Christmas Celebration 2007

What Church is all about.......by Song and Barbara Tjoa

Merry Christmas from the Tjoas in Myanmar!

Family News
A miracle during this Christmas season must surely be my overcoming a year’s worth of inertia to write a newsletter.


Barbara and I just celebrated our 16th Anniversary on Nov 30th. I’m still amazed how 16 years have gone by so quickly. I guess time flies when we’re having a good time!!! Praise the Lord for that.


Barbara continues to do a fantastic job home-schooling Anthea, Beatrice and Nate. As we prepare to send the twins to Middle School when the new school term starts next year, the next few months will be her last home-schooling them. She has the time of her life teaching at Yangon City Fellowship, our Saturday Young People’s program. Each week, she teaches Bible-based life skill topics to over 150 people, some of whom have come to receive the Gospel through these classes.

Faith is now in Grade 10 and probably keeps the most hectic schedule in the family. She plays basketball, soccer and volleyball. Recently, she took up the saxophone and, to my delight, has discovered that jazz music is wonderful. She’s on the church music group playing rhythm guitar and leading occasionally. She also assists as a group facilitator at mummy’s Saturday class. That she manages to keep herself in the school’s honor roll is quite an achievement. I guess she recoups by sleeping till noon on her holidays.


Anthea is extremely self-motivated. She continues to pursue her classical piano passion. She studies hard, reads voraciously and recently achieved the dubious honor of becoming the other bespectacled member of the family. Her guinea pigs have multiplied from two to ten. I’ll try to keep our new church plants on the same track.


Beatrice lives up to her name as a “bringer of joy” with her constant singing and she delights us just by being herself! God uses her ability to warm people’s hearts and make them feel loved. She also plays the keyboard for church praise & worship once in a while and impresses me whenever she does it.


Nate enjoys weekly gym classes. Barbara teaches him at home now and, next year when the twins join Middle School, hopes to do so more intensively. Although he still does not speak yet, we’re still continuing to believe that God will work His miracle in Nate’s life. Please keep him in your prayers. With the twins in school, our hope is that God will profivide him with friends.




Ministry News
Although the year started rather slow, with me feeling a little discouraged, things gradually picked up. Before I realized it, God had turned things around and there is now a sense of excitement and anticipation of the great things that He is doing in our churches.

This year we baptized over 40 people, the majority of them young people who have found new life and hope in Jesus. While we work on building them into mature disciples, the work of winning the lost must continue unabated.

Combined Church Camp at Ngwe Saung Beach, Dec 07.
Over 130 members from the 3 churches I oversee in Yangon attended a 3 day camp.
The highlight was baptizing 9 people in the Bay of Bengal!

Adding to the existing six house church plants we have outside Yangon, we planted two new house churches this year. Also, two of the existing churches have also planted three more new house churches. Please pray for all these new emerging churches to grow and become strong. We now have a total of 12 home churches meeting outside Yangon. Including the three churches in Yangon, we touch way over 1,000 lives each week.

In 2008, we hope to set up a center to train people in our churches who wish to be equipped for ministry and/or church planting work. We pray that as we embark on this plan that God will call to join us those He has already prepared for this challenge.

It recently dawned on me just how immense our work really is to win the lost, build strong disciples and plant church-planting churches (win-build-plant strategy.) Each part poses such a big challenge in itself. Truly, unless the God of the impossible graces us, our efforts will be futile. But thank God He is the God of the impossible and that as we partner Him in His plan, He will do the impossible. What an adventure.

Thank you for all your prayers and well wishes for us. We know that your prayers have made a difference. Our family was very touched by your concern during the September/October demonstrations. Two things became evident to me at that time: 1)That these are the situations that distinguish the shepherds from the hirelings, the church from the crowd. 2) That the Church of Jesus Christ must usher in the Kingdom of God in greater measure. What we do should have relevance and benefit the people of this nation in tangible ways. The church has been given the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to bind what needs to be bound, and loose what needs to be loosed.

Lastly, a very, very BIG thank you for those who have visited us this year. Your love and partnership mean a lot to us.

Have a fantastic 2008!!
May your love for Jesus continue to grow deeper and stronger.
His Kingdom Come, HisWill be Done!