Marketplace Transformation

Dearest Little Lamb & Champ

The trip to Hawaii was money well spent. The conference has answered many questions for myself & your dad through revelations & confirmations. I believe that societal transformation is high on GOd's agenda for this generation & to bring about city transformation, Christian believers have to minister in the marketplace.

Marketplace transformation is about taking the presence of God to the marketplace which is the heart of the city/region. This is about fulfilling the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20

This is a conference where we get to see how so many ordinary people from around the world do extraordinary things with God. They gave their testimonies on stage. Many marketplace people see multitudes saved, violence decreased, corruption uprooted, prisons transformed and poverty reduced.

Ready for some real stories - see God's hand at work :

1) Mexico
Mexico is the 6th most violent city in the world. It was notorious for corruption and its drug cartels. God called Ps Poncho to minister to the prisoners in El Cereso Prison & confirmation came when the mayor approached him to help with transforming the prison. 92% of the prisoners were on drugs. People from the outside commit 'small' crimes just to come in to buy drugs. Corruption was rampant from the head of the prison to the lowest level staff.

After much work and prayer, hundreds of prisoners were set free from drug addiction. The govt gave Ps a separate building to do church on Sunday and now the congregation is 650-strong. The clean prison image attracted the United Nations' attention and a UN team came to study the prison's management so that they can replicate its model.

There are other city transformations as well. About 100,000 children and teens roam the streets daily. The mafias use them to kill people for a fee of US$300. Ps Poncho is building a museum for the children to educate them so as to keep them from crimes. Out of 3,000 prostitutes, roughly about 1,000 had quit their jobs.

2) Jacksonville, Florida
Ps Vaughn revitalised the ghetto just outside of Jacksonville. Ps Vaughn decided he wanted to impact the community instead of just pastoring a church. He bought a dilapidated mall unused for 15 yrs and turned it into a vibrant place with the help of his church members. The mall now houses 21 businesses which are owned by the church members themselves. The church covers the overhead costs and the tenants give back to the ministry as their businesses prosper, never fearing eviction. God has transformed the community through the mall in the marketplace and thousands of lives have been touched.

3) Philippines
The city of Paranaque near Manila was transformed when the mayor gave permission to Ps King Flores to pray for the city at city hall. The mayor was desperate for help as he had inherited a debt of 1 billion pesos. With the christians doing prayer evangelism, the city witnessed a change in climate. Corruption was removed, bribes were gone and people paid their taxes. About 900 couples got married as compared to previously, couples just cohabited.

Even more amazing was how a bar becomes a church in the Philippines. Joe was a taxi driver and shortly after his conversion, he heard God tell him to serve where he was. So he focused on a bar called Sweet Moments. He applied the principles of prayer evangelism. He befriended the manager, Brian, who was a homosexual, a gambler, drug user, drug dealer & a pimp to 35 prostitutes. The friendship grew & ultimately Brian accepted Christ, & was baptized. As Brian came out of the water, God came upon him, & he experienced an instant transformation - all his homosexual drives disappeared, & he was freed from gambling & drug addiction. He stopped being a pimp. In a very short time, all 35 prostitutes became Christians. The owner of the bar ultimately became convicted that his line of business was not pleasing to God, so he turned the bar into a church.

4) Maui, Hawaii

Myles and Joyce Kawakami owned a carpet business. They were on the verge of winding up their business when God spoke to Myles to give him half of his business earnings to God. And why not? He wasnt doing well and he had nothing to lose. That year, his profits came up to US$130,000 and even if he gave 50% to God, he earned much more than when he owned 100% of his business. Out of his profits, Myles' wife Joyce was able to feed the poor in Maui. It started as a small food pantry from the back of her car and it has grown into a distribution of food throughout Maui to anyone who needs it.

5) Toronto, Canada
Ps Pat Francis started a church where the poor went. She took in the rejected, defeated, etc. She helped them to climb out of poverty by teaching them how to be entrepreneurs and own their own homes as the bible says that there should be no poor amongst you. She even set up a mortgage company to help the people in the church.

Ps Pat taught that prosperity is the solution to poverty and since we are the seed of Abraham, we cant help but prosper.

6) Phuket, Thailand
Brian Burton is a pastor of a church in Phuket. A high govt official who heard the sermon on the evil of corruption was finally convicted that he should return a bribe of US$1m that he had taken for paving the way for a hospital construction. Since the govt official had returned the money, the construction company decided to return a bribe of US$1/2 million as the management did not want to get into trouble with the law. Very soon, many who took bribes returned the money. Now the fund stands at US$7million and more money is pouring in at this moment. The money is finally used for helping the poor in the community. This is what you get when christians start to pray for transformation in the city to stem out systemic poverty because of corruption.

There are many other amazing stories. One thing is for sure, God is making an impact in this end times by anointing his people to be marketplace ministers. Your dad and I believe our family will be actively used in the marketplace like Joseph, Job, Gideon, David, Esther, Daniel, Paul, Aquilla & Priscilla.

Only when you are willing, then you will see miracles in your lifetime.

Jeremiah 33:8-9
"I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me. Then this city will bring me renown, joy, praise & honour before all nations on earth that hear of all the good things I do for it, and they will be in awe and will tremble at the abundant prosperity and peace I provide for it."

With Love
Mum

Endurance Inspired by Hope

Hey 'guys' .. here's Ps Khong's sermon on 8 Nov preached at Ps Cal Chinen's church in Honolulu. All 22 of us were there to accompany Ps.

The scripture was taken from :

1Thess 1:2-3 "We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, & yr endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ps Khong preached on the last part - "Endurance inspired by Hope in Jesus Christ". It was an apt msg on hope to finish the race at that moment. The church adopted the Moanalua High School Football team & since then they have provided coaching, spiritual & physical covering over the players. Both teams, the varsity & JV teams emerged as champions of their league because the teams were coached to practise & play acc to kingdom principles.

The players were called to go on stage & everyone in the church celebrated their victory. They had never emerged as champions before so this was an important moment of triumph.

If you look at the 2nd pic, they have a girl on the team & she doesnt even look like a tomboy!

Endurance is a big thing coz we are talking about the tenacity to finish whatever we have started. It takes hope to endure to the end and the football teams had done just that.

Do you have a dream - to dream is to hope. It is imperative that we have to dream in our sleep according to a research done on 2 groups of people. Both groups had the mandatory 8 hrs of sleep. 1st group went to sleep, with wires hooked up on their brains. The minute any1 of them started to dream, he/she would be woken up, before he/she could get back to sleep. This was done sev times but the 1st group still had their 8hrs of sleep. 2nd group sleep was not interrupted & they had the freedom to dream in their sleep. Outcome - 1st group became negative & listless while the 2nd group had a more positive outlook.


Hope is about dreams and purpose. God wants us to dream in our waking hours.


WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO DREAM?

1) To dream for God is to look positively in the future. Then you will no longer live in the past or live in pain. A man with a dream will move on.
- Everything in the past prepares you for the future.
- Everything in the present works towards the future.
Let your dream drive you.

2) Dream keeps our life focused. There is power of a focused life.
Take 2 non-alcoholic companies - Coke & Pepsi. Pepsi's initial biz was in drinks but later decided to expand into food in which they were not familiar. Anyway, they acquired Pizza & Kentucky and they had 24,000 restaurants around the globe. Coke on the other hand concentrated on drinks & performed better than Pepsi. Last year, Pepsi was valued at US$110b while Coke was valued at US$140b. That's the power of focus, your attention is not diversified.

Also when you have a focus in life, you will not have time to sin to mess you up.

3) Dream causes you to live in faith. It forces every ounce of faith in you to rise up. It causes you to do the impossible.

It was such a powerful msg that when Ps Khong gave the invitation to receive Christ in order they have a hope, about 20 people came forward. Many of the players including some of their parents invited Jesus into their lives for the first time.

So dare to dream ...

Love
Mum

Life's a Beach!

Aloha kiddos from Hawaii,


Would you believe it? Maui has a population of about 200,000 but every year 2 million visitors from all over the world visit this little island for a holiday. Below, you can see Castle Camaole Sands, a big resort apartment which comes with a bedroom, kitchen and a big living & dining area.

We also signed up for a helicopter tour which took us to the east and west of Maui. We saw the world's largest dormant volcano, Haleakala crater, the fabulous cascading waterfalls of the Hana rainforest & the mountains in West Maui. The valley was beautiful but the pilot didnt go down the valley which I thought was a waste. Anyway the ride was nice but not thrilling. It moved at a very slow pace. I wouldnt want to do this again, Disneyland is more fun!

We went snorkling at Molokini - I saw beautiful corals with sea creatures & colourful fishes though not many. We were brought to the one of Lanai's famous reefs for our next snorkel site. I didnt think it was fantastic. Dont go snorkling in the U.S., the better places are in Pulau Langkawi and Rendang in Trengganu in Malaysia! Moreover, snorkling is a lot cheaper & fishes are plentiful, & they swim all around you. Did you remember I saw a baby shark swimming past me in P Langkawi?

Anyway, as the deluxe boat travels on the Pacific Ocean, we saw many playful dolphins swimming in front of the boat and beside it. That was the first time I ever saw a school of flying fish out of the water. They looked like little helicopters with transparent wings and pink bodies.

The panoramic ocean, the mountain scenery and the line dividing the sea from the sky in the distance reminds me of Genesis 1 when God created the earth.

Genesis 1:9 "And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear." And it was so. GOd called the dry ground 'land' & the gathered waters he called 'seas'.

Vs 20 "Let the water teem with living creatures... vs 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living & moving thing with which the water teems.."

Some scientists say the nbr of stars in creation is equal to all the grains of all the sands on all the beaches of the world. The vast galaxy we live in is spinning at an incredible speed of 490,000 miles an hr. But even at this breakneck speed, our galaxy still needs 200 mil years to make 1 rotation. And there are over 1 billion other galaxies just like ours in the universe. To say the universe 'just happened' or 'evolved' requires more faith than to believe that God is behind this wonderful creation. This earth functions with such remarkable order and efficiency!

Truly, Hawaii is blessed with beautiful beaches wherever you go. Oahu is also blessed with an abundance of botanical gardens.

The Hilton Resort is really a beautiful place with the world famous Waikiki beach just next to the hotel. The hotel is really HUGE and it's filled with ponds, gardens, open cafes & quaint shops; even the Registration Counter is open ie they have no doors.. it leads to the open courtyard with sofas with plants & trees all around. The room of course is luxurious. By the way, the bathroom is stocked with Crabtree & Evelyn's soap, shampoo & conditioner!

Now in Oahu, we were treated to Polynesian dance during our dinners for 2 nights. It was entertaining and tonight, all the guests were taught some basic dance steps and we all danced to it. Even Ps Khong danced, he sat at our table.

The conference is very good and I shall share some of the 'gems' I've learned the next time I blog. But it requires a paradigm shift if you want to do business in the marketplace. The principles are good to adopt.

Tomorrow, we will be visiting a church and we'll come back in the evening for another session after dinner. Afternoon will be free, so I think I'll go to the Waikiki beach. This time, I will take off my shoes, and wiggle my toes in the warm golden sand. This beach is a 2-mile stretch of shoreline. The Hawaiians will tell u not to leave Oahu until you've walked the length of this strand.

Next week, we will be going to downtown Honolulu for our conference. Conference will end on Wed 12noon after which the ladies will go to the outlets to shop. We'll leave Honolulu on THur and arrive Spore on Fri around 6pm.

We should come back to Hawaii and take you two to the crater to watch sunrise. But you have to wake up at 3am to set off. Only 5 out of 14 of us went up the crater. Your dad was not well so we didnt make the trip. He was just too exhausted with not enough sleep. I cannot abandon him can I? Sigh!

Take Care n Love Ya!

Mum