I do not know even where to begin in updating you on everything that is happening all over the world. Reports of God using God's Plan for Church Planting (GPCP) come in weekly, oftentimes daily! Just the other day it was reported that after our meeting in Turkey, the leaders from Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and Lebanon had gone back to their respective countries to commence applying these simple biblical principles.  As a result of that, we are hearing that the disciples and churches are multiplying in these Islamic countries. Here are a couple of testimonies: “The conference and the manual opened our eyes to the bitter reality that today's church and even our local churches are out of sync with the Biblical model.  We learned to let the Bible talk about the issue of church planting, and to be more submissive to its authority and guidance. It was an eye opening event for me.” ~ Church Planter, Algeria  “The Church Planting Conference in Turkey was one of the best I have ever attended on the topic. It was a solid teaching built on the book of Acts and the principles used by the Apostle Paul. The sessions and discussions gave me new perspectives and approaches in the area of evangelism and how to witness for the Lord Jesus Christ.” Seminary Professor, Lebanon   We have been receiving requests from several other Islamic countries for this tool. The same thing can be said of many other places around the world but it is particularly exciting to hear that His Church can grow and multiply in these "dark" Muslim countries where there is persecution and where many of the resources that we take for granted are not available. 

GPCP Translations: In addition to almost 30 translations, we have the languages of Chin in Burma, Thai in Thailand, Oriya in India and Bisa/Lala in Zambia in the process of being translated and printed.  It continues to amaze me to watch the Lord at work building His Church, in His time, by His Power through His indigenous people. It is almost as if the more we get out of the way, particularly as Westerners, the greater the work of the Spirit is. But, regardless, God is God and He can do whatever He wants, with whomever He wants and wherever He wants; we just need to make ourselves available.

Middle East and North Africa: The Lord has opened some encouraging and exciting doors among the Seminaries of the Middle East and North Africa. One of the attendees at our Turkey meeting was a key professor of a seminary in Lebanon, who saw the value of equipping graduating seminary students with GPCP. This would provide them with a tool to plant and grow His Church without money and buildings, since these items are diminishing in that part of the world. Therefore, we are working with these seminaries to provide GPCP in a format that will meet the standards of this venue. Please pray for the Lord to grant Sherman and me wisdom and time to assist them with providing this tool. This is a big project, and the possible impact for our Lord in these strategic Islamic locations is priceless. 

God's Plan for Church Renewal (GPCR): Another thing we have been lead to do is to totally revise the GPCP manual, making it more user friendly, more easily grasped and flexible so that we can teach it to different academic levels in an easily understood story form with illustrations. Although this has been on our hearts for years, it was only on our last trip to Northern Thailand that we saw the need to teach leaders who had not attained a high academic level but were filled with the Holy Spirit and had hungry hearts for Christ.  The more I work on this total revision, the more I believe it will be more useful to all of us and will open up a whole new world of opportunities for us not only now but in the future. I believe in the near future, we in the US will see the need to get back to a more Biblical model of church. We hope to have this new tool available in a couple of months or sooner.

Thailand Training Center: On a final note, please pray as we sense the Lord shifting us from training in other countries to bringing the key leaders to a neutral, economical, centrally located and easily accessible area, such as Thailand. This type of training offers many advantages. It will enable us to train the "key leaders" in a more focused and uninterrupted environment.  Many times, we have found that when leaders are being trained in their own countries, the key leaders are distracted with managing the conference, their own ministries, telephones, etc. It also saves us traveling to other countries and it will help keep our teaching and ministry more indigenous since a white Westerner doesn’t have to go into other cultures giving the impression he is the “expert teacher.” Another important key is that this type training allows us to build deeper relationships with the leaders on a one-on-one basis. The meeting in Turkey was great in that it supported this type of training where key leaders were pulled out of North Africa and the Middle East for an intensive one-on-one relational teaching time together. This enabled them to build relationships and to dig deeply into the Scriptures without interruptions. In addition to providing training for overseas missions, it will provide us with a place to train and come alongside leaders who travel with us from the US as we serve and travel together. One last advantage. the area that is the cheapest, Chiang Mai, is the same area the Lord has opened a wide door for us to serve the Karen on the Thai and Burma border.

March 2012 Mission Trip: One last thing, looking back, the February-March trip was one of the most fruitful trips I have ever made among the Karen and Chin, both in Burma and Thailand. The miraculous door the Lord opened with the Burmese Brother from Australia proved to be fruitful and has opened up many new opportunities of partnership in Myanmar. We also had a great time of fellowship and encouragement in India at the IMD International meeting with our key teachers and trainers. We were all challenged to live and minister "post-Pentecostal" and not "pre-Pentecostal. Please pray for the training needs to be met in Thailand as this type training will actually be less expensive than traveling into various countries but still God’s provision is necessary. 

Thank you for your prayers and support! 

I will get right to the heart of what God has done and then what we are asking you to pray that He will do in the future.  First I will give you a glimpse into Tim's last trip to Thailand and Myanmar by way of testimonies from those who attended the CPM conferences and contacts that were made.  There were clearly ‘God ordained’ events and the working of the Holy Spirit. 1.    The General Secretary for the Karen Baptist Association tells us that the Thai translation of the GPCP manual is in process and they plan to have it printed by October when we return.

2.    The same brother from Thailand reports: “We owe you a lot, and we believe that we can surely apply what you have shown us in our church-planting missions.  We will not look backward, but go forward.  We will do our best for the Lord.  Please pray for TKBC because we believe that with God's grace and prayers of the righteous, we can make a great impact here in Thailand.  We will try our best to be a good example for young couples…but we will always be careful and not let any space for Satan. Please pray that we will never fall nor make others upset.  Brother, I have been looking for my Paul, but I have not found one yet…. Could you accept me as your Timothy?  Many godly people are too busy like Martha, but I can see you care that I become a faithful and fruitful servant of God.”

3.    The following is an email from another brother in Yangon, Myanmar.  “We could not help talking about how we appreciate you and your teaching. We look to you as our model after Christ. We would like to do the course again with you with another group in October or November this year. Let me know what time is good for you. Then we will bring the two groups together in March 2013.  Do you think we should have more time for the course - for 5 or 6 days?  We have finished the 18 days training with the group and now we are going to start another training with a different group on Tuesday the 27th of Mar for 4 days. Please pray for us.  We are so blessed to have you and your training. It is God's divine appointment for training the church planters in Myanmar for the end time.”  We agree with this brother!!

4.    Tim met with Moses in Myanmar who is translating GPCP into the Chin language.  He is requesting a CPM Conference this fall when the CPM will be complete so they can start biblical church planting.

5.    We have a request from the Burma Karen Baptist Association to teach graduating students for a month in the seminary in Yangon.

We have also received a request from the Arab Baptist Seminary representing North Africa and the Middle East to provide GPCP in a seminary course format.  This has tremendous potential for all Arabic speaking nations.  Along with this we are also working on reformatting the present manual so that it is simpler to use--adding diagrams so that the student gets the most out of the Scriptures with the teaching help of the Holy Spirit.  Please pray for both of these endeavors as they potentially could have a huge impact in countries around the world.

Here is the testimony of a dear brother in Cambodia: “I would like to share about GPCP manual and how it has been used in Cambodia to train Church leaders here to strengthen and grow their church.  I found feedback from them about this manual; it is a great and powerful tool contained with biblical principles inspired by living word of God to their personal life, families, church and mission breakthrough so much more than they expected, especially to plant more new churches in new areas where no church exists.  Lastly I would like to say thank you for Pastor Tim Bunn that God has blessed and found this great tool to our Cambodian’s Church and in region.”

Let me add one final testimony from a brother in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: “The solution rests in a radical return to God's Plan for Church Planting!  This is a serious, long-term answer to help call the Church back to New Testament Biblical Principles, as we enter this new era."

With the Lord opening these doors of opportunity, we feel deeply dependent on the Him, first to work in us so that God’s Word may be spoken without hindrance and in the Spirit’s power.  For we “do not count our life of any value nor as precious to us, if only we may finish our course and the ministry that we received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).