2023 has been a year of real encouragement as we have seen how the Lord has been moving in south east Asia. New doors of opportunity have been opening up, allowing us to reach thousands more people with Derek’s Bible teaching. May you be encouraged as you read about some of the recent accomplishments by our DPM co-workers in the nations of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.
One of our DPM-Vietnam coordinators, Ps. “D” from Da Nang, central Vietnam writes:
“Have you ever been worshipping God in a room and watching out (for uninvited guests) at the same time? Have you ever been preaching and teaching in a church or Bible class whilst feeling that somebody is coming to stop you, or you are being threatened because of your involvement in the work of God? Have you ever felt yourself being afraid, but keep encouraging others to be strong; to be of good courage? By the grace of God, we have been through all of that and will continue to go through it. But “we have decided to follow Jesus; no turning back.” We have decided to keep going; to fight for our faith; to preach the Gospel no matter what. The situation in Vietnam is challenging with the authorities questioning and threatening us for holding “illegal religious activities”. For now, we feel we need to fast and pray more for God’s intervention, deliverance, solution and favor with the authorities. We would greatly value your prayer support at this time. We can change the strategy a little, but we will not stop doing what the Lord has called us to do. We will go over to the other side and minister to those who are still unreached and untaught. Just recently, we visited another area in order to leave the area where we are being persecuted and 20 souls were added to the Kingdom after our team ministered to them; isn’t God amazing?!”
In spite of the challenges, we have been greatly encouraged to see the work in Vietnam continue to grow – thank you so much for your generous giving over the last year which has helped make this possible. Part of this growth was adding five more evangelists/pastors to Ps. “D’s” team, thus doubling the team and enabling much more outreach work to take place. During 2023, Pastor “D” has held 11 seminars for pastors in four different provinces where they have received much-needed teaching from Derek’s material. Ps. “D” has also held 15 outreach meetings and made seven trips to various parts of Vietnam to preach the Gospel to different tribes, teach from Derek’s materials and distribute Derek’s books. This has resulted in seven new home churches being started along with Bible classes for students from seven different tribes.
Goals in 2024
Vietnamese Believers with Derek’s Books
Ps. “D” would like to build on this essential work. His aim is to hold another 10 Bible training seminars – each being 2-3 days in length - for local pastors and Christian leaders, along with tribal leaders and to donate Derek’s Vietnamese books to them all. Each training class for the 30 leaders costs NZ$500 to cover food and transport. In order to help with the preparation of the teaching material and also ongoing translation work, a laptop is now required, costing about NZ$840, plus a projector, costing NZ$660. He would also like to hold 10 Gospel outreach meetings at a cost of NZ$250 each. Three of the new evangelists/pastors need a motorbike to enable them to travel to different provinces and tribal groups. These cost NZ$1,600 each. Would you like to help support these significant outreaches?
Meanwhile, in Ho Chi Minh City, southern Vietnam, Ps. “A” is aiming to hold four seminars for 340 pastors and church leaders; the total cost is $6,800. That’s just $20 per pastor! One of the pastors attending a workshop this year said:
“I’ve known about Derek Prince Ministries for many years and watched Derek’s sermons on the internet and read some of his books. I believe that these are precious teachings that God has imparted to me through these truths to allow me to experience freshness in the Lord and to experience the power and blessings that come when one truly places their faith in Him. For that reason, when I first heard about a workshop to introduce Derek’s ministry in Vietnam I was very excited and looked forward to being here. I believe and hope that this ministry will be known by many of God’s children everywhere, regardless of denomination, and that truly experiencing the truths in God’s Word will transform the lives of each individual. I have experienced this in myown life during the past period.”
In 2024 DPM-Vietnam’s outreach will also expand to the capital, Hanoi.
Thailand/Laos
It is now a year since joint DPM-Thailand coordinators, Alex and Jan (who are mostly based in New Zealand), were in Thailand. While there, the Lord answered their prayer to give them Thai partners to work with. Jason and Arisa Tan, friends from their earlier time in Thailand, approached Alex and Jan and have now become joint coordinators with them after the Lord spoke to them about helping with DPM’s work in Thailand.
2023 has been a year of establishing the work. Jason and Arisa needed to find a suitable place to make a base for DPM’s work, as well as people to help them with different aspects of the ministry. This took some months of trial and error, but they now have a home church in central Thailand in the city of Nakon Sawan with a group of younger people the Lord has shoulder-tapped to help, especially with publicity and social media content.
After the translation of 23 books in each language, new messages are now in progress after appointing new translators in both Thailand and Laos. In the year ahead, we aim to have 22 Teaching Letters translated into Thai and 23 into Lao. The combined cost of these translations is approximately NZ$6,525, or $145 per Teaching Letter. Would you like to help and sponsor one of these translations?
Jason and Arisa have also been working with DPM resources in their local church, gaining an understanding of how these resources can best be used in the local Thai context, and using proclamation cards as ‘medicine’ after deliverance and in daily living situations.
In November Jason and Arisa returned to Luang Prabang in Laos for the first DPM pastors’ seminar ever held in this nation, to promote and teach from DPM resources. This was held over two days for 40 participants and will help greatly in publicising the Lao webpage, and bless many Christians with greater access to Biblical truths. Next year there will be a greater push to find ways to publicise and distribute DPM materials in Laos and the plan is to hold two seminars in Thailand and two in Laos during 2024, for a combined cost of NZ$4,000.
DPM’s life-changing work in Vietnam, Thailand and Laos is expanding, but we genuinely need more financial help in order to equip our co-workers with the tools they need. Could you please prayerfully consider partnering with us by making a tax-rebatable gift so the DPM teams can continue to input into the lives of thousands of pastors, leaders, believers and the unsaved with Derek’s life-changing Bible teaching. Any gift you can make would be gratefully received.
Thank you so much for your prayers and support as together we “Reach the Unreached and Teach the Untaught”.
