Happy 4th of July! While most of you reading this blog will eat delicious barbecue with family and friends we had a real special celebration with some of our family friends here in Penang. Gabe, Dawn, and Sailor along with our guest from Louisiana, Maryrita Ducote celebrated July 4th in a special way. Today is Sailor’s 3rd birthday. We did not get to watch fireworks, but a Chinese temple did shoot red flares into the sky last night. Does that count???? We did not eat barbecue but we had the most wonderful seafood (almost as good as the seafood you find in Louisiana).
June 10 – 19 we had the privilege of hosting a youth team from Church of the King in Mandeville, La. They were a great group of young people and did an awesome job serving the Thai people of Sriracha Thailand along side of the folks from Victory Church International and the folks of Victory Church in Poipet Cambodia.
Some of the activities that we were involved in at Sriracha were:
- Helping the Thai church, One Way, by cleaning debris from the newly rented facilities
- Cleaning and painting two holding cells at the local Thai prison
- Doing dramas and sharing their stories at one of the local outdoor markets
- A Friday night Thai youth service and a Sunday morning Thai service.
- Clean up and service around the Victory Bible College facilities.

Cleaning and painting a holding cell
The cleaning and painting of the holding cell to me was one of the most important acts of kindness that they were able to do. This act of kindness has opened a wonderful door of ministry for the Victory Church in Sriracha. The students ministered to the prisoners bringing them food and drink. They were also able to pray for them. The holding cell usually holds illegal immigrants until they are able to be transported to Bangkok and processed there for deportation. The police officer who arranged this work for could not stop thanking us for what we did for the prison and for those people the holding cells are designed to hold.
The time in Poipet Cambodia was short but very powerful. The main road into Poipet was asphalted only about 7 months ago. Prior to this we were told that during rainy season the pot holes were the size of trucks on this main road.

Main Street Poipet Cambodia
The team was able to see first hand, the poverty that really plagues Poipet, Cambodia.

Poipet
Besides a youth meeting the team got to visit an Aids clinic. The condition that those patients live in is heart breaking. I know that it has touched my life and that it has made a deep impact on the lives of those youth.
Thank you Church of the King for sending such a great group. I know that they were a wonderful blessing and that they were touched by what they experienced.







I have just returned from the Northeast region of Myanmar. I got to spend time with some of the most dearest and faithful men and women of God that I have ever met in my life. Despite their hardship and challenges they are serving God with great joy in their heart. It was truly a learning experience for me. I know for certain that this was not my first and last trip to that part of the world. 










Since April 13th we have been in Sriracha Thailand. Our purpose for being here is to teach and train the students of Victory Bible College International how to make disciples.

Last week I had the privilege of working with the Manila Victory Church of Asia, pastored by Rich and Ning Conte. Rich Conte moved from America to the Philippines 20 years ago. After years of church planting Rich and his wife Ning were on the verge of burnout. A chance meeting with Dr. Al and Pastor Terry Purvis encouraged Rich that apostolic relationship was the answer to their ministry frustrations.
I have just returned from a week long ministry trip in Lampung Indonesia. My time there was to get introduced to about four different pastoral groups to assess how we can help them to plant churches and to see their churches grow. We visited some very remote and rural areas where dear saints of God are doing all that they can to reach their communities. The message that we shared was the strategy of making disciples. The message was well received and we are in the process of making plans to come back to this region to help them develop a disciple making ministry. The south Lampung district, where we we focused on, has more than one million people and only 60 churches. These pastors know that there is a great need to see this rural area reached with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we took two hours journeys to these rural churches we drove past what seemed like a never ending stream of houses and farms. Then we would come upon the church that was situated in the midst of all of these people. My heart was deeply touched by the great need to help these churches develop ways that they can reach into their communities with the Gospel. As I flew back to Penang and looked out my window, I could see village after village scattered through out the country side. There were so many of them. God has a destiny for these people also.
join me in wishing happy birthday to the most wonderful wife a man could ever wish for. Margaret happy birthday sweetheart. You are my very best friend and you’re the best. I love you very much.