Thailand UBF 2012 Annual Report

by WMD   03-02-2013   0 reads

Thailand UBF

March 2, 2013

Prayer Life of Daniel

“Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.” (Daniel 6:10)

Looking back on 2012

Last year, I took Mark 11:23 as my key verse so that I may experience faith. The work of inviting and raising disciples didn’t show much progress, and I faced difficulty in doing self-supporting business. In the end, it seemed like I would face a lot of difficult situations, and I was extremely distressed. Despite these hard situations, the Holy Spirit still worked continually, comforting and encouraging me.

Report by events

  1. SBC (4.27~29): This year, a total of 28 people attended SBC, 3 people less than 2011. Even though a missionary family joined our Thailand UBF, the number did not grow. From this day on, I expressed dissatisfaction toward others. Also, the air-conditioner at the SBC was out of order, which made me complain to the resort staffs. When M. Mary Lee saw my face, she said, “Your face is full of dissatisfaction. Please blow off your anger.”
     I did not prepare the rites for baptism ahead of time, because there were no new sheep. However, brother Bank repented, accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior, and decided to be baptized. The two children of M. Peter Lee were also baptized.
  2. Disciple Conference (10.20, 21): 31 members attended this conference. The main title was “Have Faith in God,” (Mark 11:22). The disciple-candidates presented a faith symposium by learning the ancestors’ faith. The environment was fairly nice, and we were able to rest, renew our strength, and thank God for letting us learn to challenge ourselves in doing the impossible.
  3. Christmas Worship Service (12.23): Dr. Mongkol delivered the message from John 3:16. He was very busy teaching, meeting, and working, so it was difficult to prepare the message. But still he delivered the message with good points. There were numerous worship programs, such as a special song, musical performance, and drama, and they were very gracious. Even though we wanted to invite 50 sheep, the number of attendees was only 33.
  4. The work of John’s Gospel and co-operation with missionaries
  • We thank God for granting the word from John’s Gospel, earlier in the year. Through this gospel, the leaders and sheep accepted the truth deeply in their hearts. By the end of February, a new missionary family (M. Peter & M. Suzie Han) joined our ministry and co-worked well. M. Peter was pretty busy with his embassy affairs, but he showed himself to be a man of heart by attending the missionary prayer meetings regularly. Because there are two missionary families now, I had to prepare Korean messages for them. Therefore, I had to finish writing the Sunday message by Thursday, and prepare the Korean message by the end of the week. Whenever I finished preparing and translating the message in advance, I thanked God for being able to receive grace from the word deeply.
  • For a long time in Thailand UBF, there were only one family and one missionary (M. Mary Shin), but by the end of the year 2010, Peter Lee’s and Peter Han’s families joined the Thai ministry. I received comfort and joy in co-working with them, because they were very humble and faithful. Every Saturday, we made a vessel of the Holy Spirit through fellowship, Bible study, testimony sharing, and praying together. In every event, these missionaries collaborated together, and the burden on me was much less than before. However, they are short-term missionaries, so I pray that God will grant long-term missionaries.

The work of raising disciples

  •  Even though there was no visible growth outwardly, existing leaders such as Shep. Tam Paul, Luke and On Pauline started to feed 2 sheep per person as they promised each other. They attended the conference in Korea for the 50th anniversary of UBF, and when they returned to Thailand, their attitude toward God changed. I believe inviting them to these kinds of conferences revealed a good outcome. They were raised as the main lecturers in the SBC and disciple conference, and received hard training as they grew as servants of God’s Word.
  • Raising middle leaders: 4 shepherd-candidates are growing now. (Thanament, North, Meiy and Bank) Even though they are still weak, we let them commit themselves to presenting symposium and learning faith. We especially pray that they may be faithful to SWS and writing testimonies. We pray that they may grow as good shepherds in the future.
  • God’s work in new sheep and recovering sheep: Two previous sheep came back and recovered, so now, 3 new sheep are attending SWS and studying the Bible regularly. We pray that they may meet Jesus personally and grow as Jesus’ disciples.
  • Self-Supporting ministry 

Last year, there were severe difficulties in doing self-support because education fees must be paid but the income could not meet the expenses. The growing debt became a big burden in my heart. Due to having extreme stress and sleeping late, my blood pressure went up, and I am afraid of having health problems. Even though there were many headache-inducing problems in front of me, I wanted to please God first, so all my worries went away. I changed my business plan to convincing the Korean customers into installing LPG gas by paying for advertisement, but there is not visible result yet.

Welcoming the New Year 2013 

We studied Daniel as New Year words. Daniel was a tent-making servant like us, so he caught victory both spiritually and physically. He received much blessing from God. Behind the blessing, there was a clear attitude resolving in new environment and struggle to please God and prayerful life. I decided to pray at dawn, after a hiatus, after despairing from receiving no response in urgent prayer topics. But sometimes I fail to get up and pray in the early morning, due to excessive usage of SNS (facebook & tweeter). I know the importance of prayer very well, but I did not experience the power of prayer yet. So I am as a hold a new key verse Daniel 6:10 so that I may please God by experiencing faith and bearing the fruit of disciple-raising.
  • Prayer Topics
  1. John’s Gospel Thai message 
  2. Learning Daniel’s life of prayer 
  3. Raising three house churches 
  4. Catching the victory in self-supporting ministry 
  5. My children may enter suitable universities in Korea 
  • Repentance Topics
    1. I repent that I took too much time in SNS activity to be an expert in relationships so I did not read the Bible much
    2. I repent being afraid for my health and my bad habit to sleep late so I could not get up and pray in the early morning

One Word: I may live a prayerful life with an absolute attitude once again

By Bansuk Lee