More Than 40 Have Been Baptized

A Newsletter from Tore and his family and ministry, working among people groups from Myanmar.

After three great weeks in Norway I, Tore, am back in Thailand. It is in the peak of the rainy season in Thailand now, so it was very hot and humid coming back, but it was also good to be with my family again, and our ministry out here.

There is a lot that I could have included in this newsletter, but I have chosen to just include certain highlights, testimonies and a short summary, such as: More than 40 people have been baptized in our ministry during the last two years (and that is not an exaggeration).
I post more stories, updates and photos on our Facebook Page, so feel free to like it!

Towards the end of the newsletter, I will also mention a couple of important things about financial support, such as: You are involved, or can be involved, in what God is doing out here in South East Asia, even if it is only by small amounts or in prayer!

See also a short video of the email.

Like our ministries Facebook page (Good News for the Shan-Ministry), and see more pictures and get mor updates https://facebook.com/goodnewsshanministry

A presentation of our project

Many Miracles

Miracle Baby
Nong Kam and Pi Gon were not able to get a baby,
but after prayer, Nong Kam became fertile,
pregnant and they gave birth to a son this summer
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As mentioned, there are many stories I could have included, and I will give a brief summary below, but this is a story from this summer, which has led to several people becoming Christians lately. Sunday last week, five were baptized as a result of these miracles.

The Miracle of Pi Ta

Pi Ta’s wife, whose name is Pi Mo (pink t-shirt in the photo), became a Christian and was baptized well over a year ago, and she attends our Sunday meetings.
Pi Ta has been interested in Jesus for over a year, but it has taken him a long time to make a decision. Both because of friends, but he has also struggled with alcohol problems.

One Sunday at the end of June, he came to our Sunday meeting, at that time it had been well over a year since he had last been there.

We were very happy that he came, and we had a feeling that he would soon accept Jesus.

The Daughter in an Accident
But in the afternoon this Sunday, something happened that made us a bit discouraged, and we were thinking that this could perhaps lead to him becoming skeptical of Jesus again.
We heard that his stepdaughter, aged around 15 years old, Nong Gaow, had been in a motorbike accident and was in the hospital.
They called us and it seemed quite serious at first. She had head injuries and a broken leg. This family has no insurance, they are poor and they are immigration workers from Myanmar, so it was uncertain how expensive this would be.
We visited them in the hospital, but the daughter was in intensive care and the situation was unclear. We prayed for them there, and said we would pray for them more.

The next day, on Monday, we call them, and the daughter was on her way to the operating table for the leg she had broken. The head injuries weren’t that serious, just superficial wounds, but we wondered how expensive this would be for them? It could quickly become USD 3-4,000, which is more than an annual salary for them.
On Wednesday we called them again, and the mother was excited in her voice: “We are home now and Nong Gaow has been discharged from the hospital, and you know what! She only paid 30 baht (1 dollar)!” This was truly a miracle!

We visited the family on Friday of the same week, and Pi Ta accepted Jesus.
Two weeks later we baptized him, and he really shines with joy in his new faith. Yesterday they (he and his wife) also went with us on a house visit, and he has become zealous in his faith.
Several of the new Christians want to come with us in the evenings now. They want to be strengthened in their faith.

One More Miracle
After the accident, the police had seized Pi Ta’s motorcycle, and often they keep it or demand a large sum of money to get it out (several hundred dollars). The daughter drove without a driving license, and was under aged.
They prayed and we prayed. The first trip to the police station didn’t go so well, but they continued to pray. A week or two after this they tried again and they got it back without having to pay anything, again another miracle!

The Testimonies Are Spreading
A family who lived near them heard about this story, they also had a big debt, and a year ago they had asked us to pray for them. Little by little they became debt-free, and now they also wanted to become Christians. We baptized them too last Sunday.

Another family, a mother and son, and friends of both Pi Ta and the indebted family, heard about their testimony and wanted to know more about this God who had helped them.
They had actually never heard of Jesus and the Gospel before (there are still many people who have never heard the name Jesus before!).
The family came all the way, two hours through the mountains, from a town on the other side, to meet us.
On Saturday night they visited us in our office and we explained the Gospel to them.
They wanted to accept Jesus, and we prayed for them.
Usually we give some more time for people to make a decision about being saved and baptized, but both because of the long way, and that they understood what becoming a Christian was about (Mawkkham explained it well), baptized we them on Sunday. They now go to a church in their own town.

Other Stories
These were three stories from the last two months, but we can also briefly mention some others from this year.

1.Sei Gon Nang Kam had a miracle boy (see picture further up)
Sei Gon and Nang Kam had struggled to have children for eight years. In November Mawkkham prayed for her at a meeting, in January we heard that Nong Kam was pregnant and on July 28 (2-3 weeks before the due date) she gave birth to a healthy little boy.

2. The Pi Wii was miraculously healed
Pi Wii could neither walk nor talk, the doctors said he only had a few weeks left to live.
Within a year he was healed. We prayed for him when he was at his worst, but he prayed a lot himself too, and when he was healthy enough, he accepted (he had probably already accepted for a while in his heart) and he was baptized in March.

3. Ba Sjong was set free
Ba Sjong was struggling with seizures which they didn’t quite knew what it was. She became stiff and lost consciousness. One a Sunday last November, she had a seizure, and we prayed for her there and we were able to drive her home later.
After this she has had no seizures and has recovered. She also felt rejected by many, because of the seizures she had, but she had an experience and a revelation of God’s love this November Sunday, that changed her life. She comes faithfully to our meetings.

4. Ba On became a Christian, healed and set free
An elderly Shan grandmother had both physical and spiritual ailments. A friend of hers, Ba Sjong as mentioned above, had told this woman her testimony about what God had done in her life. One day this elderly Shan woman called us and said: Now I’m ready to become a Christian!
We prayed with her for salvation and we baptized her this summer. Read more about this story in the newsletter from June.

I could also mention: Ba Sjoen, Nang Pon, Sei Ja, Sei Sok, Pi Na etc. but then this newsletter would be very long.

Five people that got baptized last Sunday

A short summary from our ministry
the last two years, and the growth.

In the last two years we have had over 40 baptisms, and this is not an exaggeration (I counted 42, there could be more).
This summer I made a picture with text (see the picture) and gave it to those who have been baptized during the last two years and wanted it, and I gave out 25 pictures.
I have not included the five who were baptized last Sunday, at least three more I know of, the three children of our staff and six more who have moved to other cities.

In addition, there is one more person who wants to become a Christian and be baptized, and we also have another person who wants to be baptized soon.

We have weekly follow up with over 30 Christians and we have 13 house churches (groups) or where we go on house visits (we want to go to more places, but it is limited by the staff we have). In some of the house churches/groups we can gather over 10 people. There are often one to four people who go to our church on Sundays who are in the house churches/groups, but their friends and people they know also come to these house groups, and we also meet new people who are interested in the Gospel.

We reach over 100 people during a week, including children, and we gather around 25-30 people every Sunday. If everyone comes, we will be over 50, with adults and children.

We still gather around 40-60 children on Saturdays.

My Visit In Norway

It was nice to meet both old and new friends and family, and it was a fruitful time during the three weeks I was in Norway in August and September. I still missed my family who was back in Thailand though.

Two highlights were visiting my sending Church Bethania Kristiansand and Youth With a Mission center at Grimerud near Hamar.
At Grimerud there were many new people, and many young people. It was special to see their commitment and enthusiasm for God and mission. I had a very nice time there!

Donation&Support

With fairly simple and small resources, we are shearing the Good News with over hundred people out here in Northern Thailand every week, and we don’t have any big sponsors.
The people we work with are immigration workers and refugees from the Shan State in Myanmar. We work with ethnic groups such as Shan, Ba Long, Black Karen (Jang Lam) etc.

Norwegian krone exchange rate
We get most of our support in Norwegian krone, and for almost a year now the exchange rate has been low. Thai bath often follows the dollar, so when the dollar rate is high compare to Norwegian kroner, so is the Thai bath.
We feel the low krone exchange rate very well when it comes to our own finances. We have lost a lot of money during the last year becuse of the exchange rate(equal to about 400-500USD a month).
Please pray for this situation as well.

Feel free to consider whether you should support us, we need more to reach out further!

Personal
Please remember us as a family financially, we would like to see an increase in our monthly support!

The project (Good News for the Shan)
We also have increasing expenses with our project, and not many people regularly supporting it. Among other things, we have a staff family of five people that we give monthly support to. So we need more regular donors here too!

You can Support/Donate in this way:
By PayPal (use this link)
Read more about how you can support here

By Bank
I both have a bank account in Thailand and Norway you can transfer money too.
Pleas feel free contact me at: torejohannes@gmail.com

If you are Norwegian or have a Norwegian bank account see this page

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If you want to be a donor, supporter or partner to our ministry, please also contact me!

For our ministry you can also use Vipps 770203 (works in Norway)

Prayer Subject