HIM FAMILY NEWS MARCH 2010
A Little Taste of America
February 26th marked the inaugural launch of Rebuilding America: Missions@US. The seed began with five persons from different backgrounds. Two weeks prior to the event, God provided a new couple to TEAM USA. Indeed, God molded us into one team within a short period. It was not always smooth sailing managing all our busy schedules. Our dedicated team planned this launch trusting God fully. Derek did the deco. Even at the very last minute on the day itself, Junming (a guest) called to help Jon buy dinner for the evening.
We anticipated an attendance of thirty persons. God superseded our expectations. On the night, fifty-five persons showed up creating a burger crisis (insufficient dinner). Again God intervened by alerting us to prepare more than the sign-ups and perhaps someone was on a diet too. Though it was not twelve baskets of left over (remember that we’re talking about Singaporeans here), at the end of the night a lone Big Mac remained.
Our original plan was to feed everybody with the latest American comeback, WENDY’s. Due to a long queue at Lau Pa Sat, we had to forego this plan to go with the iconic Mcdonald’s. It was Junming’s offer to help check out Wendy’s before everything overran.
We started with dinner and mingling. After the carb with sugar rush, the programme started with a welcome from Pastor Lawrence. This was followed with a presentation on the findings about US churches from David Olson’s book, The American Church in Crisis. We have heard about American celebrity pastors, but the number of Christians is stagnating compared to population growth with most church growth coming from immigrants.
Next Ruey shared his story about starting a care group in the Silicon Valley, Northern California. He put his faith in God and saw miracles. He told the story of setting a goal of reaching twelve people. God answered this prayer of faith. Ruey was reminded that with God, anything is possible.
Then Pastor Ben spoke. He reminisced that our church started nineteen Februaries ago on Feb 17th 1991. Today our church is going global. He focused on the US, a country with very diverse cultures. He explained the church planting plan for the US and challenged us to play our part in building God’s church. He then prayed for us.
Later Keith took group photos before we broke into three discussion groups. Some were keen to study in the US whilst others wanted to work in the US. Many questions were about missions and life in the US. When discussions ended, we said goodbyes. Team USA cleared up, locked up and did a short debrief. Next we follow through with our respondents. Pray with us as we prepare for church planting in the US.
You can reach us at rebuildingamericahope@gmail.com
Written by Anne Djitowibowo
Hope Nairobi, Africa
At the end of 2009, Hope Nairobi wishes to thank God for the many people who held on to the Word of God and practiced it in their lives. We thank God for our two new care leaders who chose to obey the Lord and saw their lives changing. We had the privilege of having Pastor Willie praying and prophesying over them upon their appointment in October. Both care leaders saw themselves growing in their wisdom and understanding of the Lord intimately. Bravo, James K of Nairobi 1 and Ernest W of Nairobi 2.
Since many of us chose to obey the Lord and chose to give, we are seeing our potential being realised. The Lord blessed us with many young men, like Gibson, who managed to provide leadership to Hope Nairobi when we did the Orphanage project in December. Hope Nairobi managed to raise Ksh12,000 (SIN 250) on our own. It may look little to many, but for a young church like ours, it was a great accomplishment. Praise the Lord!
Hope Nairobi was also privileged to have a wonderful German couple teach us how to communicate. Through the session, we learned to express ourselves in a more objective yet heartfelt manner in order to convey the effect of difficult situations on relationships. Thank you, Doris and Frank Baur.
Last November saw us hold our first sport day where we just went crazy, having fun and playing football. Thank you everyone for making the day a success. We really knew how to have fun. We have never seen Steve ran so fast!
We have seen many new young men and women rising up. Maxwell is now our resident guitar player, Emma is now involved calling visitors, Steve is now a shepherd and has excelled in our Hope Nairobi Information and challenges us constantly to keep reading, Ben and Joy are now challenged to be consistent in care group and the list goes on.
In spite of setbacks, we know God is constantly blessing us with young people to disciple and train the leaders of tomorrow. One day, we pray that Hope Nairobi will produce many young Christ-centred disciples to contribute in every area of society.
We know our success does not depend just on us, but on a partnership with many others. They saw our potential and chose to give: Hope Singapore, who has taken the time to pray and challenge us by sending teams to train and disciple us. Pastor Willie, after an exhausting time travelling into Liberia, happily joined the care leaders to Jomo Kenyatta University to meet people on the matatu (local bus). The Baurs, who gave up Sundays in their own church, to help us communicate and most of all, our dearest Lord, who challenged us again and again to be excellent in everything. Amen. We are what we are today because many before us have given into us and for us.
2010 will be another exciting year.
Lisa Chee
Hope Nairobi, Africa
At the end of 2009, Hope Nairobi wishes to thank God for the many people who held on to the Word of God and practiced it in their lives. We thank God for our two new care leaders who chose to obey the Lord and saw their lives changing. We had the privilege of having Pastor Willie praying and prophesying over them upon their appointment in October. Both care leaders saw themselves growing in their wisdom and understanding of the Lord intimately. Bravo, James K of Nairobi 1 and Ernest W of Nairobi 2.
Since many of us chose to obey the Lord and chose to give, we are seeing our potential being realised. The Lord blessed us with many young men, like Gibson, who managed to provide leadership to Hope Nairobi when we did the Orphanage project in December. Hope Nairobi managed to raise Ksh12,000 (SIN 250) on our own. It may look little to many, but for a young church like ours, it was a great accomplishment. Praise the Lord!
Hope Nairobi was also privileged to have a wonderful German couple teach us how to communicate. Through the session, we learned to express ourselves in a more objective yet heartfelt manner in order to convey the effect of difficult situations on relationships. Thank you, Doris and Frank Baur.
Last November saw us hold our first sport day where we just went crazy, having fun and playing football. Thank you everyone for making the day a success. We really knew how to have fun. We have never seen Steve ran so fast!
We have seen many new young men and women rising up. Maxwell is now our resident guitar player, Emma is now involved calling visitors, Steve is now a shepherd and has excelled in our Hope Nairobi Information and challenges us constantly to keep reading, Ben and Joy are now challenged to be consistent in care group and the list goes on.
In spite of setbacks, we know God is constantly blessing us with young people to disciple and train the leaders of tomorrow. One day, we pray that Hope Nairobi will produce many young Christ-centred disciples to contribute in every area of society.
We know our success does not depend just on us, but on a partnership with many others. They saw our potential and chose to give: Hope Singapore, who has taken the time to pray and challenge us by sending teams to train and disciple us. Pastor Willie, after an exhausting time travelling into Liberia, happily joined the care leaders to Jomo Kenyatta University to meet people on the matatu (local bus). The Baurs, who gave up Sundays in their own church, to help us communicate and most of all, our dearest Lord, who challenged us again and again to be excellent in everything. Amen. We are what we are today because many before us have given into us and for us.
2010 will be another exciting year.
- Pray for us. We want to see 20 young exciting men for God who will be our future care leaders. Praise the Lord for James K, who attained a new position at a structural engineering company and Ernest in receiving a German scholarship for his Masters in Biotechnology.
- Pray for Gibson, who will be our next care-leader, for his interview with Coca Cola and that he will gained wisdom from the present care leaders for ministry.
- Pray for Maxwell that he will grow to be a musician who disciples other musicians.
- Pray for Ben that he will influence more lawyers to Hope Nairobi.
- Pray for Steve that he can influence more Information Technology personnel.
- Pray for us as we plan an exciting Valentine’s Day safari walk, allowing people to understand what “Love” truly is. Pray for many more structural engineers, people in biotechnology; and of course, the list goes on. Isn’t that exciting!
Lisa Chee
Hope Nairobi, Africa
The second Hope Nepal Camp was successfully held on the 17th to 19th of October, 2009. The three-day event was held at Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, and the theme for this year was “The Core Part I”. There were 39 people who attended the camp, including 10 children. Pastor Kit Siang and Sister Lih Qing from Hope Serdang, flew to Kathmandu to join us in this event. Brothers and sisters from other provinces like Butwal and Pokhara also travelled hundreds of miles to come and join us at Kathmandu.
Due to limitations in transport and poor road conditions, some of the brothers and sisters had to travel by bus for 13 hours. There were even some who required a few days just to reach Kathmandu in time for the camp. This really showed that our fellow believers in Nepal greatly desire for the Word of God. It was a great time of family gathering for Hope Nepal churches to receive ministering from God.
The camp officially started on Saturday afternoon. The opening ceremony was officiated by a group of PKC children presenting two action songs, praising the Lord for His faithfulness and welcoming the attendees. It was then followed by a speech from Bro. Prakash, representing Hope Kathmandu, and the organizing committee of the 2nd Hope Nepal Camp. We then moved into a time of praising and worshipping the Lord. Pastor Kit Siang then took over to teach the church the first core value: being “Christ-centred”. Throughout the camp, the church was fed with the Word of God by Pastor Kit Siang teaching the first five core values of the Hope movement. These values are being Christ-Centred, Holy Spirit Empowered, Bible Based, Covenantal Relationship and Enriching Community Life.
One of the objectives of the camp was to see the core values of the church strongly planted in the hearts and minds of all attendees. Besides the teaching on core values, there was also a workshop to teach the people financial management. Pastor Kit Siang discussed the concept of work, tithing, saving and spending in the right sequence when handling money. The church has greatly benefited from the workshop, knowing that we should first work, then give unto God in the form of tithes, and then we should save and lastly we only spend so that we could have abundance as God had intended.
The camp ended on Monday afternoon. The closing ceremony was simple yet touching. Bro. Prakash presented a song, reminding the church about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the reason for the existence of the church. Many brothers and sisters were moved to tears and deep reflection. Although the churches in Nepal are still small, but they have the quality of a mustard seed. After the camp, our brothers and sisters are now equipped with strong biblical values, believing that as they persevere, God will surely help them grow and use them in making an impact in Nepal.
Prayer support is essential for Nepal’s churches. Intercession from prayer partners will make them strong and stand firm in an environment of idol worshipping, political instability and corruption.
Some of the areas we can pray for them:
- 1) Pray that God will heal the land of Nepal. The stronghold of idolatry will be pulled down and the favor of God be upon the land.
- 2) God will bless our Nepalese brothers and sisters in terms of provision and they will be lifted from their daily struggles.
- 3) Pray for the churches to be strong, equipped with biblical values and following the Word of God faithfully.
Hope Kuala Lumpur Bible Conference
Our first Bible Conference (BC) for 2010 was held from February 26-28, revisiting and re-emphasising our core values. The first five core values were taught in last year’s annual Malaysian National Convention (MNC) while the other values (being Bible-based, Christ-centred, Covenantal people, Holy Spirit empowerment and life enriching community) became the main theme for this Bible conference. A total of 480 participants from the Central Region Hope churches attended the event.
During the BC, we were taught to have our faith fundamentally grounded in the Bible and applying the Word of God in our lives. The church will be the vanguard in safeguarding the sanctity and integrity of the Bible. As Christ-centred people, the congregation was taught to align their lives upon Jesus Christ and develop and nurture Christ-centred thinking. Ultimately, the goal of a Christ-focused person is to walk in unity with each other and God, have a stable faith in Jesus, unceasingly speak the truth in love and develop Christ-likeness in every aspect of our lives.
A covenantal-driven church focuses on God’s covenant and above all, loving, honouring and worshipping Him as well as loving and forgiving one another by resolving differences and reconciling relationships. Only through the empowerment of Holy Spirit, are we continuously being moulded in His likeness and only by the anointing of the Holy Spirit are we able to function in our spiritual gifts. Through the development of our spiritual gifts, we are able to create a life-enriching community that enthusiastically enfolds people from all cultures with unconditional love and meeting needs holistically.
By cultivating such values, we are able to transcend racism, prejudice, animosity and bias; instead, nurturing a caring community where help, compassion, sharing and fellowship are naturally expressed out of sincere love and deep commitment towards one another. Engendering such values will help the churches to relate to diverse cultures and people, serving their needs holistically and touching lives for Christ.
Overall, the conference was a success and participants were impacted by the teachings of our charismatic leaders.
Furthermore, Ps Prakich travelled many miles just to grace the event together with the local church leaders. Kudos and praise to the organising team for their time and effort in making this conference a huge success. It has inspired people to live up to the expectations of God and endeavour towards the church vision of instilling Christ-centred people to plant vibrant, biblical churches in Malaysia and all over the continents.
Reported by Ang Beng Kuan, Hope KL
Hope Manila Valentine Day Celebration
All over the Philippines, the 14th of February is a huge day of celebration for Valentine’s Day. It was also a big day for Hope Manila. Beyond the romantic celebration between couples, Hope Manila rejoiced about the agape love of God. The preaching of Sister Eunice Tan Messengtham centered on the question “Have you really forgiven?” - providing everyone a closer look into the second greatest commandment of “love one another as yourself”.
The highlight of the lunch fellowship that followed the Sunday Service was the drama skit by the Youth Sub-District of the day-to-day life of a married Filipino couple. The marriage, as depicted on stage, was a typical one: started out as sweet as a strawberry-glazed icing, as delightful as any honeymoon could be. The years passed by and the strawberry-glazed icing became as sour as kiwi fruit. Sadly, the marriage became a charade of smiles and hidden sorrows, laden with unspoken hurts from years ago. Of course, the saving grace of a happy ending came with both the husband and the wife forgiving each other and making their marriage an offering to Christ. Indeed a joyful celebration of the true love of Christ!
The Family Sub-District had a romantic soiree for its married couples, dressed in all their finery, who danced the night away. Hope Manila’s church hall was transformed into a ballroom where the typically casual pops and moms transformed into dashing gentlemen and beautiful ladies. And not to be outdone, the couples made the night as fun as it was romantic! There were games galore and everyone came home joyful, hopeful and full of purpose. Oh, what a lovely day for Hope Manila!
