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Merry Christmas 2008 and Happy New Year 2009!
Many thanks to Nina for the above photos. Email her at ninatang0613@yahoo.com if you are interested in her work. Everyday is a gift from God. We are thankful that God gave us another year of abundant life together. Johnny would like to especially thank his dear friends Jane in Florida, Bro. Jim in Baton Rouge, Steve & Jinni in the Bay Area, Karen in Seattle, Denise of DCBC, Lidia of CIBC, Tribal Schribal and Rev. Lo for their generous gifts to support the Taiwan Short-term Mission Trip 7/16/08 – 8/4/08 (http://cccbr.blogspot.com/search/label/Missionary%20Trip). God provided for the financial needs of our team through you and the brothers and sisters of our church. The adjusted fundraising goal was $6,177.24 and we raised $6,300. This year we would like to share more about God’s provision to the ministry as some of Johnny’s friends requested after receiving 2007 Christmas newsletter which only scratched the surface of it. (1) God gave Johnny joy as a minister of God’s Word. Johnny has experienced God’s supernatural provisions since he became the English Minister of Chinese Christian Church of Baton Rouge (www.cccbr.blogspot.com). Being a minister is both challenging and joyful. It’s challenging because it’s about changing people’s hearts, minds and lives through the power of God’s Word and the minister’s own transformed life. It’s impossible without God’s help through the Holy Spirit. It’s joyful because every week Johnny witnesses the supernatural and impossible work done by God through praying, worshiping, evangelizing, preaching, teaching and fellowshipping with God’s people in the church. Over the past 16 months, Johnny witnessed 18 people in the English Ministry trusting Christ alone to be saved after he had shared the Gospel with them and 9 of them were baptized. In July, Johnny went to Taiwan with a short-term mission team from the church and witnessed 16 people trusting Christ alone to be saved after the team had shared the Gospel with the people they met. For the daily journals about the trip, please go to http://cccbr.blogspot.com/search/label/Missionary%20Trip (2) God increased the faith of the church and her members to invest in the eternal kingdom of God After seeing the value of investing in the future of God’s eternal kingdom, the church and her members voted for hiring a full-time youth/children minister in September 2008. Despite the bad economy, the church is also planning to build a multi-purpose gymnasium to provide room for the youth to have sports activities and for the English congregation to worship. Since the English Ministry grew from about 35 to about 50 active members over the past 16 months, the English worship room has reached its full capacity. Thanks to the senior pastor’s wisdom and other church leaders’ faith, starting from 12/7/08, the Chinese congregation changed worship time from 10:40 am to 9:30 am while the English congregation changed worship time from 10:40 am to 11:00 am. Both worship services are held in the main sanctuary. This
arrangement also allows for about 15 additional 5th
graders to join the English worship service. (3) God provided co-workers for the English Ministry After Johnny had conducted training on Bible study, Sunday School teaching, worship, evangelism and short-term mission, some became Bible study leaders, some Sunday School teachers, some grew as worship team members and some became evangelists and short-term missionaries. Others became audio-visual team members. God also has provided inside and outside speakers to share the burden of Johnny’s preaching ministry once a month since the beginning of 2008. This gives Johnny time to catch up on administration, visitation, evaluation and planning for the future of the English Ministry.(4) God provided a good martial arts school for Johnny to continue his martial arts training
Many
thanks to Nina’s former colleague Duy Nguyen for the above photos.
Please go to www.dnphoto.com
if you are interested in his work. (5) God provided Nina work and health insurance We thank God that Nina passed the Louisiana Pharmacy license exam in April 2008 and started working full-time in May. Nina finally got medical insurance through work. For personal reasons, Nina changed to part-time without benefits in November. We thank God again that she was able to get individual medical insurance through Blue Cross/Blue Shield. We also thank God for God’s protection of Nina on the road from Sept 07 to April 08 as she commuted to Dallas once or twice a month to work at her hospital.. (6) God protected the church and our family during Hurricane Gustav & Ike. Despite inconveniences from the week-long power outage caused by Hurricane Gustav , God protected the church members and the church building from severe damage in September 2008. (7) We would like to share with you our favorite verse from the Bible this Christmas – John 3:16. Martin Luther called John 3:16 “the heart of the Bible-the Gospel in miniature.” It's so simple a child can understand it; yet it condenses the deep and marvelous truths of redemption into these few sharp words:
We wish you a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!
In
the Lord
Johnny and Nina
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