AsiaStories

IMB missionaries Ken and Susan Quaid* use their home not only to love the children but to train nannies in a new work-release program. The couple wants to help young women break the cycle in Thailand that promotes many to go into prostitution to make a living.

Who knew foster orphans could change the lives of prostitutes and drug addicts? Hard life circumstances leave young women in a Detention Center, but faith and a second chance aim to break the cycle of prostitution and unwanted babies. Read May Messang’s* story of a life intercepted by IMB workers on AsiaStories.

I ask, “How many of you have been persecuted for your faith?” No one raises a hand. This puzzles me since these evangelists live in a Southeast Asian Country were religious groups are required to get permission for reading their Bibles. I rephrase and ask, “How many of you have been imprisoned for sharing the Gospel?” EVERY hand in the room goes up.”

When David and Regan York heard music in their living room in the middle of the night, they discovered an instrument playing on its own. The couple used traditional instruments to connect with local Southeast Asian culture and create opportunities to share their faith, but they didn’t expect spirits to inhabit their means of ministry. Once they prayed over the instrument, it stopped playing, proving God’s power in the spirit world. The local villagers, however, didn’t see it that way.

The men and women who work in this massage parlor had never heard about the true meaning of Christmas. Christmases for these men and women weren’t filled with advent calendars, gingerbread men and presents. There weren’t any links in paper chains to rip off to show how many days were left until Christmas.

Yada Chaipetch* and Maliwan Wongsurin* are prisoners at a Juvenile Detention Center in Thailand. Because they have little education and few job skills, they are at-risk for trafficking and prostitution upon their release from prison. These are their stories.

Nicole Dell and her friends from America never pictured themselves singing Karaoke in a Thai bar, but they threw caution to the wind when they realized it was the easiest way to have uninterrupted conversations with the bar’s sex workers.

It’s easy to get swept up in the magic and beauty of the moment, forgetting the real meaning — releasing one’s sin — behind this Northern Thai Festival called Yee Peng. I never knew releasing sin could be so beautiful and awe-inspiring.

The 48-year-old mother of two has been practicing Buddhism her entire life and never misses this November ceremony. She literally counts down the months, and then days, until she can release her sins through these traditional lanterns.

Learn the meaning behind the three-day Thai Buddhist festival, Loy Krathong, through this Q & A. Thais walk you step-by-step through the two main festivities surrounding this holiday — launching homemade boats and releasing hot-air lanterns. Watch videos of both events.

Ho Chi Minh City is leaving the past behind and moving toward becoming an Asian superpower. Economic changes are also paving the way for people to learn more of Christ.

More than 300 pastors have been able to share the Gospel with more than a million people among Manila’s urban poor. House groups among squatter communities lead to an explosion of the Gospel, all through training sessions every month.

Our adventure started on a treacherous, muddy path. But our story in this remote Thai village began six years earlier — when the medical clinic closed and a community development organization supported by the World Hunger Fund took its place. See how one community slowly transformed because of your help.

Two years ago, IMB missionary Al Hoopes began supervising a program that teaches Filipino villagers the basics of agriculture, herbal medicine, community development and moral values. Now, approximately 600 people have graduated from the program and have built vegetable and herb gardens near their homes. The program has changed the lives of many Filipinos, including a woman named Rowena Gonato who resorts to her newly acquired training when her children grow ill.

Feng Tan pastors a Southeast Asian church full of believers of Chinese descent. Along with his wife and five members of his congregation, he travels to South Asia to conduct discipleship training among former Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus. In each meeting, the Chinese believers teach the basics of Christian conduct, but more importantly, they hope their presence will encourage South Asians that God can mature Asian Christians into believers with effective and powerful ministries as He has done for them.

Faruq Jamil, a Saudi Arabian, stopped in the middle of a Southeast Asian market to listen as American teenagers worshiped outside a hostel. Before long, he began a conversation with three International World Changer students about the differences in Islam and Christianity. Soon they gave Jamil an Arabic Bible, so he could study on his own. Only two weeks prior to this meeting, missionaries had arrived with the city’s first supply of Bibles in Arabic.

International World Changers student Jessica Newberry planned to visit Southeast Asia with her church and work with orphans. The only other Christian in the Newberry family, her mother, Jan, worked tirelessly to raise funds for her daughter’s trip. But, when Jan died in March 2011, Jessica found herself traveling to Asia without her main support system. God, however, blessed her in the midst of tragedy and used the death to begin to change the heart of her non-Christian father. Months later, she flew to Asia and let God heal her further through the grins of a disabled young woman.

International World Changers student Aaron Powell visited Southeast Asia this summer. Powell was born with a a congenital defect, a half-formed arm. For the past couple of years, Powell felt God’s calling him into the mission field and his hand had become one of his greatest witnessing tools. It opened up conversation and allowed Powell to talk to strangers about God’s glory and mercy.

A team of five volunteers from the University of Mobile in Mobile, Ala., minister to people in villages along the Oras River on the Filipino island of Samar. With no contacts in each village, they arrive on boats and ask to stay for several days. Relying on Filipino hospitality, the volunteers become part of the village community as they study the Bible with residents. They discover not only how welcoming villagers can be to Christ followers but also how deeply rooted they can be in their own traditional beliefs.

Journeyman Esther Tallbott* ministers in villages located along the Oras River on the island of Samar in the Philippines. With a Filipino partner, she boats up and down the river holding Bible studies with villagers, but despite her love for the Filipino people, Tallbott finds life in the Philippines difficult. She deals with feelings of isolation and inadequacy, but the Father used these emotions to get her attention. On a river in the Filipino jungle, God gave Tallbott no other option but to relinquish control of her life to Him.

Tears streamed down Sam James’ face as he stared into the abyss outside his airplane window. Somewhere in the darkness below lay the country he risked his life – and the lives of his wife, Rachel, and their four children – to save. But unlike so many American men and women who came to Vietnam, James wasn’t a soldier. He was a missionary.