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| Here is the address for my new blog:
www.kirkseyboy.com
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| Everyone should read this great refutation of Richard Dawkin's latest book, "The God Delusion."
http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/002/1.21.html
I also think its interesting that Notre Dame, a traditionally Catholic University, has been hiring so many reformed (Calvinistic) evangelical scholars. The author of the above article, Alvin Plantinga (formerly a professor at Calvin College) and Mark Noll (formerly a professor at Wheaton College).
There are many other, more personal things, I am going to write about shortly. They will probably be included in my monthly update from Thailand. Please pray for my family. This is a special prayer request and I have been struggling
with how to begin writing this. Death is something that is difficult for each
of us to deal with, but much more so when we are so far from home. My cousin, Scott
Overby died from an enlarged heart a few weeks ago. His mother, Jeanne Overby, is
my Mom’s older sister and if you remember their mother passed away last year
while I was in language school in Khon Kaen. As you can tell from the obituary
Scott was married and husband of three children. Please pray for his wife and
three children while they struggle with this immense loss.
This is the obituary taken from The Murray Ledger & Times:
Scott Overby, 39, Maddox Lane, Lawrenceburg, died Saturday,
Feb. 10, 2007, at 5 a.m. at Commerce
Street, Hardin.
He was disabled and was a member of Alton Baptist
Church and Hardin Baptist
Church. His father, Larry
Overby, preceded him in death.
Survivors include his wife, Mrs. Melissa Mattingly
Overby, and one daughter, Lexandra Avon Overby, both of Lawrenceburg; two sons,
Reagan Scott Overby, Lawrenceburg, and Bradford Lawrence Overby, Benton; his
mother, Mrs. Patsy Jeanne Henson Overby, and one brother, Steven (Duck) Overby,
both of Hardin.
The funeral will be Tuesday at 1 p.m. in the chapel of
Collier Funeral Home, Benton. Rev. Rick Shannon and Rev. Trad York will
officiate. Burial will follow in the Marshall
County Memory
Gardens, Benton.
Visitation will be at the funeral home after 5 p.m.
today (Monday).
Expressions of sympathy may be made to the Scott
Overby Memorial Fund for Children, 1037
Maddox Ln., Lawrenceburg, KY 40342.
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1 Now
before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to
depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the
world, he loved them to the end. 2 During
supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot,
Simon's son, to betray him, 3 Jesus,
knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had
come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose
from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it
around his waist. 5 Then
he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe
them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who
said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" 7 Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do
not understand now, but afterward you will understand." 8 Peter said to him, "You
shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If
I do not wash you, you have no share with me." 9 Simon Peter said to him,
"Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" 10 Jesus said to him, "The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is
completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one
of you." 11
For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, "Not all of you are clean."
John 13:1-11 (ESV)
I love artwork that is distinctly non-American that depicts
stories from the Bible. When I read the Gospel according to John and also see
pictures of what John is saying it hits home even more than when I read it. You
can see here that the disciples are confused and do not want Christ to wash
their feet, yet Peter is the only one to vocalize his confusion by telling
Jesus, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you,
you have no share with me.” Peter answered Jesus, “Lord, not my feet only but
also my hands and my head!” Peter was quick to say what he was thinking, but
God had also given Peter great faith and great understanding of what God was
doing around him. Peter was also quick to repent when he was rebuked. Am I
quick to repent when I am rebuked? Oftentimes I am not because it hurts my
pride when someone points out a weak spot in my walk with Christ. I pray Lord
that you give me a heart like Peter’s, soft and quick to repent.
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| I am going to try to make this newsletter easier to
read. God has answered lots of prayer
the last month or so. Here is a short list of
praises:
1) Praise God that Tiu, the
Japanese major from Nong Kai, is still studying the
Bible with me and still has lots of questions about Christ.
2) Our Sunday church services in Thai are going well; we
even have a new member! P’Daing, my neighbor who I
have written about several times who owns the Thai restaurant next to my house
told me that she wants to be a Christian! It is an amazing story, praise God for
his faithfulness in answering our prayers and revealing himself to his
people.
3) My first interview with Khon Kaen University went really well. For those who
don’t know, I plan to finish working with the IMB in
August of this year and return home for a couple months before moving back to
Thailand to teach Business
English at Khon Kaen University for a year or so. I have really
enjoyed working for the IMB and they have been a huge
blessing. But, there are some things I need to take care of here in Northeast
Thailand before I move to Louisville to study at Southern Seminary.
4) Our free English classes have been going really well.
I have been teaching English conversation by asking questions and trying to get
the students to communicate their thoughts and feelings about different things.
It has been very fun and interesting and God has given me several opportunities
to share through these conversations.
Prayer
Requests:
1) Continue to pray for Tiu.
He is studying the Bible with me once a week, but he will not be able to study
with me much longer because of upcoming final exams. After finals are over he
plans to return home to Nong Kai and probably travel
to Japan and visit his sisters there.
Please pray that God will continue to work on Tiu and
will send others to share the Gospel with him. (Isaiah
55)
2) Please pray that God would call out P’Daing’s husband and the rest of her family as well. P’Dten (P’Daing’s husband) has
showed interest in the past, please pray that God would cause him to see Christ
for who he is as well so he can lead his family the way God has ordained for man
to lead his family. Pray that through Christ’s love he would learn to really
love his wife and children, the way Christ loves the church (Ephesians
5)
3) Pray for all the Christians involved in our work here
in Mahasarakham: Baw, Dtam,
Num, P’Daing, P’Baa, Faa and Best. Pray that God would
strengthen them and encourage them as they follow him. Also pray that they would
grow closer to the Lord day by day. (Ephesians
4:10-16)
4) Pray for me as I make plans about my future. Pray
that God will give me wisdom in choosing a job in Khon
Kaen and guide me as I make many difficult decisions.
Also pray that I will continue to trust God as my provider, just as Abraham did.
(Genesis 22)
5) Please pray that God would help me with pride. I
always feel like I have to answer questions about Christianity and the Bible as
soon as someone asks me. Pray that God would make me more humble and quicker to
admit that I don’t always have the answers.
Stories from last month:
Tiu:
Most of his questions a few weeks ago centered on Paul,
who is Paul and why did he write this letter? This is something I usually talk
about before I even begin teaching something any book of the Bible but since I
have been following a prewritten Bible study program I never thought about it.
These questions led to me begin talking about conversion and ministry with
people who are not seen as good in the eyes of the world. Saul was an awful man
in the eyes of the church who persecuted the church and wanted to kill or arrest
Christians. Yet, Christ stopped him in his tracts and caused him to repent and
believe in Christ. This can happen to anyone, that’s why we share with
prostitutes, drug dealers, people in prison, monks in temples and Mormons. They
all alike are alienated from God and need to know Christ so they can be
reconciled to God. Before we finished I asked if he had watched the, ‘Who is
Jesus?’ VCD
yet? He hadn’t watched it but I asked him if he would watch the Jesus
Film if I let him borrow it. After watching the Jesus Film Tiu told me, “Now I understand why so many people follow
Jesus Christ.”
Khon Kaen University and P’Daing:
A few weeks ago I left Mahasarakham at around 10:00 am
to meet Bui and some of her other
friends for lunch before going to my interview at KKU.
While I was eating with Bui and Mam we ran into lots of students that I met during the 2
months I lived in Khon Kaen
for language study. Many of these students are Christians involved with Campus
Outreach, but one of them has converted to the Jehovah’s Witness’. I haven’t
seen her since last year and I praise God for the opportunity he gave
Bui to talk with her while she was
there eating with me. Please pray for Gii, she is very
confused, pray that God would reveal himself to her and cause her to repent and
believe on Christ as the Son of God. My interview at KKU went really well, I had some help from Gift (a professor
who became a Christian through Campus Outreach) finding the meeting room. Gift
also told the professors who were interviewing me good things about me. Several
students I am friends with stopped some of the teachers on the way to the
interview to tell them about me too. The interview was with Ajaan Apaporn, Ajaan Sasi and the secretary of
the department, Khun Sanguanchai. The
interview went better than I could have ever expected because all of them,
especially Ajaan Apaporn
were interested in why I became a Christian and why I want to work in Thailand? I told them that I became a
Christian because of the witness of many different believers, but a Thai friend
of mine in graduate school was very influential. Her name is Som and she is a
Thai Christian from Bangkok. I told them that degrees, jobs, money
and all the different things this life offers did not bring me satisfaction,
I was constantly searching for something else. Yet,
while I was searching God spoke to me through the Bible and through the witness
of different believers. It was only in Christ that God gave me peace in my
heart. I have peace in my heart because I know God will provide me with
everything I need to serve him and I have the creator of the Universe taking
care of everything in my life. We talked about why Christians witness to non
believers and many other things involved in the Christian life. I felt like I
was leading a Bible study instead of being interviewed!
That same evening, after I had returned home to
Mahasarakham, Dtam came over to my house to help me
with my Thai language. When Dtam and I walked outside
the door, P’Daing, my neighbor, stopped us and told us
that she believed in Jesus Christ and prayed to receive Christ this weekend
after reading a little tract about the true meaning of Christmas. I didn’t
follow exactly what she was saying, so I continued to get in the truck. But, I
was very curious because that’s what I thought she had said, but I couldn’t
believe it because nobody tells me that here. So, I asked Dtam, “Did P’Daing just tell us
that she wanted to be a Christian and prayed to receive Christ this weekend?”
Dtam, with his usual smile, said, “Yes, she said that
she wants to be a Christian.” So, I told Dtam that we
had to study Thai at P’Daing’s restaurant because I
wanted to know more about P’Daing’s conversion
experience. Apparently P’Daing had been praying to God
to help her with her business and God had answered her prayers and has given her
a successful restaurant next door to my house. Daing
has been reading many books, tracts and the Bible since I moved in next door.
She told us that the, “What is Christmas?” tract that came with the bag of
tracts, candy, pencils and stuff I gave her and her family at Christmas had
really spoken to her. God spoke to her and told her that he is her Father and
Christ is his son. Wow! Her husband is excited for her too, he said it’s great
that she wants to be a Christian. This is interesting because her husband was
the first one interested in learning more about Christ, but he has lost interest
over time. Since that night she has been to our church every Sunday and has
remained interested. But, continue to pray for her and her
family.
Food
Poisoning:
I had a very bad week this last month. When I got home
from the Monday night Bible study a few weeks ago I went to the bathroom. That’s
when I began to get sick with stuff coming from both ends of my body until about
4 am! I thought I was going to die because every time I drank anything I threw
up. At 4 am, about the time I thought I was going to die from dehydration, I
drove myself to the hospital. They quickly checked me in and began to pump
fluids into my body through an IV. Praise God! I slept well all night after they
began the IV. Sometime the next morning I woke up to several nurses standing
around me giggling asking me, “Do you sapeak Thai
dai mai ka?” This was an
interesting mix of Thai and English, to which I replied, “Pom phut pasaa Thai dai krab.” That means I can speak the Thai language. The whole
day was full of ups and downs, doctors telling me my cholesterol was high (after
a second opinion it was not high), getting sick every time I ate and wondering
when I would start feeling better. But, after a full day of fun I was released
from the hospital to go home and clean up my puke covered house. That whole week
was wasted sitting in the house watching movies and recovering from eating bad
chicken from KFC. | | |
| Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who live in Myanmar. Pray that Christ would use their witness in this Buddhist country. A leaked secret document claims to
reveal plans by the Burmese military regime to wipe out Christianity in
the southeast Asian country.
The document, titled “Program to Destroy the Christian Religion in
Burma,” was shown to the U.K.-based Telegraph newspaper on Sunday by
human rights groups.
Inside the memo were detailed instructions on how to force Christians out of the country, according to Telegraph.
Instructions included imprisoning any person caught evangelizing,
capitalizing on the fact that Christianity is a non-violent religion.
“The Christian religion is very gentle,” read the letter, according to Telegraph, “Identify and utilize its weakness.”
Burma, also known as Myanmar, has a Christian population of about four
percent, according to the CIA World Factbook. Persecution against
Christians have come in the form of church burnings, forced conversion
to the state religion of Buddhism, and banning children of Christians
from school.
Attacks against Christians are part of the government’s larger campaign
against ethnic minorities, according to human rights groups. In eastern
Burma, over 3,000 villages have been destroyed or abandoned in the past
10 years, according to the human rights group WITNESS. In the past
year, an estimated 27,000 members of the predominantly Christian Karen
tribe were forced from their homes in eastern Burma, according to
Telegraph.
The Burmese regime has denied drafting the document, but has made no
public attempt to renounce its contents, reported the U.K. newspaper.
Burma expelled most of its Christian mission back in 1966 and the
repressive military regime continues to this day to control religious
activities in the country. | | |
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Soli
Deo Gloria
