Please Pray: (October 3 – November 10) 

1) Teaching Church Leaders using the Burmese God’s Plan for His Church in Yangon – October 27- November 7

2) Launch the new Karen God’s Plan for His Church in Maw Day Musekee – October 17-19

3) Teaching Bethany College students God’s Plan for His Church in Chiang ai - October 13-24

4) Synergy Meeting with Vietnamese Leaders in Bangkok - October 6-10

5) Strategic Planning for the Khmer God’s Plan for His Church in training Cambodian Leaders – November 1-3

6) Launch the new Vietnamese God’s Plan for His Church in Saigon – October 13 – 24

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving, pray also for us, (Tim and Sherman):

1) That God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ Col 4:2-3

2) That words may be given to us in opening our mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel  Eph 6:19

3) That the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored  2 Thess 3:1 (ESV)

4) That we may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding  Col 1:9

5) That we be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might  Col 1:11

Below is a testimony received from a group of Lahu disciples we trained last fall using illustrations from the new revised God's Plan for His Church. 

Our teaching consisted of showing them how the Gospel spread from Jerusalem (Pentecost) to the world.  This is what happens when disciples, with childlike faith, take seriously the Holy Spirit and Christ, the Living Word.  We have seen this happen over and over again throughout the world.

 “After teaching the book of Acts, the Pastors are so happy to go out to share the Good News with the people.  We dedicated the 9th daughter church on March 15, 2014.  Members of the new church are from Ah Kha tribe.  Your teaching is so effective.  Thank God for that.”

Here is a current testimony of what is happening when believers use God’s Plan for His Church manual to get them back into the Scriptures as their sole guide for personal walk, the family and the church.

“I was urgently invited to Ghana to attend the International Missions Leaders Workshop in Kumasi Ghana.  The Theme for the Workshop was “MOVING FORWARD”.  The director for Baptist Foreign Missions Rev. Phil Knott shared with us the Mission’s Vision and goals that is to multiply disciples, leaders, Churches and ministries that are reproducible and sustainable. 

The Workshop was held because many of churches were relying on foreign support and when that supports ceased, the church fell or pastors moved to other ministry that will support him.  So we were called and encourage that our churches should be self-sustainable and focus on God and the direction of the Holy Spirit.  

Brother, what we have been studying from the training manual is exactly what is going on with so many pastors and churches here in Africa. We have been encourage that our churches should be self-sustaining; not money to be it lifeblood, because when money stop ministry stops.   Thanks for the material that open our eyes and understanding.   I took along the Training manual (GOD’S PLAN FOR HIS CHURCH), with me and I seized the opportunity to meet with pastors and church leaders from Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Mali, Togo and other African countries discussed with them the goodness and Biblical teaching of Planting and Church Renewal of the material.  Having shared the introductory part of the manual many of them express their desire to be part of the study.    While I was away the men studying with me in our church were busy in carrying on their studies and at times we shared our discussion on phone after our meeting.           

I am going through the manual as well as a brother who has gone to Hungary with a copy of the manual.  He will be back on the 26 of February, so that we can all do the completion of the material together.

It is our prayers that the Lord will give us strength and open our understanding as we study His Word to win souls for him.”

Yes my brother, there are so many adversaries which we are experiencing.  We however thank God for all his promises.  I want to tell you that it is not easy for these old churches to accept New Testament principals and come out of their traditions which are not found in the word of God.  Some of the old churches adapt tradition, doctrines and church structures and their leaders have become owners of the churches, especially when a church is in the villages.  But I thank God because his word is sharper than a double edged sword.  Pray always for this new ministry we have on our shoulders.  I am so glad because we are not only teaching the principles but the power of God is being demonstrated.  I was asked to pray for the sick and God graciously gave them healing.  I did not expect this to happen, but the church elder just stood up and asked me to pray for the sick.  Brother, I don't understand how the Holy Spirit is working because l did not have this in my mind to pray for the sick.  We really need your prayers.  On Thursday this week we are going to two other churches and we are sure God wants us to go there, but we do not know what is ahead of us.  This manual (God’s Plan for His church) is anointed!

This post will give you a slice of what God is doing in Thailand.  “Timothy and I had a very fruitful time ministering the Word of God to 7 students.  He knows the material and can communicate the biblical principles and connect these principles to their current and future ministries.  He actually can communicate and teach much better than I can. What a blessed time we are having together!”

From the jungles to the cities in Burma or Myanmar, many came for training, hosted by a dear Chin Brother who lives in Burma and Australia.  About 3 years ago, he located a copy of the manual in Australia, and after reading it, contacted me about teaching the material to his church planters so they can be more effective by becoming more biblical, Holy Spirit dependent, indigenous and self-sustaining. We had about 50 hungry students from Chin area, desiring to follow Paul’s model as he followed Christ.

As always, we soon realized we lack the power of the early church, so we renewed this area of our lives and pushed on to the importance of our personal relationship with Christ, its effect on families and how it results in Spirit filled church planting and renewal.  Through the Holy Spirit, much of the teaching was soon turned over to them. 

They taught and preached the Word concerning factors that made the early church so powerful, making disciples or leaders like Jesus, strengthening the churches using Paul’s letters, the value of family in their ministries and how to solve or resolve different current issues facing the family and church biblically. Testimonies afterwards were so encouraging to hear!  These simple truths applied to their lives personally, and Lord willing, we will see the church renewed in Burma which is really (as in the USA) the answer to so many of the problems we all face in these last days. 

I walked about 30+ minutes each day to and from the meeting winding through the streets of Yangon, the main city in Burma. As always, I find the people so interesting in contrast to our culture, but something particularly fascinating is to see four religious buildings within a rocks throw of each other: a mosque, a church building, and Buddhist and Hindu temples.

I felt fairly safe there because if anyone gets or even starts to get out of line, the military or police will stop them dead in their tracks. 

I am now back in Chiang Mai; spent yesterday washing clothes, being lonely, but I did meet with one Rawang Brother who has a ministry to the Lahu people group which is interestingly located in Burma, Thailand, Laos, China and Vietnam.  We will be making training plans for some of the leaders from Lahu leaders from the tribal areas in Thailand. Yesterday I met with my dear friend and Karen Brother to make plans on training here and in the jungle areas “new” evangelists or maybe I should say, “New hungry souls”.  I spent today with an elderly brother, 78, who is fired up and taking the gospel to remote areas of Thailand. He is the one I went with several months ago where they have no electricity etc... With him around, can I even think about stopping at 67? We talked over the process and concepts in translating the manual into the Karen Language.  Also, keep Henry and Peter from Zambia in your prayers that they will be able to come to Chiang Mai for training and preaching in the Karen and Lahu Churches in Northern Thailand. They just now received their visa applications.

Thanks for your prayers! 

Tim

This week (July 29th to August 3) there is a conference in Yangon, Myanmar.  The initial report for the first two days is that there are "about 50 - 60 hungry souls" at the meeting and we are seeing "a real work of the Spirit".

These two things will always go together; hunger for God's Word and a work of the Spirit.  Notice the example in the Book of Acts:

Acts 10:33, "Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord."  There was a readiness to hear what God would say, which we receive primarily through His Word.  This is followed a few verses later with Luke's record; "While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word" (verse 44).

If you want to see God's Spirit work in our day, promote a hunger for His Word, not yourself.

In all things, "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).

In the last post, we looked at Jeremiah 18:1-10.  Notice that God “reworked the clay into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to do” (v.4).

·         Why do we question the design God is working into our lives?  It is our pride.

·         Do we think we know better that God for our lives, marriages, family and church?

·         Do we allow human ideas, methods, and programs dictate what we will “allow” God to do with           us?

·         We don’t like what He is doing to us.

But I am learning – God has a perfect plan and purpose, and His design that He is working into my life has one goal; that He can use me for His purpose – to bring Him eternal glory!  His hands make a “vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master…, ready for every good work” (2 Timothy 2:21).

God has put His hands on my life that has caused pain and I almost lost sight of why.  Thankfully, He has applied the water of the Holy Spirit to soften my “clay” so He can shape my life to bring Him glory.  Ask God to enlighten “the eyes of your heart that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you” (Ephesians 1:18) to bring Him glory!

Tim and I are home and very thankful to see our wives and families.  Picking up from our last letter, on May 14, we spent four days in Phnom Penh, Cambodia training a church planter among the Khmer people.  He is unique as he seeks to following Paul's example of working to provide for his own needs.  To accomplish this, several helped purchase a Tuk Tuk which he will use for income and transportation.  His vision is to train other "Timothy's" with GPHC and help them start a business that will provide their income.  He clearly has a heart for living and duplicating the Early Church model.

Tim and I left on the 19th; Tim to Laos to deliver Bibles which had been provided by Wake Christian Academy, Raleigh, NC and others here at home.  I proceeded to Chiang Mai to start training a pastor from Pakistan.  Tim arrived a few days later and we focused on one-on-one training him and then two other men from Myanmar for the next three weeks using God's Plan for His Church manual.  We are convinced of the effectiveness of this method!  The personal interaction, valuable discussion and fellowship over how the biblical principles work out in each culture brought inspiration and a fresh appreciation of Scripture in their setting.  With a few, time was taken to complete the "pre-assigned" work, but these brothers were diligent and hard-working so that each one completed the final project, developing their own strategy for ministry in their setting with the principles they learned.  These men represent the Karen, Chin, Katchin, Burmese, and Naga people groups of Myanmar and the Karen in Thailand.  Translation work is already in progress for these languages.

Let me summarize how the Lord has led us to this point in our ministry.  Having taught the manual in conferences for many years and seen little multiplication from this venue, we felt that Paul's method of mentoring Timothy was more effective and would multiply much faster.  After much prayer and searching for about a year, Tim found a Christian couple in Chiang Mai who would rent us a four bedroom house with a kitchen and sitting area for a very reasonable price. 

Paul said in I Corinthians 16:8 that he would “stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective work has opened for me.” God has opened many doors for us, but like Paul, we desired to enter this “effective” opened door.  It allows us to train one-on-one, face-to-face, where persons are away from the responsibilities of ministry, culture and family in a quite neighborhood, yet within walking distance of village stores for food and necessities.   The owners are convinced this is the purpose God has for this place and are fully behind us.

While we were there, God opened another door through the owners.  Here is a comment from them:  "A new teaching team from the United States viz., Pastors Tim Bunn and Sherman Driver of Go-Reconcile, will train our evangelists in August; and our regular mentor Rev. Dr. Tan Wai Choon in November."  This training will be with the Lahu people group in Thailand.

We praise the Lord as we share this with you.  Please continue to pray for us that we remain sensitive to the Holy Spirit for His "effective work", humble in spirit, and physically able to meet the demands.  Also pray that God will raise up Timothy's who God will call to this work.  Tim will be returning to Burma/Myanmar at the end of July for a conference in Yangon.  From there, he will return to Chiang Mai, Thailand to train leaders from Africa and the Thailand Karen and Lahu.  Pray that each of these open doors will turn out to be God's "effective work" for His glory!

One of the most fruitful meetings we have ever experienced took place in Turkey a couple of years ago with key leaders from the Middle East, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria.  I believe a couple of factors were in play here which greatly enhanced the results.  One was isolating the leaders from their busyness, cell phones and ministries.  Secondly, was their diligent pre-meeting work in the manual in preparation for the meeting, therefore we are going to try the same method in Asia and see what happens.  Also, there are several other benefits:  it costs less for the indigenous leaders to travel to a neutral location and for us to travel to a location that is easily accessible and many times less dangerous.  It sounds like a win win situation, but we will wait and see.  Actually, there is another aspect of this new training.  We are training one or two key leaders instead of holding a conference.  Many times, we train leaders but the “key” leader is never really on board with the teaching which sometimes can create problems.  By training the key leader one on one, he will then be able to go back and do a conference on his own hopefully without our presence, which is also a cost saving factor.  We would appreciate your prayers for discernment and wisdom, but most of all, that we be filled with the Spirit and focused on our Head, the Lord Jesus Christ.

It will also be our joy to deliver approximately 2,500 Bible to believers in Laos, a country where the Word of God is only in the hands of a few.  Also, through the gifts of many, 1,000 Bibles are being given to the Karen Refugee Camp that burned down on the border between Thailand and Myanmar.  Please rejoice with us that God has provided these and pray that they will arrive safely without incident.

For a long time we have encouraged ministers of the gospel to be self-sustaining so they do not need outside support.  We have the joy of helping a brother in Christ purchase a Tuk Tuk so he can provide for himself and use the profit to help others do the same.  Following this model of Paul will accelerate the spread of the gospel and give a living proof of its life changing message.  Please pray that this brother will become a model to many in his country and beyond.

To God be the Glory!

ITINERARY May 5 – 12                  Key Karen Leader from Thailand: Will work through the manual, God’s Plan for His Church, completing the projects and developing a church renewal and church planting strategy for Karen Baptist of Thailand.  Training will be held in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

May 12 – 19                Key Leader from Cambodia: Will work through the manual, God’s Plan for His Church, completing the projects and developing a church renewal and church planting strategy for the Khmer of Cambodia and purchase Tuk-Tuk to help key leaders become self-sustaining.  Training will be held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

May 19 -21                  Distributing Bibles in Vientiane, Laos

May 19 – 26                Key leader from Pakistan: Will work through the manual, God’s Plan for His Church, completing the projects and developing a church renewal and church planting strategy for Pakistan.  Training will be held in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

May 19 – 26                Distributing Bibles and encouragement to the Karen refugee camp on the Burma/Thailand border which was burned to the ground.

May 26 – June 2          Key Burmese and Karen Leader from Burma: Will work through the manual, God’s Plan for His Church, completing the projects and developing a church renewal and church planting strategy.  Training will be held in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

June 2 – June 8            Key Chin Leader from Burma: Will work through the manual, God’s Plan for His Church, completing the projects and developing a church renewal and church planting strategy.  Training will be held in Chiang Mai, Thailand.