God Prepares and Provides

From our last report in January what seemed like a long time certainly did not feel so. Since 2015, we have been praying and planning to hand-over the leadership of CTM Church to a local bible graduate on practicum. It took a year for us to prepare and equip him, but we feel he is not yet able to take over because of his lack of ministry and pastoral experience. So we decided to let him stay on and continue to learn. We hope one day he will be ready and confident to take over the leadership of CTM Church.

To us, a “Life Group” is the church. We have a small life group church in the outskirts of our city, about an hour’s ride away from CTM Church. Members of this group are young people or young families. Last Christmas, we conducted an evangelistic film show in one of our member’s little restaurant nearby. It attracted a group of children who have been coming regularly to this small restaurant ever since. Every Friday they will invariably gather in this small restaurant to join the adult life group. Even when we canceled the weekly Friday life group meetings to gather everyone back in CTM Church to be mobilized for our annual Alpha Course which runs from April to June, we could not abandon these enthusiastic children and had to assign a few members to continue meeting there for them.

After the 10-week Alpha course was over, members of this group returned to their life group meetings in the restaurant. However, due to the increase in the number of children and adults, we had to separate them into two groups. But the venue is too small to accommodate two groups without noise from one group interfering with the other. Hence, we prayed and waited upon God’s solution to this good problem. Through this time, God used different people to affirm His work in this church and to prepare the people for this special task.

One day, a Christian sister from another church shared with me on the phone that while she was praying for CTM Church, God reminded her of her mission trip with us to Thailand last year. It was then that she was first introduced to children’s ministry and felt that God is preparing her in this direction. Incidentally, all the sisters who are involved in leading this group of children were also part of the same mission trip to Thailand last year. Prior to the mission trip, I remember inviting this Christian sister to serve in Sunday School but she rejected it because she felt she had no calling or burden in this area. But through the trip, she experienced God and fell in love with Jesus who loves children. God is indeed preparing His workers for His work. Praise God!

God not only prepares the people, He also prepares the place! We had hoped for a larger premise to accommodate all the children and adults. More so for children who need a bigger area. Our challenge is finding a suitable place. Parents of the children are not comfortable to have them gather in a rented apartment in a private estate. And if we rented a shophouse unit, the rental and transfer fee is too expensive. One night, as we ended our fasting and prayer meeting for this matter, we received a phone call from a church member. He told us that he saw a shophouse rental advertisement! This came in such a timely fashion that all of us found it a little hard to believe that God indeed hears and answers our prayers so quickly. That night, we made an appointment with the owner and signed the contract with him on July 7. Whether it is location or other factors, God hears our prayers. Most importantly, we experienced God’s faithfulness. If it is God’s work, He will surely prepare and provide. Surprisingly, this shophouse unit did not require any transfer fee at all. All glory to God!

With this premise, God affirms this life group as a church. Our vision is that more churches like this life group will be planted and established this way.