CONT ENTS Page Foreword 2 A Word from Our Advisor 3 Book Summary: John Pollock’s “The Cambridge Seven” By John Loo 6 Testimonies: 1) God Moves in a Mysterious Way By Karen Lee 12 2) My Life Belongs To God By Huynh Ngoc Chan 15 3) The Grace that Calls Me By Nguyen Van Hieu 18 4) Blessings upon Bible School in Kampot, Cambodia By Pr Chan Sopheak 22 5) Testimonies of Current True Gospel Bible School Students 24 Reports: 1) Missions Trip to Kenya, 11 November to 22 December 2012 By Carol Lee 29 2) Missions Trip to Kampot, 12 to 18 December 2012 By Karen Lee 31 3) Missions Trip to Sihanoukville, 23 to 29 January 2013 By John Loo 36 4) Missions Trip to Kampot, 16 to 23 March 2013 By Rev Dennis Kwok 39 Kids’ Corner: “A Special Call” 42 FOREWORD “So send I you” (John 20:21b) are the commissioning words of our risen Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to all His disciples including us. In the fullness of time, Jesus was sent by God the Father on a mission with a message of salvation for the lost. Jesus has completed His saving work faithfully by dying on the cross as the perfect and sinless Lamb of God for the sins of the whole world. He was buried and then He rose again bodily from the dead on the third day according to the scriptures. Behind closed doors, the resurrected Christ appeared before the disciples. He said to them, “Peace be unto you: as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you” (John 20:21). The disciples were filled with joy when they saw Him. They were gathering to pray and find strength in their fellowship. It was time now to be sent out to reach the lost with the message of hope and salvation. This commission must be issued by Christ, for power and authority comes from Him. Let us be reminded of the Great Commission. Every one of us must go, from the pastor to the last member of the church. So long as we are born again and redeemed by the blood of Christ, we have been sent by Him on a mission with His message of salvation for the lost. It is our mission to share Christ with those whom we come into contact with. Have we neglected the Great Commission due to our busyness? Have we forgotten that we have been sent on this important mission? Even if you are not called to full-time service, you are still called to evangelise. We are empowered with His Word and by His Spirit to be His living witnesses for Him at home, in school, at work and in the streets. Let us be pro-active to fulfill the Great Commission. In this issue, we have lined up several testimonies of those who have been called into full-time ministry and also of students who are studying in True Gospel Bible School in Cambodia. They also shared how the Lord has been wondrously working in their lives. There are also articles and missions reports for your encouragement and edification. Enjoy reading. Amen. In Christ’s love, Rev Dennis Kwok TMS Chairman 2 A WORD FROM OUR ADVISOR , R EV DR QUEK S UAN YEW: „H OW TO KNOW I AM CALLED TO SERVE GOD IN T HE FULL -TIME MINIST RY ?‰ Serving God in the full-time ministry is an honour and a privilege. At the same time, it is also most dangerous, in the spiritual sense. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the individual to know for a certainty that he is truly called by Christ to the full-time ministry or else he and his family will get hurt, the congregation he ministers to will be stumbled and above all else, he will bring shame to the name of Christ. Some of the elements of a person who is called would include the following:- a. A strong desire – The desire is unshakeable. Initially when the desire first comes into the person's heart, he thinks that it might just be a feeling or an impulse that will soon disappear with time. He tries to forget the feeling and brushes it off as a flash in the pan never to return. However, the feeling gets stronger and stronger. Very soon, the feeling dominates the heart of the person. What he liked before his "call" has now become "tasteless". He is consumed by this unshakeable feeling of giving up what he has planned before. He feels like a person at the crossroads of his life. A "voice" will not stop calling him to drop everything he is doing and take a totally different direction in life. He comes up with all sorts of excuses why he ought ey disobey Ob not to listen to the call. The LORD would use the Word of God to call His child. That verse will be the lifelong verse of God's servant till the day he is called home to glory. He will face many trials and difficulties in ministry and the Word of God that God used to call him will be his main stay. In a spectacular way, God would remove all his excuses and he is left with only one decision to 3 make . to obey or to disobey! Finally there is no peace in his soul by this stage of his struggle with the LORD. His food is tasteless. He walks around like a zombie and everything that gave him great joy is now meaningless to him. There is only one way to get back the peace of God and it is total submission to God's call. The moment he cries to the LORD in repentance for delaying and disobeying and he surrenders his life totally to the LORD for his use, peace fills his heart once more. It is like cool refreshing rain to a thirsty soul who had just returned from wandering aimlessly in the wilderness for months! b. A gift from God – After entering the Bible College to be trained for the full-time ministry, the LORD will slowly but surely reveal to him what his gift is. If he is blessed with the gift of preaching or teaching, he would know. Not only would he enjoy it, others would be blessed by it. The reason is that spiritual gifts of God are given Pastor will for the blessing of others. This means that have the gift others would understand the Word of God of preaching better after he has finished preaching or and teaching. They would attest that he has this teaching gift of preaching or teaching. All who are called to be pastors must have this gift of preaching or teaching. He is able to rightly divide the Word of Truth and he does so powerfully and without the fear of man. He remains humble and prayerful always as he knows that he is called and that without the LORD enabling him, he would fail miserably. He would not understand and speak a word without God's help. He knows that the LORD who gave him the gift could very well take the gift away. If the blessings come, he gives God all the glory. He recedes into the background and promotes only Christ. He would do whatever task is assigned to him without murmuring or complaining. He knows that it is a gift from God all the days of his life, which means he never stops leaning on Christ to see him through day by day. 4 c. The Word of God – His love for God's Word is second only to his love for Christ, if there can ever be a distinction. The Word of God thrills his soul in ways that cannot be explained. He digs deep into and meditates on the Word of God as if his life and the life of his congregation depend on it, which they do. He never stops studying the Word of God even as he teaches the Word of God. He would spend hours and hours every week studying the Word of God and he would do the same week after week for the rest of his life of ministry. He knows how important the Word of God is to his own soul and the souls under his care. Every time he learns new truths from the Word of God, there is a thrill in his heart comparable to a man who finds a treasure. Each time he learns new truths, he is filled with a deep sense of gratitude and thanksgiving to God. He knows that it is the LORD who has opened his eyes to see and his heart to understand. The more he studies the Word of God, the more he wants to study. He thinks about the Word of God as he walks and goes about his day to day activities. He ponders and meditates upon the Word of God and it is in his head all the time. If he is struggling with a Bible passage, he would study it until the whole passage is in his head and he carries it with him everywhere he goes. After he struggles for some time with the passage, the LORD would illumine his heart and mind and the passage becomes clear to him and the thrill he feels is indescribable. These are some of the indicators that a person is called into the full- time ministry to do the work of God as a preacher or a teacher.