Count His blessings

The year of 2008 is over. As we are looking forward to God's new surprises, Thuan and I had our special time to reflect to thank God for the 2008 and pray for 2009.


At first, I spent some time to go through my Thanksgiving Diary which I recorded each time I received a gift from God. Of course there have been more than those many things that God has done for me but the Thanksgiving Diary always helps me to count His blessings well because I am forgetful as other human beings. Amazingly! God had done so many things! And none of them was what I deserved to receive at all. This truth is not just something theological but experiential when I recalled all of my weaknesses and shortcomings in the past year. His strength indeed manifested during those circumstances.


Then, I also reflected on lessons He had taught me this year. I realize that I am not a good student of His. I might have been teachable sometimes but I failed most of His classes. Just like a teacher who comments "grace" for a student to pass his class, He had to do it many times. But it's still a blessing. Because the fact that I am still His student. And I can still sit in His class till I see Him face to face. He never fails me!


Count His blessings, name them one by one... I see His works on me, though not completely and beautifully as how He had designed for but I have learnt to appreciate more His corrections and blessings upon my life. Besides, I also relize that there are so many people God had used to convey His blessings to me throughtout the year and I just could thank God for each one of them and offered special prayers for them each.

"Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits"

Psalm 103:2

A gift to thank God for

Yesterday Thuan's sister-in-law bought all stuffs for our baby as they are also expecting his birth. Another gift to thank God. I have a habit of recording God's gifts in my thanksgiving journal so I added one more gift. They may not know how much it means to me, an expectant mother, to receive clothes and things Kairos. Not things but even a question how I am doing with the baby, how I am feeling, how I am expecting, does he moves in me...? These kinds of questions always brigh smiles to me... It makes me feel the whole world is expecting my baby...


I washed his clothes before putting them all in cabinet. It feels so good! The shirts, socks, hats, handkerchiefs.. are cute and so small...! Looking to my tummy, I told Kairos: "Mommy will be washing clothes for you from this small till your clothes will be bigger, bigger, and bigger..." What an experience!


As I was washing the clothes, I was also thanking God for our sister-in-law and I prayed for Kairos that God would be pleased to choose him for His work. I prayed that Kairos will meet Jesus personally in his young age of life and commit to serve Him. I am overwhelmed by the thought that my son will be used for God's glory in our country.


A gift can be just a gift if we just take it. But it will be more than just a gift if we think about the giver and his or her care and especially the ultimate Giver and His great love in providing it for us. When we think that way to come to God in thanksgiving and giving back to Him all that belonged to Him, we may find another kind of joy. Those moments are precious more than the gift.

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Note: The picture is Thuan when he was around one.

The JoY of The Christmas

"Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan- The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder. " Isaih 9:1-3

We thank God for all of your prayers for our ministry this month.

This Christmas has been a great time for both of us.

God had blessed us a good time in the Christmas service last night.

My highlight was the song "Silent night" with the candles of the choir.

It pictures the light which came to the people in darkness.

Thank to the Christ who was born for us and we pray that Christmas will remind and empower each one of us to conduct a Christ-centered life for our heavenly Father's glory.

Good news for the world

Thuan and I just finished one more Christmas program. We cannot truly say how much we thank God for it. When Thuan first discussed with me about his thoughts and ideas for his sermon with the offered topic "Good news for the world," I had a strong confidence that he would put things well together and I was touched when I read his script. We prayed together and I watched him practicing. (I don't know how long he will continue doing so with me for his sermon but I'd love it!). Thuan wanted to find a story to raise the need of the audience to receive the good news so he got me! Hey, it's not normal in Vietnam. We never heard any testimonies in church, neither saw someone sharing with the speaker as an illustration. Thuan said, "so we make it!"He assured me God would use my story to touch many lives because when good news came to our family, it brought turning point.
...Then Thuan spoke and I shared my testimony. I cried again... but whenever I have chance to share it, I count again God's blessings upon me. It renews my heart, my mind, and my soul, my commitment, and my passion. I thank God for giving me my first opportunity to do something new and inspiring here for my people.
Thuan was grateful to God for his message. It has been always a privilege for him to declare God's Word. He enjoys more the benefit of reading the Bible, mediating, and deepening in understanding about God's powerful and wonderful Word.
We thank God for an opportunity to serve and to honor Him through our life and service!

Pray specifically and receive exactly!

Dear God,
We thank you for leading us to pray specifically for our financial needs. As we prayed for our baby's delivery, we asked You with a strong confidence in Your promise: "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." (Jer. 33:3) And there were times we felt worried, especially when days passed and the unexpected day of the delivery was coming soon, You gently reminded us about our baby's name. We name Him Kairos - God's appointed time. So why we need to worry? You asserted us that You had appointed a time to provide for us. We were lifted up in faith, peace, and confidence by Your gentle reminder. Oh Lord, Your ways and thoughts are unmesurable.
And we could not keep ourselves from shouting "God is so good!" when you provided us exactly the amount we asked for the delivery. When we got it, we knew for what You want us to spend that amount because we asked exactly that much.
We worship You Lord for You have not refused to do good for Your people. We worship You for You remain faithful although we are not faithful many times. We don't deserve to receive Your gift but You have granted them for us, assuring us that You accept our weaknesses and help us to develop our faith in You daily.
We thank You!
We love You!
And we worship You for who You are and everything You have done!
Our baby is blessed though he is not yet born. Praise You!

...2nd AnNiVeRsArY..!

Days passed and we completed our 2 years living together... (and more than just living!) I still remember our first wedding anniversary last year in the Philippines when we were still students: sweet, fantastic, and romantic!
So... what did we have this anniversary?
We did not have much money to think about many things or to do some "luxurios" stuffs which couples might allow themselves to "throw money away through the window" in such special and memorable day. But we had a real good day together. We asked about our last anniversary wish and we wished for our next year of marriage.
Kairos is the answer of our wish last year! And we are now excited to welcome him.
Indeed God is so good. He brought us together and used this marriage to build us up. We have learned and grown together as a couple. Even just two years but I could not count all of His blessings. Times He provided. Times He cared and forgave. Times He led and protected. Times He taught and lifted us up...
To be honest and transparent, we are doing better together after two years of living, learning, and growing.
I have learned so much to submit, honor, and trust God with Thuan. And He has learned to love me, lead me, and our little family in the way God wants.
If there was one happy and memorable event we went through together during the past two years was our trip to Korea. It is like that for some reasons: we just finished our "heavy" studies in the school with some encouraging achievements, we went through a process of faith and patience to have the visa coming there, we had a wonderful trip in the fellowship of Christ's body, and especially we had a FaMiLy there....
And if there was a difficult and bad time we ever experienced as a couple, was the time of financial crisis. When I had to sell some of our wedding jewels to pay monthly rent. It was not tough because we had to sell them but it broke Thuan's heart when we needed to do so.
And of course the most wonderful and beautiful gift we ever received was nothing than our baby. We are thankful to God forever for this heavenly gift.
Our Father watches over us every moment and we know He found us wanting many times with so many shortcomings and weaknesses. But we praise Him for His acceptance and long-suffering compassion to both of us.
Another new year to come to our marriage, I pray that we will bring delight into His heart through our communion with Him, our life and service.

Bring Jesus to kids

People see it hard to hold an evangelism program for kids and tasks are not given to "amateur folks" because it's real hard to get kids quiet, sit, and participate properly. So, I felt hard, too after being asked by our pastor to be the speaker of the kid's evangelism program in church this Christmas. But Thuan agreed right the begining as the pastor asked him if I could join. I don't know if Thuan remebered his wife was moving to the ninth month of her pregnancy but Thuan said yes after telling me that I could do it well and that I should take it as a privilege. Well, of course I am always aware serving God is a privilege but... However, I obeyed God and Thuan. I know He had made a way for me to serve. And it was a great night! There were 70 kids as we prayed and we all enjoyed our night together. It was so cute when they answered the Sunday school teacher's question of what was there in the place where Jesus was born. One of them said there was horse and another ostrich! =) =) =)=)=)

...like angels sing...

I always love seeing kids singing and I am thankful that their teachers taught them many beautiful songs. And they really love singing to God.

It was funny to me, too as I started relating me with the pregnancy and one day my baby will be born and we would celebrate his birthday next year. They got the idea that Jesus was really born, that's why the world celebrate His birthday.

I guessed Kairos, my baby was tired because I needed to take long and deep breaths to speak loud enough and to do the actions along the story.

But I finally finished it! Yes, baby and mommy did it with a very great help and empowerment of God.

And these kids prayed to receive the gift of the Christmas, Baby Jesus into their lives. We all know they are too young to understand properly about faith and the importance of Jesus in their life but many churches over the world were planted by reaching kids.

One of them is Anh Thu, my little neigbour. I had her name in "my evangelistic prayer list" with the other nine. I prayed for her and her family members daily and I am grateful that He saved Anh Thu. Thuan said she would be my "peace of man" to reach the family. It sounds funny but why not? I am continually praying to invite her grandma, mother, and auntie to other gospel meetings. God loves Anh Thu and He truly has a wonderful plan for her life. I am convinced about that as the Proverbs said: "Train the child the way he should go, and he is old he will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6)

I thank God for the chance and I thank God for all the labors of the teachers!

My daily prayer for Kairos, my baby is that he will acknowledge God in His young age and grow in the knowledge and the grace of God as his father, Thuan. We always pray and ask God to teach us how to build an independant faith in our children in the future.

You can join praying for us.

The mass evangelism we ever attended in Vietnam!

To all Vietnamese Christians, dream had come true when God opened doors for us to have this mass evangelism with a sea of people and hundreds of new converted through this event. We actually heard the programs like this when we were out of the country but this was our first time attending such program.
God is good to Vietnam and He continues bestowing His abundant blessing and grace to Vietnamese. We praise Him for that and we are excited to see the revival taking place soon in our land in this generation.

I will post the exact number of attendees later when I have them correctly.The program was so great and powerful!

Our hearts had been refreshed and our visions had been enlightened through this event.

Please pray for the follow-up tasks after this two-night event.

To teach is to learn

To all those who ever taught in their life, teaching is an extremely good chance to learn, to understand more, to improve and perfect one's knowledge and even skills.

Thuan finished his teaching on the class Synoptic Gospels for the second time (Dec 9,10&11). This time he taught a group of students different from the first one. He had more than 10 old students who are serving in different ministry in various churches, several among them are pastors. Also he had other ten who are young, a little bit faster in learning but unexperienced in ministry. And a group of 6 tribal students who worked real hard for their study but they find hard time analyzing things and putting them in Vietnamese.

Dealing a class like that, Thuan really learned to communicate well so they all could understand but manage time alotted and goals set for the subject. It was challenging! And it was exciting!

I asked Thuan to take me with him during the last afternoon when the students had class, just want to be with him and see how the students responded after 3 days being with him. (Thuan did not want me to show up there but he finally humoured me). They have learned and grown differently in different areas as they responded and gave the feed back. I thank God for making it possible for Thuan to impact them spiritually with his young age and unexperienced state in ministry. God's Word is powerful. Knowing His truth can deliver Christians to move to another higher step of a spiritual ladder. It's all about Him who worked through Thuan for His purposes.

My brother also came for that class. Before he returned to our hometown, I had a short talk with him regarding some problems going on in His life. It moved me when he shared how deeply God touched him through the truths he learned from the ministry of our Lord Jesus and he was convinced to give up some bad habits and renewed his personal walk with God. I was moved from being frustrated to grateful to what He has done. So, I learned, too although I was not a student in his class.

God used this class to prove that teaching is His given-gift to Thuan and with prayer and humility, we are excited to see how He will use it for His glory and purposes.

Glory to Him alone!

We thank God for His strength for Thuan after the class, too.

The whole world celebrates Christmas!

Just for fun -- How different countries say "Merry Christmas!"

Albanian:Gezur Krislinjden
Arabic: Milad Majid
Argentine: Feliz Navidad (Spanish)
Bahasa Malaysia: Selamat Hari Natal
Bengali: Shuvo Naba Barsha
Bosnian: (BOSANSKI) Cestit Bozic i Sretna Nova godina
Brazilian: Feliz Natal
Catalan: Bon Nadal i un Bon Any Nou!
Chile: Feliz Navidad (Spanish)
Chinese: (Cantonese) Gun Tso Sun Tan'Gung Haw Sun
Chinese: (Mandarin) Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan
Czech: Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok
Danish: Glædelig Jul
Dutch: Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! or Zalig Kerstfeast
English: Merry Christmas
Eskimo: (inupik) Jutdlime pivdluarit ukiortame pivdluaritlo!
Farsi: Cristmas-e-shoma mobarak bashad
French: Joyeux Noel
German: Fröhliche Weihnachten!
Hawaiian: Mele Kalikimaka
Hebrew: Mo'adim Lesimkha. Chena tova
Iraqi: Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah
Italian: Buone Feste Natalizie
Japanese: Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto
Korean: Sung Tan Chuk Ha
Maori: Meri Kirihimete
Pennsylvania German: En frehlicher Grischtdaag un en hallich Nei Yaahr!
Peru: Feliz Navidad y un Venturoso Año Nuevo
Polish: Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia or Boze Narodzenie
Russian: Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom
Singhalese: Subha nath thalak Vewa. Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa
Spanish: Feliz Navidad
Thai: Sawadee Pee Mai or souksan wan Christmas
Turkish: Noeliniz Ve Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
Vietnamese: Chuc Mung Giang Sinh

Source: http://www.kiddyhouse.com/Christmas/

Countdown to Kairos' birth...!

Kairos my dear,
So we have been together for almost eight months. Only more than one more month to go but it is so long to me. How I long to meet you, son! And how much I love you!!!
Together we pray, we eat, we sleep, we act, and we serve God this Christmas. Sometimes it's hard for us to move fast or sit for long, right? But we have been doing good and I am thankful to God.
Son, I am so eager and so excited to meet you. I marked the date our doctor said you would be born and I am waiting and praying.

A busy but exciting Christmas is coming...!

Christmas is coming as usual every year but as a family, Thuan and I are welcoming it with many diffirent thoughts and feelings for some interesting reasons.
First, this is our first Christmas serving God as a family in our homeland.
Second, Christmas is also our thanksgiving time with our wedding anniversary. This year will be our second.
Third, we are excited and overjoyed to see our baby soon after this Christmas.
Fourth, this is our first time enjoying Christmas season in HCMC.

And for me, I have special gifts from the Lord of Christmas and because of that, I am happy and grateful! I thought I might not do anything for Him during this season but He provided me some opportunities where I can serve him with Thuan, and our Kairos (in my womb!)

We are expecting an exciting Christmas... May His Son's birthday celebration bring joy and love to every one of us. And may many will be saved into His kingdom as a gifts for His birthday through our acceptable and pleasing service!