest
- Thursday - Morning pr. on villages x2, go to village, reflection & visioning
- Friday - Lang. lesson, study, go to village (sometimes overnight), discipleship
- Saturday - House group, study, discipleship, rest
- Sunday - Fellowship, discipleship, sabbath, rest
DMM
As you know, I went to Dubai last month receiving training for this. When entering a community, this is our approach. We enter community via access points (meet needs, serve, business, education, etc.) and look for what we call ‘Person of Peace (PoP), people who are open to the message, welcoming us to their home and community, and sharing what they hear to their own networks. We, then, make dis’ples via Word study groups that focuses on teaching locals to obey His commandments. Then, we train and coah PoP’s to facilitate group to read, obey, share, and start new groups. We allow the Word to speak rather than we providing the answers. Experience shows that people who are engaging in the Word, obeying Him, and sharing leads to transformation and commitment. We envision to see those study groups turn into ‘house’ fellowships, who begins to engage and obey His commandments altogether. And during this process, those PoP’s are repeating this process within their groups (looking for PoP’s and training them to start more groups). The house fellowships multiplies and repeats. Behind all this, we engage in constant pryer and coaching. Please keep in mind that this is not to say this is the best strategy, but one that we use to see multiplication of followers. For more depth, read more about it here! https://goo.gl/aqyA4r
PoP
Brother J, a doctor, is a local man I have been weekly meeting with for English lessons, while I get practice as well. From what started as English lessons, it has led to a relationship that He continues to reach out to me as a brother. Now, I am sharing with him the bible stories I am learning in his tongue language. He is very open and even opened up his family to meeting me. His whole family is very respected and liked in his village and I am prayerfully pursuing this relationship with faith that God will transform brother J, his whole family, ... his whole village come to faith one day!
Host Family
Unfortunately, finance is the biggest topic my host family talks about. I will be moving out in less than a month and they constantly ask me to assist with either finances or for potential people looking for housing. In a home where the son is the only male figure and source of income, it's been tough for them to go week-by-week to pay the bills. They go to the extent of shipping over dogs from Russia and selling them for money. His wife recently had a son and as much blessing that was for them, they are aware it’ll put them in a deeper whole in terms of need for money. I am connecting very well with my host brother and our relationship has been one that I will continue to pour into. The grandmother’s knee’s pain is increasing, but she is able to walk. Pray for their financial and physical needs and dependence on God.
Pr
A house of pr exists here, and every day, there are groups of people who father in pr-ing for different sectors for this country (trafficking, education, villages, business, and etc.). Also, there is a monthly overnight pr for dif. Regions. Last night, we spent 7.5 hours from 10pm to 5:30am in pr-ing for different parts of the country. The night starts with the whole city without electricity. We began the night without light, and it was as if God wanted to make us aware of the darkness around us. Throughout the night, we pr-ed that light be shone in these dark streets. After not even an hour, electricity came on and we continued sharing amazing stories of God’s work. One story I want to share with you I this one team using the book of Proverbs as an access point to reach out to villages and students. They have been working with two locals who do the recordings on their language and do the drawing of each recording. These two individuals aren’t believers but reading and drawing has drawn them toward The Word, they got to share The Good News with them. We had the change to hear these stories and intercede for them. We also corporately pr-ed for the Gypsies communities and many dif. Villages. Pr is a huge investment for all the workers with faith. Our faith is that ‘multiplied’ pr-er leads to multiplication in transformation in Artesia. I encourage you to read more about the vision and history of house of pr! https://goo.gl/OG85VQ
Villages
One of my focus is towards the un-reached villages. So far, I have made visits to several villages: K-village, P-village, and Ch-village. At K-village, we saw a very close-knit relationship within the community as they gathered and mourned over a death of a young baby. We are continuing our walk through the streets of that village from house-to-house with faith and hope of a PoP to be shown. At P-village, one family that we have a relationship with has opened and invited us back. With a woman going through depression and concerns for health, we plan to make another visit soon to love and share with them. Ch-village is one location I strong feel drawn at the moment with brother-J. Currently, I want to continue deepening my relationship with a potential PoP in this season of lang. learning and using teaching as an access point.
Student Outreach
Unfortunately, one area that I wanted to invest most time into has been one of the most challenging aspects of being here. As an Asian-American, many students have shown disrespect in various ways: randomly yelling at me as they pass me, laughing at me, assuming I’m Chinese and acting stereotypically, and even spitting in my direction. To be honest, it has been a huge discouragement, frustration & anger, and mental exhaustion. But, on the other hand, I have met several students who have been very willing to help and even opened their friend networks. Sports, such as soccer and Frisbee, have been an efficient access point to meeting and looking for PoP’s. Join me in pr-ing for this area that He will bring a huge breakthrough.
Much needed pr. requests:
- I have had some sort of pain in my left foot/ankle/bottom shin for the past 2.5 weeks. A lot of pain when standing or walking for more than a couple minutes. Currently, I have the flu and have resulted in missing some part of days I didn’t want to. Pr. for healing & burden-free.
- Language process. Continue to lift up my language progress so that I would be able to converse, connect, and share with locals.
- Like I have shared, connecting with students has been extremely difficult. Pr. that I’d use the access points He provides through my gifts and interest to meet and find PoP’s within the university students.