Archive for the ‘ERC’ Category

ERC Update – May 2012

Posted on Tuesday May 1st, 2012 at 6:26 am by

The Evangelical Reformed Church (ERC) are now providing their own monthly updates. These posts will include news of the denomination either in Yangon or Chin State, plus prayer points and occasional articles written for the church bulletin.

News from ERC and RBI
Not a lot to report this month, with most activities having wound down for the break, but a few worth mentioning.

  • The RBI kitchen has been completed and they even managed to get the appropriate local authority approval documents.
Teacher and Dean of Students, Be Nwee

Dean of Students and Teacher, Be Nwee, enjoying a refreshing cola

  • Joshua, Be Nwee, and Mordang have not yet returned from their ministry journey to Chin State, but reports suggest that it went very well. Be Nwee is currently continuing some ministry with his father around their area of Khumiland in Southern Chin State.
  • A new kitchen area has begun construction for the children’s campus at Samee. This campus is used to house children during the school terms. They come from far and wide to attend the government schools in Samee, so they need somewhere to stay during this time. Isaac, an RBI graduate, along the some occasional help from Samuel and Barbor, also past graduates, take care of the children and all their many needs. This kitchen will help greatly in providing an area to better prepare food for the masses (about 70 kids).

 

Prayer Items for ERC and RBI

  • For RBI lecturers, fresh back from various trips, to be able to get back into the swing of preparation for upcoming classes beginning early June.
  • For ministry of ministers of ERC.*
  • For ordination and examination of ministers at Samee.*
  • For ministry of evangelism.*
  • For travelling of Thang Bwee in Australia (returns to Myanmar on May 22nd).*

 

* Request mentioned in a previous newsletter

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Thanks for reading, may the Lord bless you and make his face shine upon you.

From Thang Bwee and the ministry teams of the ERC and RBI.

 

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ERC Update – April 2012

Posted on Sunday April 1st, 2012 at 7:15 am by

The Evangelical Reformed Church (ERC) are now providing their own monthly updates. These posts will include news of the denomination either in Yangon or Chin State, plus prayer points and occasional articles written for the church bulletin.

News from ERC and RBI

  • On March 8th, RBI was granted their Building Certification. It has been a long time coming for the college, with various things causing delays. Papers went missing, people went missing, then the problem was that a wall was missing – fortunately only an internal wall, and not load-bearing. These have now been sorted out and the local building authorities signed off on the approval. As with many things here it’s do first, get approval later. The building’s been up for about 4 years and the paperwork has been ‘in play’ for about 3. Anyway, a great result for ERC’s ministries with their training facility being now fully legit.
  • The RBI semester finishes late March, and so all the students leave the campus with some returning to relatives in Chin State. Others board elsewhere in the Yangon area and find some work during the break. One of our smallest students has proudly gotten himself a full-time job as a security guard for the grand income of $40 a month. Even for Myanmar, that’s a pretty lousy wage, but for security work it’s atrocious. He’s happy though, and the money he makes will help buy some treats during the next college year.

RBI Kitchen in Progress

RBI's kitchen being replaced with a solid structure

  • Whilst the students are all off-campus, Be Nwee, the Dean of Students, Annan, one of ERC’s elders, and one student who volunteered to take care of the campus in the absence of others, have been working hard on replacing the existing kitchen and dining area. They’re also taking the opportunity to extend the foundations of one of the existing buildings so that it’ll be ready to move the walls to match later in the year. As we’ve now entered the Summer season, the day’s are extremely hot (38+) and this is making the work very challenging. Kudos to the guys for hanging in there and putting in solid 10-hour days.
  • On April 2nd, Be Nwee, Joshua (Thang Bwee’s right hand man), and Mor Dang, ERC’s newest pastor and church planter, will head to Samee in Southern Chin State to conduct a few weeks of training to some of the younger members of various congregations. It’s called a “Children’s Seminar” and training will include the Westminster Confession and Sunday School preparation.
  • Some of RBI’s graduates will attempt to progress to the next official phase of their ministry as they sit for the ordination exam. Though I don’t have names and numbers at this time, please pray for them as they prepare, and that the Lord would have His hand upon them as he leads them into greater ministry responsibilities.
  • And last, but certainly not least, Annan, the elder I mentioned earlier, and his wife gave birth to a healthy baby son on March 3rd. Please pray for the child’s ongoing health as various things can happen to babies here in Myanmar and healthcare is neither handy, affordable, nor of good quality. Sorry, no picture available at this time.

 

Prayer Items for ERC and RBI

  • For ministry of ministers of ERC.
  • For ordination and examination of ministers at Samee.
  • For Bible training to the youth at Samee.
  • For some infirmities in the church.
  • For ministry of evangelism.
  • For travelling of Thang Bwee in Australia.
  • For travelling and training ministries of Be Nwee, Mordang, and Joshua as they head to Samee on April 2nd. They expect to return in the last week of April.

 

——

Thanks for reading, may the Lord bless you and make his face shine upon you.

From Thang Bwee and the ministry teams of the ERC and RBI.

 

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ERC Update – February 2012

Posted on Thursday February 16th, 2012 at 2:12 am by

As of this month, the Evangelical Reformed Church (ERC) will be providing their own monthly update. Their posts will include news of the denomination, either in Yangon or Chin State, plus prayer points and articles written for the church bulletin. This month though, we only have their prayer points.

Prayer Items for ERC and RBI

  • For the building process of Kitchen at Sami (Chin State) for 70 school children
  • Funds for the kitchen building and hall-room extension for the RBI campus in Yangon
  • Evangelism activities of ERC and RBI during March to May both in Chin state and Yangon Division
  • To find sponsors for the mission Church’s building at Tda Myo
  • For Thang Bwee and his family trip to Australia from March to May in 2012
  • Translation work of Thang Bwee on J.I. Packer’s “Concise Theology.”
  • For RBI graduates who are about to join for full-time ministry by April. Also please pray for provision and blessing for the commissioning service.
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Video Update – May 2011

Posted on Sunday May 15th, 2011 at 5:21 am by

This is very exciting indeed! Ever since arriving here last December I’ve wanted to use video as another way to deliver information. And finally it’s here!

It’s our first effort and I know we’ll do better next time. You can help us with that too, by commenting in the Leave a Reply section below. Please leave us any feedback and even ask us some questions that we might be able to answer in the next vid.

Feedback already received includes:

  • Thang Bwee to speak louder
  • Clearer picture (less blurry)
  • Subtitles for Martin also
  • Insert occasional shots of other things (like pics of RBI) while we’re speaking – excellent suggestion!!

 

Though you’re not able to watch the video here (sorry folks), you can …

download it to your computer using this link

Look for the green DOWNLOAD button to download it to your computer.
(It’ll be better quality than the one that plays in the browser.)

The video runs for 9 minutes and 50 seconds, and the file size is 71.9mb.

Please tell others about this,
and feel free to use it at your church or small group
(please let me know if you do)

Thang Bwee and I talk about what we've been up to, and what's coming up over the next few months.

Posted in ERC, Martin, RBI, Video update | 2 Comments »

What’s in store for ERC?

Posted on Monday May 2nd, 2011 at 5:23 pm by

It’s great to be part of the work of the Evangelical Reformed Church (ERC) and to minister along side Thang Bwee, a great man of faith, prayer, and encouragement. We’ve had many conversations together over the past few months and it never ceases to amaze me how much we have to talk about each time we meet. Of the many things we’ve discussed, one has been the growth and maturity of the folks in the congregation. As a consequence, this has led us to action.

In my April newsletter and my article, How about a progress report?, I’ve mentioned that I’m in the process of preparing some lectures. The focus of these lectures is first and foremost for the Bible college students, but the more we talk and the more I write they’re morphing into something that can and will be used with all members of the congregation.

The two lectures currently being prepared are for discipleship and evangelism. I’ve come to realise that the members of ERC are, for the most part, still infants in the faith. And that’s ok for some of the newer believers, but there are many who aren’t new believers and so it’s time for everyone to undergo a growth spurt.

One of the things both Thang Bwee and I are desperate to see is more evangelism from everyone in the congregation. The Bible college students participate in this haphazardly as part of their training, but there needs to be a more structured and deliberate approach to it. But in assessing the practicalities of this we find that there’s still some foundational work to do. That’s not to say that a new believer can’t do evangelism, but that in the case of ERC, the reason evangelism isn’t being done is because of a lack of understanding.

So before evangelism can be done we’re going to embark on a church-wide discipleship focus. Beginning in June we’ll be training as well as discipling the 2 elders, the 3 RBI/ERC staff, 2 of the senior Bible college students, and Thang Bwee’s wife. These 8 people, along with Thang Bwee and I, will then disciple another 3 or 4 people each. We should have everyone in the congregation and Bible college covered, though with some recent additions we may have to add some here and there. This move, to have everyone discipled, is something we hope to be a permanent and growing thing as the years progress.

We also recognise that we’re not in a position to handle church growth. If we had just one new person come to the church we’d be hard pressed to find someone who could disciple them. So we’re desperate for this growth spurt and to cultivate maturity at every level. Often times congregations don’t grow because the Lord doesn’t see them as able to handle it, and I think ERC is one such congregation at this point in time. But, praise be to God, we’re attending to this need within so that we can be more responsible for when the Lord blesses us with growth in numbers.

After the initial phase of discipleship training we’re going to start to push evangelism training. This will be mandatory for the Bible college students and ‘strongly encouraged’ for the rest of the ERC congregation.

Yesterday, May 1st, I preached on Jude 17-23. This passage describes how we (ERC leadership) are aiming to proceed – first by building ourselves and each other up in our most holy faith (v20, 21), helping those who doubt (v22), and then reaching out to others and snatching them out of the fire (v23).

We realise it’s first things first though, so please pray as we embark on changing the way this little pocket of the family of Christ relates and serves.

Grace be with you,
Martin

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Prayer calendar

Posted on Sunday January 25th, 2009 at 1:08 pm by

On behalf of those in Myanmar, and from me, thanks for your support and prayers. I know the Lord is working through your faithfulness.

If you’d like my 29-day prayer calendar you can download a PDF version here [196kb]. Print both pages on one sheet, back and front (i.e. double-sided), and then fold it in half and in half again so there are 4 sections.

If you’d like a stack of these then please order some from me – they’re FREE. Just use the Contact Martin page and they’ll be in the mail next-day.

[ If you need a PDF reader I suggest Foxit or Acrobat ]

Some great places to put your new calendar:

  • Inside your Bible – but remember it’s there
  • On your corkboard or whiteboard
  • On your bathroom mirror – pray while you brush, shave, wash, etc.
  • On the back of your toilet door – it’s a great place to pray
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