Zambia Testimonies – To God Be The Glory!!
Below are some testimonies we received from a few brothers and sisters in Zambia. We have permission to post them without their names – after all, we want Jesus to increase and for us to decrease. It is so exciting though to hear how God is working through His Holy Spirit and can’t help but share with all of you these little excerpts.
Greetings in the blessed name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Greetings in the name of Jesus our Lord
My testimony is, from the time finished the teaching about the church planting, a change started to take place inside me and l started to recall my past work which l actually considered to be done in vain and l regret because the foundation was not as l have learnt. I have noticed that all the years l spent doing the work of God was really nothing ,how l wish l could go back and do it in Paul’s way. I thank God that the change has started with me so that others may emulate from me and then the church will indeed have a biblical foundation. My change will also affect my family which will influence the church and the community. We would like to translate the material into our local language if God provides the needed funds for translation.Tim, please do not take long to come back.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I am so humbled with what our Lord is doing. Brother, our service today was also different and this is because our homes are changing. Please pray as l meet the leaders tomorrow. ” Let Him increase and us decrease.”
Delhi, India – A Great Hunger For Christ
Friday night, I was in great despair because I knew if the Lord did not step in and heal me, there was no way I was going to be able to fly out of Lusaka Saturday morning due to stomach problems. Lusaka is not the ideal place to be sick, “no place like home.” But all the worry was of no value, the Lord healed me or should I say, “He sealed me,” and I departed Zambia on time.
I Arrived Delhi, India via the soccer crazed Johannesburg and flooded Mumbai Sunday morning after thirty hours of traveling. Fregy was hanging in there after my flight was delayed two hours. We immediately headed off to speak at a new church, meeting in a home on the site of a police station. After bringing a brief message we ate and fellowshipped together, probably much like the early church. Than we headed back to lodging where I fought sleep until 10pm knowing that if I went to bed early, I would not sleep through the night. Had a good sleep and was up early Monday rested and fired up ready to launch GPCP with about 30 key church planters located outside of Delhi at the Agape Camp. This camp and ministry is headed by Dr. Alex Abraham, a surgeon who has dedicated his life to reaching the unreached people groups in India. Pray for him since he had a stroke at his father’s funeral last week.
We completed the GPCP with these key leaders, with many showing a great hunger and interest in getting back to the way of Christ and the apostles. One thing the Lord did reveal to us, as usual, we lack much of the leadership and power of the Holy Spirit. Two areas which were lacking was our intimacy with Christ and relationship with their wives. The Lord did not move exactly like He did in Lusaka, bringing confession and repentance, but He did convict and reveal just as Paul told the Thessalonians, “the Lord is faithful. He will establish you…”
We closed out the launch last night with much zeal and enthusiasm to complete the preparation work for a December four day workshop. I could already see the seed falling on some fertile soil. The increase is the Lord’s responsibility and this He will do in His own way and time. I often think about the slow work of those who have gone before, like Hudson Taylor, John and Betty Stam and many other saints who went to China. Little did they know after they were home with the Lord that God would be bringing thousands, actually, millions to Himself? So, we remain faithful to sow the precious and powerful Seed, the Word of God, leaving the results to the Lord of the harvest. But we still pray that the Lord of the harvest will send forth laborers into His field which IS ripe for harvest. God is truly moving in these last days. He is looking for those vessels for honorable purposes that are willing to change and abandon themselves completely, set apart as holy, useful to the master and ready for every good work.
Today, we leave by bus for Rajasthan. You can see on the map below that Rajasthan is one of the least reached states in India with less than 1 percent Christian. We were going to go by train, but the BJP party is striking the trains and in the north, the Maoists have threatened train bombings today and tomorrow. India remains an exciting and opportune place, probably the “last frontier for the Gospel.”
I have enclosed a picture of the world showing all the unreached people groups with purple dots. Guess what area is almost solid purple? Yes, India, the last nations or people groups to be reached in fulfilling Matthew 24:14. Finally Brothers, pray that the Word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, that He will make our love increase and abound for one another so that He may establish our hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanks for your prayers and encouragement along this incredible journey the Lord has graciously allowed us to participate with Him. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen!
In Christ, Tim
…Spark A Revival Of The Church In Zambia And Beyond!
I sensed before I went to Zambia that God was going to do something incredible there. There were two contributing factors to this. The first factor was that I was being convicted about teaching and preaching about the work of the Holy Spirit while not completely walking in His fullness and under His leadership. The second reason was Henry from Zambia. Henry was sensing that God was going to do a great work there. Incidentally, Sherman and Chris picked up on this in their communication with Henry.
I have taught through Acts and the GPCP manual many times and after the dust settles, there is usually little that really looks like Acts with the exception of a few isolated stops such as in Myanmar, China and Laos. I am always very thankful and privileged to work with God in these areas.
The conviction that lead up to this resulted from our visit to China last year when Chris and I saw firsthand a mighty work of the Spirit which looked like a modern day incarnation of the early church in Acts. I remember at one of the services weeping as I realized that I was missing something and did not have what they had. It was then that the Holy Spirit directed me to the church in Laodicea found in Revelation 3:14-22. Since then, the Lord has been knocking on my heart but I have resisted the knock by telling myself that the Lord has not called me to the West. This was my escape from having to face my pride.
However, this time I knew things were going to be different. I could not and would not teach even one more word for Jesus’ sake unless I knew the Holy Spirit was leading and controlling me. I wanted to stay home, but I departed not really knowing what was going to happen.
When we started our meeting, as is customary, we compared the early church with their contemporary church and as church planters, we contrasted our ministries with Paul’s. We all collectively knew in our hearts that something was missing. It was at this point we all sensed the Holy Spirit convicting us from continuing on until we had confessed and repented of thinking that we are rich, prosperous, in need of nothing, not realizing that we are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. I realize how you might be wondering how this concept can be in such a poverty-stricken country as Zambia, but we were not referring to “physical poverty” but “spiritual poverty.”
A religious tradition of self-righteous pride has been mixed into the church all across Asia and Africa. This tradition has often been propagated by Western good intentions and that includes me as well. In all fairness, we must realize that this also occurred in the early churches of Ephesus and Laodicea about 40 years after they were established. Sorry Lord!
You see, much of the Zambian Church, although located in a very poor country, is in a similar situation as the Western Church. I think Watchman Nee gave us a great insight into the Western Church. At the conclusion of his visit to the USA years ago, he was asked what impressed him most about our churches, ministries and missions. He thought about it for a minute and then replied, “I am amazed at what the Western Churches can do without the Holy Spirit.” Sadly, we continue to take this philosophy overseas.
In conclusion, the results in Zambia were tremendous! It was like dead bones coming alive. I have had some powerful times going through the Scripture and the GPCP manual but NEVER have I sense the power and life of Christ in a more captivating way. Please pray that this will spark a revival of the church in Zambia and beyond.
Lord, we need you. We need to buy from You gold refined by fire so that we may be truly rich, white garments so that we may clothe ourselves in purity and the shame of our nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint our eyes so that we may truly see. I believe He is knocking today, “If anyone hears His voice and opens the door, He will come in to him and eat with him and he with Me.”
Prayer Requests For Africa and India
Please pray as Tim will be traveling to Africa and India via Thailand. I will meet with a brother in Zambia where we will launch God’s Plan for Church Planting (GPCP) with several key leaders. Our brother in Zambia believes strongly that this is the time for a great awakening and renewal of His Bride in Zambia
Then I will travel to Delhi, India where we have just completed publishing #5000 copies of the Hindi GPCP. I will be working with Fregy in Delhi and North India where we will launch the Hindi GPCP in two locations. Then I will travel to South India, Chennai, to work with Lamech to launch the Telugu and Tamil GPCP. We are completely out of several languages in South India which I will evaluate while there.
Thank you again for your prayers which are absolutely vital to our fruitfulness and effectiveness for the glory of our Father and Savior! Tim
Prayer Requests:
(1) The Holy Spirit to prepare all of us in the Word. These Church Planters will be encouraged in the sufficiency of God’s Word and the Holy Spirit to plant churches that honor and bring glory to Christ.
(2) Fruitfullness and wisdom and revival of His Bride
(3) For traveling mercies and health both there and here at home.
(4) Join us in thanking God for this opportunity to work with Him and His gracious provision.
(5) That we would decrease and Christ would increase in all that we say and do.
UPDATE ON YA SOKNIM
Soknim and her family have returned to Cambodia. The United Nations took them to Malaysia, after the court vindicated her attacker, and then left them without any assistance which forced them to return home, even though her life continues to be threatened. Soknim is lives in fear, but the Lord has granted her peace. While we were there, a man with a gun was seen around their house. She is doing well considering…….
Soknim traveled with us via bus from Cambodia to Vietnam to get a current evaluation of her eye, ear and neck. She received a good report; her eye can be mostly corrected with glasses, her ear can be reconstructed and her neck can be repaired after she grows more skin for another skin graft. Thank you for the prayers and funds you have provided for them. I know that God is sovereign but I cannot help but wonder how this might have turned out without the prayers and support of the Body of Christ. When we were with them, she sang “It Is Well With My Soul” at the Sunday meeting. We wanted to share this touching experience with you. you can see at:
MUCH FRUIT in Myanmar and Vietnam
Our hearts are bent in praise for what God is doing through God’s Plan for Church Planting manual. Our one desire is that the Holy Spirit would take the supra-cultural principles of Scripture and translate them into His work in the cultures of these countries. To give you an up-close sample of this fruit, we have included testimonies from the last mission’s trip.
Testimonies from Vietnam of the Power of God’s Word
We shared the circles of God’s order, Christ, marriage, family, church etc. A young evangelist stood up and shared that God was convicting him of not spending time with and loving his wife. Since his wife was at this meeting, we asked him why not share face to face with his wife right there and then. It was a beautiful sight to behold as he confessed to his wife and embraced her.
Here are more testimonies from Myanmar where we completed the entire GPCP manual
“I was pushing myself or promoting myself and now I am reducing myself. I am now mentoring my wife and being accountable to her and family. This new direction is making my ministry much more fruitful.”
“I had neglected my wife so I went back home and repented.”
“I am putting my family before my ministry and now they are becoming stronger along with the church. I have learned about servant leadership and now people are growing and serving together. It used to be only me serving and teaching.”
“This type teaching is different from anything I have ever been taught. It is practical and I realize that we need the Holy Spirit’s power. I now involve my wife and children in the ministry. We have 7 cell groups or house churches since studying GPCP.”
“Now I can train key leaders who are poor and cannot afford to go to seminary.”
“I am teaching GPCP and now our church is planting other churches.”
“Now I have learned that I can do God’s work and plant churches without money. GPCP is simple and practical.”
“I am ministering to family first so that our testimony will be strong to world.” This brother stood up and confessed his lack of servant leadership and his need to minister to the family!
“I thank God for this training. I used to be quick tempered particularly with my wife and family but now our marriage is better. Now I realize how important marriage is in church planting. We are not fighting like we use to.”
Amazing Work In Myanmar!
Some confessed and repented of their old futile and feeble ways of church planting while embracing a new and fresh strategy that is built upon the sufficiency of Scripture and the Holy Spirit. The last day, they presented their own personal church planting strategy, not built on money, man or degrees but built on solid biblical timeless and supra-cultural principles (Part Six). I was amazed it their discernment in separating the absolutes with the non-absolutes of Scripture. It was so neat to see the Lord working into their minds and hearts a renewed boldness and confidence in sufficiency of Christ, His Word and the Holy Spirit to supply all that they need to fulfill their call in Christ Jesus (Matthew 28:18-20).
Many brought pictures of their village churches and ministries where they have been teaching through the CPM on their own, without any support or initiations from us. The Holy Spirit was already expanding and reproducing their disciples and churches. I can only imagine what is going to happen now as God using these dear brothers and sisters to multiply and build His Church.
Testimonies of young leaders, and Sherman and Tony, will follow. I have attached a picture (removed for protection) of the leaders receiving their certificates of completion of GPCP. You would have thought they had received a PHD from Duke or something. I thank our Lord for working through His Church to provide this training and tool in the Burmese and Karen Languages. Also thankful for the new laptop we were able to present to Michael in Burma.
Sherman and Tony are on their way back today from Laos. They have completed the CPM there and we will soon send you a report of our Savior’s amazing grace in Laos. Preliminary report is God has continue His amazing work there too.
Rich in Christ,
Tim
Myanmar and Laos Trip Report
Dear Friends and Supporters,
What a trip! Since I joined Tim in the fall of 2008, I have not experienced such a wonderful time as we watched 25 men and women in Myanmar and 20 men in Laos graduate from the Church Planting Training. First I want to thank each of you for your prayers while we were on the other side of the globe. Without your standing behind us in prayer, we would not be able to make the journey. By God’s grace, I kept healthy and there were no incidents to cause concern.
Our first stop was Chiang Mai, Thailand where Tim and I attended the SEANET Conference. This is a good opportunity to connect with many from various countries in S. E. Asia. We were able to renew a relationship with a brother from India with whom we can partner and expect that this relationship will provide better results than what we have seen before. Please pray for Tim as he goes there in two weeks so that further arrangements can be made for effective CP training in India and neighboring nations.
After spending the weekend with Mike and Ellen (last name removed) in Chiang Mai, I met Tony in Bangkok, a young man who has been working through the CPM on-line in the US. He joined me for the rest of the trip to Myanmar (with Tim) and then Laos.
Myanmar and Laos
NEVER have we seen anything like this before! Young leaders from the Karen, Burmese, Kochin, and Chin people groups completed the Church Planting Manual right down to the final project. We have been doing a “shotgun” approach since 1996, but now we have completely changed the approach to CPM training so the manual is finished quickly, and there is a total picture of Paul’s philosophy of Church Planting, not a fragmented approach. All 63 lessons and projects were completed in three meetings, September 2009, November 2009 and January 2010.
Some confessed and repented of their old futile and feeble ways of church planting while embracing a new and fresh strategy that is built upon the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, and the Holy Spirit’s power. The last day, they presented their own personal church planting strategy (CPM Part Six); not built on money, man’s programs or degrees, but built on solid biblical timeless and supra-cultural principles. We were amazed at their discernment in separating the absolutes from the non-absolutes of Scripture. It was so neat to see the Lord working into their minds and hearts a renewed boldness and confidence in sufficiency of Christ, His Word and the Holy Spirit to supply all that they need to fulfill their call in Christ Jesus (Matthew 28:18-20).
Many brought pictures of their village churches and ministries where they have been teaching through the CPM on their own, without any support or initiations from us. The Holy Spirit was already expanding and reproducing their disciples and churches. I can only imagine what is going to happen now as God uses these dear brothers and sisters to multiply and build His Church.
Laos was much the same as Myanmar. For security reasons, the arrangements were different, but the spirit and fervor of their hearts for taking the principles they learned from God’s Word back to their villages and teaching them to others was thrilling. All of these have suffered in ways in which we have little concept or understanding. Yet, there is a seriousness and determination with them that is rare and hard to find here in the west. When the men were sharing their insights from Scripture, it was clear that the Holy Spirit had given them understanding. There is very little in the CPM that gives any hint as to what they should take as truth and principle from the Word. But by their own study of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, they grasp in a very short time what has taken me years to arrive at. Acts 4:13 is still happening! “They were uneducated, common men…who had been with Jesus.”
While we often ask that you pray for us on these trips and for those that we serve in various places, I am going ask you to pray for something more. Pray that the Holy Spirit will kindle the same fire for God’s Word in us across America!
The scene as we left Vientiane was breath taking. All twenty men were on their knees in prayer asking God to take what they had learned and through them deliver it to their churches so that ministers of the Gospel would be sent out to surrounding villages with the message of the pure Gospel! One by one they left the room we had been in for two and a half days with tears in their eyes and a smile on their face. God was sending them out to spread the Word!
Now we look forward
With the new approach to teaching these principles of church planting, I have a strong and abiding sense that the opportunities ahead of us will have greater significance than ever before. The goal is that every unreached people group be presented the Gospel (evangelized) and that believers be establishedstrong in faith as the indigenous Church, that they be equipped with biblical leadership able to equip the saints for ministry, so they can be sent out to expandinto other unreached people groups. For that reason we ask that you continue to pray for the following:
- Tim’s trip to Delhi, India in February for a new beginning of CPM training in this vast country that will bring clear vision to those God calls.
- The five-day CPM workshop the first week of March in Raleigh, NC
- Possible return to China and Vietnam in April
- Arrangements to be made for the CPM training in Arabic.
- For continual clarification of our new approach to the CPM training so the Word of God will run and be glorified.
- That we will continually decrease and become less in our eyes and in those we serve so that Christ might be highly exalted and the Word of God given its rightful place – personally and in the church.
“… for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.” 1 Cor. 16:9.
Appeal Date Set In Chea Ratha Acid Case
Tuesday, 27 October 2009 15:03 LAURA SNOOK
An appeal against the acquittal of a former Military Police official accused of involvement in a brutal acid attack against her lesbian lover’s aunt will be heard Wednesday, a court official confirmed Monday.
The appeal was lodged after Chea Ratha, former deputy chief of staff of the Military Police, was found not guilty of masterminding the May 2008 attack that left Ya Soknim, the aunt of prominent beauty queen In Soklyda, scarred for life.
The verdict, announced August 31, was jointly condemned by human rights groups Licadho and the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR).
In a statement released to the media September 2, Licadho director Naly Pilorge said: “What is so shocking in this case is the judges’apparent total disregard of evidence against Chea Ratha and her alleged accomplices.”
Evidence received by Phnom Penh Municipal Court during the yearlong investigation included recordings of phone calls in which Chea Ratha threatened to kill In Soklyda’s relatives, logs of telephone calls for Chea Ratha and her co-defendants on the day of the attack, and a report confirming that acid was found in the home of one of Chea Ratha’s associates, Licadho and CCHR said.
Chea Ratha’s lawyer, Nach Try, said his client – who is believed to have left the country – would not be present at the hearing, the date of which was confirmed by Court of Appeal Deputy President Chuon Sunleng.
Neither Ya Soknim nor In Soklyda could be reached for comment.
Acid Attack Appeal Scheduled
Friday, 23 October 2009 15:02 Mom Kunthear
Photo by: TRacey Shelton
AN appeal lodged in the case of a former Military Police official accused of involvement in a brutal acid attack against the aunt of her lesbian lover will be heard at the end of this month, a court official said Thursday.
Chuon Sunleng, deputy president of the Court of Appeal, said the hearing had been scheduled for the end of October, though he could not recall the precise date.
Chea Ratha, former deputy chief of staff of the Military Police, was charged with masterminding the May 2008 acid attack on Ya Soknim, the aunt of beauty queen In Soklyda, with whom she had been romantically involved. The relationship had turned sour earlier that year, and Chea Ratha blamed Ya Soknim for helping In Soklyda go into hiding, according to accounts of the case provided by rights groups.
The attack was allegedly carried out by two men on a motorcycle, who accosted Ya Soknim and poured acid over her face and upper body. She suffered severe burns as a result, losing her right eye and breast.
The Municipal Court acquitted Chea Ratha and five other suspects last month in a ruling that was condemned by rights groups.
Hong Sopheak, the lawyer for Ya Soknim and In Soklyda, said he did not know whether his clients would attend the hearing because they were out of the country.
He declined to comment on the case beyond saying that he believed the Municipal Court’s verdict was unjust and should be overturned.
Keo Ya, the lawyer for Chea Ratha, said Thursday that his client was also out of the country and had not asked him to represent her for the appeal.
Recent Comments