Lingpin works for the Army and is a full-time servant for God. He serves in many areas in church, including playing the drums for the church band and editing videos and taking photographs. He inspires many with his sacrificial heart.
We had a great retreat didnt we? i certainly felt so encouraged and so much closer to everyone. i felt such pride and confidence in the young leaders who did agreat job with the retreat planning and the games and... just everything. incredible.
Great job guys.
Well, right after the retreat, when we parted our ways for home, i went back, did my household chores, thenwent to meet two vietnamese brothers. they were goingto stay over at my place for the night before flying back to vietnam the next day.. it wasnt the first time i was meeting them. they had also stayed at my place a few days ago just before theretreat en route to manila for the "believe" leaders conference in manila phillippines. unfortunately i didnt have time to fellowship much with them then, so i guess i had to make it up this time. over some beef noodles at lavender food court, we shared life experiences.
I was so blown away by what they shared, though they spoke only halting english,the warmth was the same, the things we did in church were the same, the convictions were the same, but their devotion seemed vastly different from ours.
The vietnam chuch consists of only about 80 plusdisciples, with twice the number of sisters tobrothers. the church is an underground church; they are allowed to meet, but they are not allowed to register as a society and are not recognised by the government. they may read bibles, but they may not show it in public... they can't even wear church related t-shirts. they get harrassed by police frequently and often the whole bible-talk gets hauled off to the police station for questioning, together with their entire family. their neighbours act as spies for the police and regularly report on their activities to the police.
Persecution is acute. But yet, they meet as a bible talk weekly at the park to pray together and do their quiet times. then they meet again one on one or in pairs almost daily. they have the same songbook but they need to translate itinto vietnamese for the rest who dont understand english. they dont have anyone who knows how to read music so they kind of try to sing it by memory from the conferences they have been to and from foreign speakers who visit them and teach them. they could only do their best to sing something though they didnt know the correct form. i had to burn a cd of kingdom songs for them so that they could teach the vietnam church to sing the songs the way there meant to be sung. they have this practice of dating twice a week, and are held accountable for the frequency of their dates.
I was so convicted when hiep whipped out an excel sheet of the names of brothers and sisters and their dating schedule. and he said, that NOBODY was allowed to be left out. it seemed to be a matter of discipleship and of the highest importance. the coversation with the leaders would go something likethis...."bro, this sister has not had a date for threeweeks... why?"
They shared that disciples dont really struggle with worldliness that much over there; there just isnt alot of money to be made over there for now. instead they struggle with having relationships outside of thechurch. actually i dont think that its any differentfrom here, just that maybe we dont pay so much attention to it over here.... it is however a very real struggle for us. my perception of dating has changed quite a bit i must say. its a serious discipleship issue to go on dates, and yes, repent i shall. i thought to myself of how much i had to change as a leader... what kind of an example am i setting?
Hiep, who is 34, is a single, but he's getting married this year. He is a very very serving man. he is one of the leaders in their kids kingdom over there, spending countless hours translating kids kingdom texts from English into Vietnamese for their kids over there, sothat they can be raised with great conviction next time. he just bought a couple of books in manila sotheres more work for him back in vietnam...
Doan Binh is a single father at 32, and he has great conviction in doing the right thing and being righteous before God. his whole family is in america except him and the reason he stayed was that he wanted to go on a mission team for 2 years; the other reason was that his family had gone over using fake papersand he wanted to be righteous so he decided to stay... :) his son is just over 2 years old and is in the custody of his ex-girlfriend. he gave up his sinful relationship with his girlfriend in order to be baptised, and only found out 6 months after his baptism that he had a child. today he dates twice aweek.... sisters only of course.
I had a great time in fellowship with them and was honoured to have this window of opprtunity to know what other brothers and sisters have to go through inorder to be a disciple. it makes our time as a disciple in singapore seem like a walk in the park. it makes me grateful that we have the freedom to worship freely, the finances to buy the things we want, the comfort of a building to worship in, the fact that wehave bands and song leaders to lead us in inspiring worship, the fact that we have our ministry leaders so easily accessible; for john and wee keong and joyce...so many of the things and people that we all too often take for granted and sometimes forget to thank God for.
I hope that my sharing will motivate us to give greater thought to our discipleship. i learnt a lotand was deeply convicted. i hope that we can learn from them and take things higher, amen?
We had a great retreat didnt we? i certainly felt so encouraged and so much closer to everyone. i felt such pride and confidence in the young leaders who did agreat job with the retreat planning and the games and... just everything. incredible.Great job guys.
Well, right after the retreat, when we parted our ways for home, i went back, did my household chores, thenwent to meet two vietnamese brothers. they were goingto stay over at my place for the night before flying back to vietnam the next day.. it wasnt the first time i was meeting them. they had also stayed at my place a few days ago just before theretreat en route to manila for the "believe" leaders conference in manila phillippines. unfortunately i didnt have time to fellowship much with them then, so i guess i had to make it up this time. over some beef noodles at lavender food court, we shared life experiences.
I was so blown away by what they shared, though they spoke only halting english,the warmth was the same, the things we did in church were the same, the convictions were the same, but their devotion seemed vastly different from ours.
The vietnam chuch consists of only about 80 plusdisciples, with twice the number of sisters tobrothers. the church is an underground church; they are allowed to meet, but they are not allowed to register as a society and are not recognised by the government. they may read bibles, but they may not show it in public... they can't even wear church related t-shirts. they get harrassed by police frequently and often the whole bible-talk gets hauled off to the police station for questioning, together with their entire family. their neighbours act as spies for the police and regularly report on their activities to the police.
Persecution is acute. But yet, they meet as a bible talk weekly at the park to pray together and do their quiet times. then they meet again one on one or in pairs almost daily. they have the same songbook but they need to translate itinto vietnamese for the rest who dont understand english. they dont have anyone who knows how to read music so they kind of try to sing it by memory from the conferences they have been to and from foreign speakers who visit them and teach them. they could only do their best to sing something though they didnt know the correct form. i had to burn a cd of kingdom songs for them so that they could teach the vietnam church to sing the songs the way there meant to be sung. they have this practice of dating twice a week, and are held accountable for the frequency of their dates.
I was so convicted when hiep whipped out an excel sheet of the names of brothers and sisters and their dating schedule. and he said, that NOBODY was allowed to be left out. it seemed to be a matter of discipleship and of the highest importance. the coversation with the leaders would go something likethis...."bro, this sister has not had a date for threeweeks... why?"
They shared that disciples dont really struggle with worldliness that much over there; there just isnt alot of money to be made over there for now. instead they struggle with having relationships outside of thechurch. actually i dont think that its any differentfrom here, just that maybe we dont pay so much attention to it over here.... it is however a very real struggle for us. my perception of dating has changed quite a bit i must say. its a serious discipleship issue to go on dates, and yes, repent i shall. i thought to myself of how much i had to change as a leader... what kind of an example am i setting?
Hiep, who is 34, is a single, but he's getting married this year. He is a very very serving man. he is one of the leaders in their kids kingdom over there, spending countless hours translating kids kingdom texts from English into Vietnamese for their kids over there, sothat they can be raised with great conviction next time. he just bought a couple of books in manila sotheres more work for him back in vietnam...
Doan Binh is a single father at 32, and he has great conviction in doing the right thing and being righteous before God. his whole family is in america except him and the reason he stayed was that he wanted to go on a mission team for 2 years; the other reason was that his family had gone over using fake papersand he wanted to be righteous so he decided to stay... :) his son is just over 2 years old and is in the custody of his ex-girlfriend. he gave up his sinful relationship with his girlfriend in order to be baptised, and only found out 6 months after his baptism that he had a child. today he dates twice aweek.... sisters only of course.
I had a great time in fellowship with them and was honoured to have this window of opprtunity to know what other brothers and sisters have to go through inorder to be a disciple. it makes our time as a disciple in singapore seem like a walk in the park. it makes me grateful that we have the freedom to worship freely, the finances to buy the things we want, the comfort of a building to worship in, the fact that wehave bands and song leaders to lead us in inspiring worship, the fact that we have our ministry leaders so easily accessible; for john and wee keong and joyce...so many of the things and people that we all too often take for granted and sometimes forget to thank God for.
I hope that my sharing will motivate us to give greater thought to our discipleship. i learnt a lotand was deeply convicted. i hope that we can learn from them and take things higher, amen?
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