Category: Ministry & Missions

When God graciously opened the door for me for the first time in 2011 to start the mission of galvanizing churches to prepare for the end times,  I was invited to share a message in a nationwide pastoral conference held in Medan, Indonesia.

I was pleasantly surprised over the religious freedom there.   Vans were allowed to ply the streets with loudspeakers blaring about the event and the local main newspaper even reported on the event.   The whole event was broadcast on radio reaching out to millions of listeners in all corners of North Sumatra.

Utmost thanks and glory to God our Father and Jesus our Lord for the tremendous blessing of the availability of media like newspaper and radio in enabling the gospel to be shared so freely there.

Following is the translation of that newspaper report (translated by Google) :

I got to know the late Pastor Ng Tong San about a decade ago. He shared that he was called to share the gospel to the migrant Chinese working here.  He would assist interested local churches to start weekend worship services for these migrant Chinese workers and in 2010,  I was invited to serve and was roster-ed as worship leader and preacher in one or two such weekend worship services.

In 2011, he asked me to join him to minister to many elderly folk staying in a certain neighbourhood in Shenyang, China.  Some of the elderly folk were the parents of migrant workers here.  Commuting to the local church was difficult for these folk due to several reasons so he sponsored the rental of a shop unit for regular worship and fellowship.

His love for the Lord was evidenced by his zealous obedience in saving souls. Despite having not much in material possession and in less-than-desirable health, he was so generous in giving both time and resources for the Kingdom sake.

He had finished his race well at 63. I am sure our Lord would welcome him and said, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”

A life well lived for the Lord without any regret. A glowing encouragement to me to do likewise to the very end.

Pastor Ng was seated next to me, the third counting from the right.

Luke 16:8-13 NLT  Parable of The Shrewd Manager

⁸ “The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light. ⁹ Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home. ¹⁰ “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. ¹¹ And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? ¹² And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own? ¹³ “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.”

Some years ago, we bought and gave some hectares of paddy land to a church.  We prayed that it will feed the church and the needy community when hard economic times come.  All thanks and glory to God that the offering has now become the bridge to reaching out to the community of other faiths and winning them for Christ our Lord as we were told.  Recently these inhabitants faced economic hardship and our stock of some dozen tons of rice went a long way to alleviate the hardship.  Besides, we offer to help to mill their rice for just 10% of their produce.

We believed then that we ought to do good to one another while we could.  We took the exhortation of our Lord to be like the Shrewd Manager in benefiting others first and making friends while we had the ability to do so.

We also believed that our initial help to others will surely come back to help ourselves one day in one way or another.

The hard economic times will come as the world continues her irrational exuberance without learning the lesson in 2001 and 2008 crises and the bubble now is probably 10 times or more larger.  Should we find ourselves in lack one day, we can look forward to the churches whom we have helped in the past.

2 Cor 8 :11-14

¹¹ Now you should finish what you started. Let the eagerness you showed in the beginning be matched now by your giving. Give in proportion to what you have. ¹² Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly. And give according to what you have, not what you don’t have. ¹³ Of course, I don’t mean your giving should make life easy for others and hard for yourselves. I only mean that there should be some equality. ¹⁴ Right now you have plenty and can help those who are in need. Later, they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it. In this way, things will be equal.

When God first called me into ministry 14 years ago, the destination of my first few missions was Northeast and Southeast China.  Reminiscing on one such mission to Northeast China,  I was invited to a conference attended by some 150 pastors and ministry workers from several provinces.  The conference was held in a obscure village as approval for such mass gathering was not likely to be approved by the authorities then.   I remembered that there was a motorcycle on standby for our rapid evacuation at the rear of the village home in which we congregated.

I prophesized about the coming economic crisis which would happen after the 2008 Olympics then. (My mission partner, a Malaysian missionary based in Shenzhen, translated for me. He told me later that though he translated for me, he did not pay attention to what I said and the paper loss of his stock portfolio came to about USD 25,000 when the 2008 financial crisis began in Oct 2008.)

On the last day of the conference, a church in Tumen, a town on the border with North Korea populated mostly by the Korean tribe, invited us over to share the word of God with them.   The train journey from Shenyang to Tomen would take 18 hours.

In the afternoon of the last day of the conference, when we were about to leave for the train station, the brothers who cooked for the conference – affectionately called “Martha” – wanted us to stay a while longer to pray for them.  My mission partners were divided whether to stay or head for the train station. Eventually we stayed behind and missed the train.  We prayed and decided on renting a van to chase after the train to the next city Changchun.   Along the way, we were lost.  Again we prayed and we managed to get back on track.  We arrived one hour late at the train station and by the grace of God, the train departure was also delayed.  Hallelujah !

We finally arrived to minister to the church in Tumen.  We also took the opportunity to share the gospel in the lobby of the hotel in which we stayed.

We were so close to North Korea.   Our hotel was very near the ruined bridge straddling across the Tumen River which separate the 2 countries.  The bridge was bombed by the Japanese during the second World War.

All praise and thanks be to God for the hospitality extended to us by Prison Fellowship Cambodia (PFC)  during our 4 days’ stay in Phnom Penh from 6 to 9 July 2017.   We were briefed on the organisation, governance and programs.

PFC conducts the following 6 programs :

1. Vocational training.
2. Health and nutrition provision.
3. Visitation of foreign prisoners.
4. Resiliency of spirit course.
5. Reintegration support.
6. Support for children of prisoners.

We also visited one of the largest churches in Phnom Penh, New Life Fellowship and her affiliated churches in other provinces who partner PFC in the above programs to better understand the support they may require.

PFC currently has 28 pastors in 28 provinces partnering them in the prison visitation ministry and conducting the resiliency of spirit course in the provincial prison, and a further 65 pastors partnering in the support program for the children of prisoners.

We will commit to prayer for the Lord’s blessing in the possible collaboration of helping the PFC volunteer pastors in establishing self sustaining enterprise.  The project of rearing chicken using the EM technology is one such possible enterprise in which we can provide training and funding.   Funding is also available through micro-finance in which we have good relationship with the micro finance companies operating in Cambodia.

Attended and celebrated the ordination of my comrade-in-Christ, Pastor Martin Fao-ilan, as Bishop during the National Chaplains of Philippines national convention cum fellowship conference with the leadership of the Body of Christ Fellowship, Indonesia from 19 to 20 June 2017.

All thanks and glory to God that I was also conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity by the Alliance of International Bishops and Theologians Inc, Urdaneta City, Bangasinan, Philippines and re-appointed as the International Chaplain on the same occasion.

Pastor Myra and John Jalique of Cathedral of Faith, Philippines

Organized a one-day conference in China on the request of Prison Fellowship International (PFI) to seek interested church partners to collaborate in the prison ministry in China. And also to encourage starting social service ministry in the churches.

Attended by some 30 pastors and ministry workers.

Main message shared was that evangelism and social service travel together as exemplified by our Lord as He shared the gospel and healed the afflicted and broken-hearted, setting free the captives and relieving the oppressed. Luke 4:18; Matt 9:35-37. Doing good works is also an acceptable sacrifice pleasing to God. A truly sanctified life will bear fruit of good works. Col 1:10; Heb 13-16.

One more step closer towards my desire to see homeless shelters in China, God willing.

Hallelujah ! Bless His Holy Name.

As documented in my book, The Coming Economic Flood, that as I did not know how to prepare for the coming economic crisis, the best preparation was to fulfill the Manifesto of Christ in sharing the gospel in word and in deeds. As I went about galvanizing churches to share the Good News into unreached villages by meeting basic needs as a necessary bridge to entering these villages, I realized that the church clergy themselves were also in need. And the quickest way to be self sustaining is to have farms breeding goats, chicken and cultivating rice and vegetables.

In a ministry partnership with Alfa Omega Ministries from 2011,  land and part of the necessary means to cultivate rice were bought and offered to the ministry.  Expertise to teach the use of technology for better yield and development of an organic eco-system of producing clean water and fertilizers was solicited.

By the grace of God,  the mission of this specific physical preparation has materialized.  All glory and honour to our Lord Jesus !

Recently, due to hard economic conditions in some islands,  Alfa Omega Ministries is able to help and alleviate the hardship with the produce and share the Good News fulfilling the original objective of this mission.

Another interesting development is that the neighbouring communities of other faiths began to notice the better yield and had requested for help.  We will pray for their salvation and make possible inroads to share the Good News.

This week marked the next milestone in a pilot programme to train pastors from other neighbouring countries such as Myanmar and Philippines.  And we will extend the programme to any pastor who is interested to learn.

Hallelujah !  Bless The Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ !

Felt so blessed to fellowship with these godly servants who love our Lord so much that they give all of their lives to caring for God’s people and are so committed to reach out and share the gospel to their city folk and beyond –  Pastor Anton of Jesus Love You City Church and Pastor Ramil and Pastor Jimmy of True Life Ministries, and several ministers who came to worship and fellowship in an afternoon conference hosted by Pastor Rolly.

(This is no casual praise for I know of their personal sacrifice in serving the Lord.  It will take much time to share their testimonies here but the Lord knows.  All glory and honor to our Lord Jesus Christ.)

So touched that they made time to fellowship despite their heavy schedule and out-of-the-way inconvenience.

So grateful to Pastor Martin who accompanied me all the time.

All thanks to our Lord Jesus. Bless His holy name.

By the grace of God, Pastor Jhonston Silitonga, Chairman of the Body of Christ Fellowship Indonesia (BOCF) welcome Sister Penny Gonnay, Asia Pacific Director of Prison Fellowship International (PFI), to grace the BOCF pastoral conference and hope to launch the PFI ministry in Indonesia, by the grace of God.

She spoke passionately about sharing the Good News and discipleship through the prison ministry on a national effort and had appointed Pastor Lukas to be the main contact in the hope that the PFI ministry can be established in Indonesia.

For 20 years, the pastors of BOCF numbering up to a thousand, obeyed the exhortation in Heb 10:24-25 to meet every month to stimulate one another to love and good works while waiting eagerly for the return of our Lord.  Most do so with much personal sacrifice.