น.ส. เจนนิเฟอร์ สตีเว่นส์: Ministry

Missions Encounter Seattle #1

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 04:20:09 GMT

Well, first day of training is over, and it's been really good. I got to see Kathy Alexander, John Amstutz and Frank and Kathleen Greer. It was so great to see them. So happy!!!! It was great to hear the word of God presented by the walking Bible Computer that is John Amstutz and meet and pray with so many others that are preparing for the mission field all over the world. So far so good, and I'll keep you updated on any new developments as they happen (because I have internet access here!!! Yay!!!)

Update Udon Pattanakarn School Outreach

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 08:29:09 GMT

The Christmas program was a great success everyone really enjoyed it! Check out the photo album to see pics.

New sista

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 08:26:29 GMT

Fah, my friend's sister, is a remarkable young lady. About a week ago, she asked me if I went to church and if she could come with me. Through just hanging out, I learned that she has been hearing from God since she was a little girl in dreams and visions, but she didn't know who He was exactly. She came to church with me this past Sunday night, then she came over and peppered me with questions about the Lord who had been calling to her for so long. She told of how she went to the local Catholic Church to see if God was there, and the sisters just gave her a bunch of literature about Mary, and Old Testament (yes, Old Testament) and told her to go buy a rosary. She did, but felt that something was missing. We spent more than four hours just enjoying the presence of the Lord and the truths of who He is, which climaxed in her accepting Jesus as Lord. We gave her a bible (one of the ones we brought up from the South) and helped her on her journey of discovery. She is going to start out in the Gospel of John, and Kheb and I are available for her whenever she has questions. We all prayed together, and she enjoyed that a lot because it wasn't the Lord's prayer but just conversing with Daddy. What a tremendous gift for Christmas for all of us! So, please remember to pray for Fah and her growing relationship with the Lord!

Christmas Party

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 07:58:14 GMT

We had parties on Christmas Eve morning and evening at the house. In the morning we all had breakfast and exchanged gifts. Then in the evening some carolers came from church. SO much fun! Everyone enjoyed the festivities and homemade spiced cider!

Christmas outreach to Udon Pattanakarn School

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:01:18 GMT

Thanks for your responses about the candy cane outreach! This was the first year I have seen candy canes, and apparently this year was an experiment so there were few cases ordered. The canes were sold out in just a few days. No matter though. I got as many as I could. I translated the story of the candy cane and made it into a little flyer. Then I just got another type of mint candy and stapled it to the flyer. There are 1,258 students who attend the high school, and they will each get the gospel message on Christmas morning! I also gave the flyer to about 70 other students this afternoon. Thank you all!

Merry Christmas!

Jen

Santa or Satan

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:16:26 GMT

I've recently been confronted by some of the anti-santa crowd here, and though I do not agree with using Santa Clause as a tool to deceive children, I do not believe that one can attempt to cut oneself off from a cultural icon and still relate to the general population. In light of this, I want to give a little bit of history regarding Santa Claus that you all may not be aware of in case you meet some members of the aforementioned group.
St. Nicholas was born in Patara, in present day Turkey in the 3rd Century. At that time the region was under Greek rule, thus the name Nicholas (if you have seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you may recognize the "Greekness" of the name Nicholas. hahaha). Nicholas' parents were devout Christians and raised him to be so. When they died, they left him a large inheritance, but Nicolas took Jesus words' seriously and sold all his possessions and devoted his life to serving God. He became famous for his generosity toward the needy, and especially for children. Nicolas was enamored with the sea and had a ministry to sailors. He was later made Bishop of Myra and was persecuted and suffered for his faith under the emperor Diocletian. He was exiled and imprisoned for a time, but upon his release, he attended the Council of Nicea. It is, therefore, right to say that St. Nicholas had a significant role in shaping Christianity as we know it today.

So then, how did St. Nicholas become Santa Clause and why all of the traditions, such as coming down the chimney and stocking filling??? Santa Clause is simply a Dutch misnomer from the Greek pronunciation of St. Nicholas. In other words, Santa Claus is St. Nicholas with a bad accent. There are a lot of legends and things about Nicholas and miracles he is said to perform that have been exagerated into the stories and traditions we hold to today. Stocking filling for example is said to have originated from the method that St. Nicholas employed to help a poor man pay the Dowry for his daughters' marriages, thus saving the poor man's family. People in the third Century would hang their socks by the fireplace to dry after washing them. Apparently, he would run past the poor man's house and throw a bag of money through the window and into the socks that were hanging by the fire place. There are literally about 20 pages of legends and stories that are, at the very least, interesting to read. If you want to read more about this, you can go to St. Nicholas Center or check out Wickipedia.

The History Channel also did a really interesting history of Christmas special. where it explained that Christmas was actually abandoned in the late 16th Century by Christendom because of its association with the "Pagan" holiday, Yule - thank you dear Constantine AGAIN. The Pilgrims did not initially celebrate Christmas, because to do so was considered sac religious. In the late 17th or early 18th Century, however, people began to get a little stir crazy and wanted something entertaining to do during the long dreary winter season. Christmas was therefore re-instituted as a winter festival full of singing and dancing. The anti-Constantinian sentiment died down and Christians began to participate in the winter celebration designating it Savior's day to remember and celebrate the birth of the Lord. Thus inventing the "true meaning of Christmas." I honestly don't know how it came to be called Christmas exactly. I can't remember much more, and I don't have enough time to read up on it for now. Hopefully some of you can fill me in on the rest. Oh! Just one more quick thing. The modern Santa that we all know around Christmas is actually a clever marketing tool by Coca-Cola. It's an interesting little trail to follow if you are so inclined. Virtually every country in the western world has legends and traditions revolving around St. Nicholas - even if they don't celebrate Christmas per se. I'm not saying that I believe in Santa, because I don't. I believe in Jesus. But I am not blind to my culture, and I feel that it is counterproductive to try to pretend that Santa will just whither and die if we designate his name as "satan" misspelled. Still, there are truly devout and well-meaning people who love the Lord and are convicted about having anything to do with anything that even mentions Santa Claus. If that is you, I respect your opinion and your conviction. I only hope that I can offer a bit of perspective. That is all. Santa or not, I plan to celebrate Jesus as I always have since I accepted the Lord, and that is with a lot of fun and joy and reverence to God for the most incredible gift that has ever and can ever be given! And to all of you, may this Christmas be extra special, full of the love of family and Jesus. Merry Christmas and God bless you!

November 2007 Update

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:51:43 GMT

July - November 2007

Life in General

At the end of August, I moved, partly because the new house is cheaper, but mostly because I wanted to sever any dependency I had whatsoever with the owner of the English center I had been working for previously. This house had been vacant for a long time, and needed (still needs) some repairs. Thus far, I have fixed a few of the plumbing issues – since plumbing isn’t my strong suit, I have to wait a bit and pay someone to fix things for real – re-wired nearly the entire house, painted and done some tile repair work. You will see more of the before-after pics. Let me know what you think. :D The “classroom” is in use but still needs work. I haven’t even touched the wiring and the bathroom, but I painted, cleaned and acquired desks and a whiteboard. It still needs some curtains and stuff, but I’m happy to say that the classroom is already seeing a reasonable amount of use, which I’ll elaborate on in the following section. A most important development, however, is that I finally found a church that I can call home, at least until all us Foursquare Thailand people decide what to do about starting a church here. The service is in English, and there are a lot of other missionaries there. There’s an older man, named Tom Smith, who shares my passion for cooking and though he is a bit eccentric, he condescends to bring cornbread for Kheb and I on occasion. J I look forward to Sunday night every week, and it’s so good to be able to worship and fellowship. The pastor’s wife, Wendy, is super nice and has a beautiful singing voice that seems characteristic of Philippino ladies.

In October, I went to the South and moved the rest of the things that were down there up here to Udon. It was nice to see everyone down there. A friend of ours, Wikie – pronounced “Vickie” but with the German speeling - has adopted the strangest animal I think I have ever seen outside of a zoo. It’s something like a cross between a raccoon, mongoose and a cat. No-one we know has any idea what it is. Maybe it’s the missing link! Hahahahahaha! Anyway, they’ve named it Wombey Dompey, which seems to suit it well. She said she was going to send me some pictures of it, because I didn’t have my camera with me at the time. I’ll pass them on whenever I get them. It’s possible that she sent them, but they were deleted, because I haven’t been able to use the internet for the past few months. All in all, going to the South was a fruitful endeavor. I have all of my Bible study tools again, as well as pictures and odds and ends that I really missed, especially the refrigerator that was so graciously supplied when it was most needed.

The orchids that I have been raising for the past few years are doing well, and I had the first bloom a few weeks ago. You may remember that I brought the orchids from Singapore as seedlings in glass beakers. Each beaker contained about 20 orchid plants each less than 1 inch tall. They are growing well now and some are more than 1.5 feet tall.

The Holidays:

Thanksgiving will be spent with some other missionary families this year. I do have to work all day and also in the evening, but I have a few hours in the middle of the day to spend with my somewhat extended family. I’m bringing a pumpkin pie made entirely from scratch – since you can’t by anything remotely convenient for baking here. :D Anyway, I am earning a reputation as a first class cook among my colleagues, which brings me to Christmas…

On Christmas day, I’ll be cooking a Christmas feast for more than 40 people at my friend’s restaurant! We’ve already done the test run and it was beautiful!! It should be a delightful evening. I’m teaching one of my friend’s daughters violin, and she will serenade the diners. At school, we are doing the Christmas play and some other fun things. I’m really looking forward to that.

I am planning to go to visit Kheb’s family in Nong Khai for the New Year. It’s always nice to be out in the nice quiet clean country. Aaahh. Really looking forward to that rest!

Work/Ministry

These passed months have seen me busy with various forms of community service. I help out as a translator at the Udonthani Provincial Courthouse when they need and English/Thai speaker, and have somehow found myself in a consultant type position with a restaurant and a few other small businesses around here. You know how much I enjoy cooking, and that I did a lot of research on restaurant management ever since I started working on the community center project. So this is turning out to be a useful venue to practice what I’ve learned. The restaurant I am helping with went from being in the red to turning over a really decent profit in just a few months – enough to reduce working hours and supply a raise to the staff, thus improving their working conditions significantly. Everything is much more efficient now, and I am now considered an insider on all matters in the owners family life which allows for evangelism as opportunities arise. J I have been running an English school out of my house during my free time. I currently have roughly 20 students ranging from soldiers and doctors to elementary school students. It is my goal to have enough students to be able to support myself so I can devote more time to ministry by not working full time.

Since quitting at I Can Read, I have been working at a government high school. It’s been quite an adjustment, but it has helped me to grow and rely on the Lord so much. We never know what’s going on or what anyone is thinking. The other foreigner teacher, Chris, always says that we must be secret agents or something, because everything is top secret at the school. J Anyway, I am doing all my work as unto the Lord and I know that He’s proud of me regardless of any other outcomes. That is my greatest comfort. I do like my job, however. It’s an honor to have a place in the lives of more than 800 young people. The vast majority of the students like and respect me a lot. On the evaluation forms, they even requested that the other teachers learn to teach like me. Though I admit that I am flattered by the compliment, those comments have made things a little bit difficult for me in relationships with some other teachers who are trying not to lose face. Cultural issues are really hard sometimes, even now. It’s not matter, though, because I have good relationships with the administration and have earned a reputation for being honest.

Well, though I do have a lot to say, if I do not send this it will never be sent. Therefore, I’ll leave you with a few more pictures. Check my MSN live space within the next few weeks, because I plan to catch up on some much needed blogging and add a few picture albums. Prayers for blessings and joy go out to you with all my heart.

Jen

4 Year Anniversary: 2/2/2003 - 2/2/2007

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 05:20:32 GMT

Well, It's been four years since I packed up and moved out east - WAY East that is! I can hardly believe all that has transpired since I received the initial call to go to Thailand, and had to answer the Lord with, "Huh?! Where the heck is Thailand. Is it in South America or something???" Followed by several weeks of arguing with Dad about how I was sure that he meant Africa and must be mistaken. Well, we all know how that turned out don't we?

These past four years have been eventful to say the least, You have been with me through many transitions: Cultural adjustment upon arrival, the process of becoming proficient in the language and preparing for the 6th grade Thai exam, the transition from being a student to being a teacher at all levels, the transition from being a teacher to becoming a University professor, going through a somewhat serious illness, then the transition from being a Professor to a releif worker after the Tsunami and the most recent move to being an accredited TEFL teacher in the Isan Province.

Though the hand of the Lord is may seem a bit slow in Thailand, it is still steady and true. We haven't seen a mass movement toward Christianity as they have and are experiencing in Cambodia, but the few that do come to the Lord mean to stick it out. Since coming to Thailand, I have had the tremendous privilege to lead a handful of people to Jesus who have in turn led others and are serving in at least part time ministry in a church somewhere (or in Kheb's case, full time ministry with no church yet), and I am excited to see what the Lor dhas in store for the next year and beyond. So, thank you all for believing in me and supporting me in every way. I appreciate all you do! God bless you!

New Convert: Golf

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 05:19:46 GMT

After just a little over one month in my new job at a new province, one of my students accepted Jesus as Lord! Golf is a student that I tutored for five weeks. He is about 13 years old. One day, during our class, he asked me about ghosts. Apparently, he had been having some experiences and no one believed him. He asked me if I had ever had experiences like his, so I told him about my experience and how Jesus had helped me and now I am not afraid anymore. He had a lot of really good questions, and so we talked about God the entire time and in the end he asked me to pray with him to receive Jesus.

The following week (which was his last week to be tutored) Golf told me that he was so happy to know Jesus and that he had shared Jesus with his friends. His friends however, he said, "were stubborn." hahaha He expressed concern about what his father will think when he knows that Golf is a Christian. I told hime that he would be ready when the time came to tell his father. Before he left to go home, he asked me to pray with him to hear God.

It's so great to see the Lord moving. There have been many opportunities to share Jesus' love with people here. Please pray for Golf and his family.

Bottle Lady

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 13:19:57 GMT

There's a lady here, Kay, who I did some work for last year (I put tile in her house). Recently, she was fired from her job, and her husband quit his job for health reasons. She has two young daughters, Dto and Phai. They are sweet kids, and very well behaved for Thai children. I ran into Kay several times these past few weeks. She has started a business selling refreshments from her motorcycle. She's pretty smart about it though, not like the lemonade stands on a hot summer day that many of us had when we were kids. She's been going to the construction sites for the resorts that are being built in Khao Lak area. The other night, she came to my house to ask me if I had any empty 1 Liter Coke bottles lying around so she could use them to put tea and other beverages in them. Since I do not drink carbonated beverages at all, so I couldn't help her then. So, the next day, I went to a shop in town and found some bottles for her. She was elated. Definitely worth the five bucks! I am glad for the opportunity to bless her and show her the love of Jesus.

Pee

Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:23:15 GMT

There's a boy here named Pee. His parents are divorced and he lived with his mom, who has a new boyfriend. His mom doesn't care much for her two boys, and basically lets them run around like cazy and do whatever they want. Pee is out of control. He is very rude to his elders, comes into peoples' houses uninvited, tortures animals, etc. Pee is also quite obese because his mom does not watch for his nutritional needs at all, but gives him a daily allowance to eat whatever he likes, which is mostly junk food and Coke. Pee's younger brother is even more obese than Pee is. I've made an appointment with Pee every Sunday evening to mentor him. I'm going to teach him to play basketball at the school near my house. He's interested in sports, and I want to encourage him. I'll let you know how it goes. I think he just needs to know that someone actually cares about him, especially Jesus. I will use this time to share the gospel with him. I don't think he has been influenced by anything, not even evolution I suspect, since he is a terrible student in school and his parents are only Buddhist by name. Pray that he will come for our appointments. He has a tendency to flake. I'll add pictures later.

Cornerstone Church in Hat Yai

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:51:00 GMT

Pastor Simon is an amazing evangelist and has a very powerful peronality. I was honored to assist him in bringing fishing nets, weights, rice and some other provisions to one of the island ministries he was conducting after the Tsunami. Through his work with the people of Koh Jum, many people came to the Lord. He and his family are very courageous and work tirelessly, often understaffed to reach the people in Hat Yai. Simon is a tremendous man of God and an example of perserverance in faith. I have much respect for him. Please go to the link below to read about the 2 year anniversary of Cornerstone Church and other ministries that Simon is involved in. You will be encouraged and blessed.

http://seareport.blogspot.com/2006/08/southern-thailand-hot-spot-in-more.html

Great News!

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 03:19:00 GMT

This is a copy of an e-mail that was sent to me by a friend in Ban Nam Khem. I'm so thankful that we FINALLY have a real convert in the Tsunami area!! God is starting to break through to people! Hallelujah!

New Light Church is located a Tsunami (2004) site, Baan Namkem.

Dao (wife) and Thum (husband) have only recently started attending our church (New Light). They are still not saved but have shown interest in the things of God.

Just over a week ago, Thum was involved in an accident in the village. It was night time when a drunk driver hit him while he was on a motorcycle. The driver was never caught. Thum broke his right elbow and 2 fingers. Dao was so worried and was at a lost as to what to do. Calmly, Thum told her that they should PRAY and ask God to help. So, both of them and their 7-year old son prayed at the bed in the ward. A doctor walked in and saw them praying. He asked them, "Are you all Christians?" Thum replied, "Not really, but we are almost there. We trust He will help us." Throughout the past week, Thum didn't experience much pain and kept giving thanks to God for helping him.

Later, Dao told me that Thum is a very proud man who doesn't rely on any one but himself. She said that it's a miracle that he would even think of praying to God. But today, Thum is seen praying to God with his family each night.

Friends, we have shared the Gospel with this family before but they never responded. But, I think this accident has brought this family to experience the realness of our Father and the great Physician. I plan to ask them if they will seriously consider accepting Christ into their lives today (20 Aug). Please pray.

God is Good!

In Christ,
John 3:30

Community Center Update

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 06:07:37 GMT

Back in May I blogged about the plan to start a community center here in the Tsunami area. Since then, our team has decided to revamp the plan a bit. Instead of trying to apply for grants to earn the 1.5 million USD needed to build and run the center for three years, we are going to start small. We will still run all of the programs we mentioned in the other e-mail as funding allows, but we will rent a space instead of buying land and building ourselves. This will reduce the startup costs for the center dramatically. Now, our fund raising goal is 50,000 USD/year, and will cover the costs to rent a building, pay a full time staff of four people, and run scholarship programs, mentorship programs for high school students, educational seminars for members of the community, an annual stray animal clinic, an annual medical or dental clinic, cafe and garden area and various quarterly arts and crafts/job skill sessions. To get more information or to make a donation to the community center, please email me, Jen, at rhemacd@hotmail.com and state your full name and mailing address and any questions or comments you may have. Thank you for helping us reach the Tsunami affected area of Bang Muang, Ban Nam Khem and Khao Lak. May God bless you.

Swedes

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 05:54:41 GMT

Hey all. Well, we have a new fresh set of volunteers living next oor to us for the next five months! They're from Sweden, and quite friendly. So nice to have english-speaking nice people next door to us again. They've been here for over one week now, and there have already been many oportunities to share the Lord with them! Well, their not Thai, but at least there is someone around here who is willing to hear the gospel. hahaha. Maybe this will be a way for the Lord to reach Sweden as well as Thailand. :D

P'Kwan

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 07:03:26 GMT

I have a friend named Kwan. I went to talk to her one day because she was upset. She told me that she had been helping out at the chinese temple in her spare time in order to reduce stress, and that they have been pressuring her to "invite the spirit of the temple" to possess her. In exchange the spirit would supposedly care for her and her family and help her to become rich (Kwan owns a large furniture store near my house, and is relatively well off as it is). She told me that she had already allowed the spirit to posess her two times, but that she was still undecided whether to invite the spirit full time or not, and asked me what I thought about it. I told her that I don't think it is a good idea to relinquish control completely to any spirit. Then for the next few hours we talked about why. I asked her if the spirit had done anything that it said it would do for her, and she said it hadn't. So, I explainede that the spirit was not looking out for her best interest at all, but that it was simply seeking to enslave her. I told her that the spirit would always ask of her and tell her that if she does this or that then it will keep its promise, but that the day of keeping its promise would not likely come. She listened intently and said that she wanted to be freed from this spirit, so I shared the gospel with her. However, once the subject started to move to God, she turned cold and said. "I don't need God. I have Buddha!" Then she asked me how I can believe in God after the Tsunami, when all those innocent people were killed. Didn't God cause that? Good question! So I explained to her that it is not God's will for people to die like that. I explained that God created the earth and people perfectly, but that because of sin the earth is full of sickness and death. The Tsunami was a natural disaster that occured because of the conditions of the earth. The pre-fall earth was perfect in every way, with springtime weather year round over the whole earth. There was no rain and the radiation of the sun was locked safely out of the atmosphere and there was plenty of moisture because of the firmament*, there was no death, etc., but once human beings sinned, all that changed. The balance of teh earth was upset, and later the firmament fell, thus causing the flood of noah and a multitude of problems for the earth and every living thing in it followed. Tsunamis, earthquakes and other natural disasters, then, are ultimately the consequences of our actions and not necessarily the work of God - though they can be summoned by God for the purpose of judgement. (If God was judging people through the Tsunami, you can bet there would have been word of it beforehand, a warning as it were. You can see that even in Nineveh, one of the most evil cities of all time, that God does not simply send his judgement upon a people without at least telling them why they are coming under His judgement.) She had never considered this aspect before, because in her mind, Christians believe that God causes absolutely everything. I explained to her that God's will is for us to live with him and be one in Hos family if we will simply shoose to do so. We talked for a while longer about lighter topics because she kept insisting that she is going to stick with Buddha. I felt that pushing the issue further would just solidify her stance against the Lord, so I left it there. Enough for one day.

* more information on the pre-fall earth, creation science and teaching creation science in public schools in America can be found on Dr. Kent Hovind's website: www.drdino.com. I highly recommend his materials.

TwenteyFourSeven Team 22-25 May

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 06:40:16 GMT

These past few weeks have been jam packed with stuff, but the highlight was hosting our first team. A team of 19 from the Twenty-Four Seven Program in Colorado came to do ministry here. They are a very disciplined and hard-working group of people, and I was very impressed with them. They did a great job and helped to open new doors of relationship here. While here, they helped prepare Shanti Volunteer Association's library for opening, helped build the structure for a greenhouse and minister to children at a disabled childrens' school - and in only two days!!! wow. It was encouraging to see how the Lord is preparing people for leadership. If you ever have the opportunity to host a team from this program, I highly recommend it.