Dear Friends, December 1, 2019
The Lord gave me a fruitful ministry in Southeast Asia in November. As a result of this trip, the leading pastors of Bongaigaon, India decided to hold a citywide gospel festival with DCMi. A bishop overseeing 200 churches commented, “We became Christians not because somebody brought the gospel to us, but because each one of us was born into a Christian family. Our churches have always tried to build a thick wall around them to protect the church from our (Hindu) neighbors, but we have never tried to bring the gospel to them. Now is the time for us to work together to bring the gospel to our city.” To my surprise, there was a Catholic priest in our meeting. He remarked, “I am representing my bishop because he is out of town. When he returns, I have to report to him about the outcome of this meeting. Since I have no authority to speak for my bishop, I cannot tell whether he will participate in the gospel festival; however, I will participate with my congregation, for evangelism and discipleship are the highest priorities of the church.”
My second destination was Saharanpur, India. Although this is a Muslim-saturated city, there is also a faithful praying Christian community there. After speaking at a sizable church on Sunday, my teammate Antoinnette and I began our pastors’ leadership conference the next day. Perhaps due to the wind of revival that blew through Saharanpur in the mid 1980s, all these pastors were fervent prayer warriors. All of them absolutely loved praying with Antoinnette.
Antoinnette and I attended the General Assembly of the World Evangelical Alliance in Indonesia which was amazing! I am certain that the 800 representatives from 92 countries will never forget the privilege of worshipping with 9000 Indonesian Christians. I had always thought that Indonesia was an unreached nation; however, this meeting taught me that Indonesia has become a strong Christian country. The theme of this conference was “What must evangelism and disciple-making look like in the coming decade?” The takeaway from this week-long conference was that our ministry must be dedicated to raising up a new generation of leaders and empowering them to lead the church into 2030 and beyond. The call for leadership development spoke volumes to my heart as well. This inspired me to begin writing DCMi’s Discipleship Training Manual to make our ministry more focused on discipleship and developing next generation leaders. Would you please pray that I will be able to complete this manual over the winter?
My final stop was Cambodia where I joined Jay and Hannah for ministry. The Lord’s presence was so prominent there as well. The members of the Pastors Association of the Banteay Meanchey Province of Cambodia made the decision to host DCMi for a citywide gospel festival in their capital Sisophon next year (Probably in December). Upon making the decision, they took a vote to elect leaders for this outreach and then dedicated these new leaders to the Lord through prayer. DCMi will kick off the process of festival preparation with a series of prayer events in the spring of 2020.
Probono, a Korea-based NGO, came to Cambodia to join us for this meeting with the pastors of this province. The mission of Probono is to create a research-based strategy for the churches of Banteay Meanchey to meet a practical community need while at the same time DCMi leads churches to address the utmost spiritual need through the proclamation of the gospel. Only 1% of the population of this area is Christian. Please pray that Probono will help the churches of Banteay Meanchay to become influential within the community as a result of their social contribution during the gospel festival next year (Acts 2:42-47).
DCMi will host a Cambodia Festival fundraiser at Pyung An Presbyterian Church in Auburn on Saturday, February 22, 2020 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. A light dinner will be served. Would you put this on your calendar now? Please come to this fundraiser and partner with us in this endeavor to turn the former “killing field” to a “harvest field” for God’s kingdom.
With Much Gratitude,
David
