ICM Vision Trip Blog

China Trip

> Greetings from China. We just spent time at a registered city church with a weekly attendance of 3,000 that has a vision for it's city and the surrounding counties. That church is an outreach focused church that has 193 preaching points. Each preaching point, as they call it, is a congregation. Some of those congregations are small and have 20 to 100 members, others are medium size with 100 to 500 members and others are large with 500 to well over 1,000. At ICM, we are focused on helping them build churches for the medium size congregations. We saw 3 newly dedicated beautiful churches on Saturday. We also saw the site for a proposed new church to be built for a congregation of 400 members. These girls are anxiously waiting their new church.

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China Trip

We have had another wonderful day visiting churches in China. This church has 13 daughter churches. The church combined with its daughter congregations have more than 500 attendees. For the Chinese new year, at the end of January when family members come home from working in the cities, the attendance often doubles.

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This rural county has 248 churches. Praise the Lord. Please pray for this church as it needs more Sunday school teachers, quality teaching for its leaders and financial support for the leaders of the mother church and its daughter churches. Today the leaders do not receive any compensation even though they are dedicated to their church,

China Trip

China is a beautiful country. It is spring time and the landscapes are green with crops.

We are having a blessed trip even though weather caused some of us a whole 2 days of travel to get here. Many of us visited the Bible School. The Bible School is important to train much needed pastors. A neighboring province reports 5,000 churches but only 100 pastors. The Bible schools are training Pastors (3 years of study) and Elders (4 months of study), so it takes time.

The rural church is financially poor but they persevere with faith. It takes 8 families to pool their land resources to provide the building site for a church.

The elders report significant and positive change from the existence of the church - families are healed, there is less conflict between people, and even streets are better maintained by the people.

The Elder of this Church asks for prayer for the continual faith of his people as they must seek multiple jobs often requiring long trips to the cities and they are away from the supportive structure of the body of believers.


-----Original Message-----
From: Geof Stiff <GStiff@icm.org>
To: stiffgs <stiffgs@aol.com>
Sent: 19-Apr-2011 17:56:09 +0000




 
  
 

  
Sent from my iPhone



 

              

            

            
          

        
          

            

              

                
                  
                
                
              

              
                
Finishing Strong: Post 1 of 4

              
              
      	        
            
              

                
        				
                  
                  

                
                
              
              

            

            

              

                
During our devotion time one day, a team member told us of his goal of finishing strong … and how he was intentional about what steps this would take.  He has a plan and by the grace of God will carry out that plan.
 
 
 
In a lighter sense, we wanted to finish the trip strong and strong it was, leaving our hotel (see Sunday-Go-To-Meeting) in time to attend a  7AM (!) worship service (see Initial Public Offering and A-Choiring A Song) at the same downtown Ho Chi Minh church we had visited earlier in the week (and which ICM had partnered to build).  Around 1,500 gathered with us to praise the Lord and acknowledge ICM’s contribution (see The Wave), all before the Benediction. Fortunately, there was a front row seat available for me in the balcony!  On the way out, we saw the choice of transportation for most of the congregation (and city!... see Yikes Bikes!) and met our Vietnam Partner’s son (see In His Image).
 
 
 
 
 
#2 coming up …
 
 
 









              
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Finishing Strong: Post 2 of 4

              
              
      	        
            
              

                
        				
                  
                  

                
                
              
              

            

            

              

                
Next stop was for lunch at a Cu-Chi (area north of Ho Chi Minh City) church, where the pastor told our Partner (see Innerview) of his life that preceded his new life with-Christ, the details which are best not mentioned in an email or blog.  During the war, he lost his lower left leg and all fingers but thumb and forefinger on his left hand…. yet he knelt when we offered to pray for him.  Following this time in the church, we moved to their simple living quarters for a splendid lunch (see Table Hands) prepared by his wife (see Soup’s On).  And then on to the Cu-Chi Tunnels.
 
 
 
These tunnels (see Cu-Chi Coup) were instrumental for the Viet Cong, serving as their base of operations for the Tet Offensive.  Much of what we saw was “fascinating”, albeit with a bias (see Watchful Eye) toward one point of view.  Our tour guide pointed out (see Sticking To It) the three levels of tunnels that were designed and employed.  Fascinating as this was, there’s never anything like taking a test-drive, so on to the tunnels we went.  Our next tour guide demonstrated how the soldiers would find the tunnel’s start (from their maps), brushing away the hiding-leaves and then entering (see Going Down) by pulling the leaves-covered top down as they went, totally camouflaging the entry.  But again, there’s nothing like a test-drive, so someone had to volunteer!  (see Tunnel Vision – In)  Fortunately, a flashlight was available, which permitted me to see the bat that flew by me as I crawled through the tunnel, arriving (yeah!) at a larger entrance (see Tunnel Vision – Out) after following some sketchy directions and many loud voices at the finish line.  
 
 
 
#3 coming up …
 











              
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Finishing Strong: Post 3 of 4

              
              
      	        
            
              

                
        				
                  
                  

                
                
              
              

            

            

              

                
After this experience, we needed fresh air, and felt we could best find it at the Ben Thanh Market, which is inside and takes up a city block, having the full range of ‘whatever you want to buy.’ (see Freezer Fruit, If The Shoe Fits, In The Clutch, Pretty Flowers A-Rose, Something’s Fishy & Anybody’s Guess, for samples)   What intrigued me most, however, was the vendors, who came in all styles, from “almost attacking us” to” almost really laid back” (see Nap-ster, noting the young woman in the green t-shirt on the lower right).  Across the street were housing options for those who just wanted to be first in line each day for the market’s opening (see Viet Congdo).
 










              
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Finishing Strong: Post 4 of 4

              
              
      	        
            
              

                
        				
                  
                  

                
                
              
              

            

            

              

                
Strong finish!?  That would have to include another up-town dinner, this time up on a Ho Chi Minh City hotel, which was next to an amazing (can recall the name but see NOT An ICM Church for the picture) government structure.  Entering the hotel, we were pleased to see they had expected us (see Dressed For The Occasion … OK, it was a wedding party we had to walk through!).  At the top floor, we were again greeted beautifully (see Dragonfly Lady) before being seated for dinner.  Of course, my main course was to look over the roof to the action below (see Back-up), realizing our active week was now becoming a blur (see It’s All A Blur).
 
 
 
Having at this point over-extended my international picture-taking limit, I’ll sign off with one more round of thanks to all who prayed for us and to you who sent encouraging emails along the way.  Now from back-home, it’s DigiDon signing off (see Don’s Done) …   Thanks for traveling with us!
 








              
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