Kulap is lifeless and unresponsive due to a stroke… But God!

Among the many lovely gypsies we met, was Kulap.  Kulap almost died five years ago due to a stroke.  She was completely paralyzed and could not even lift her head. Kulap stayed in the hospital for four more months with no improvement.  Finally, the doctors sent her home with a feeding tube and said there was nothing more they could do.  Kulap’s husband recounted, “She was unresponsive, like a vegetable.” 

 

One day Jay came by their house.  He prayed for Kulap as she lay there still and lifeless.  “Suddenly her leg twitched!” her husband exclaimed. Kulap told us she was taken to heaven in a dream while Jay was praying for her.  “It was very beautiful. I saw an angel with big wings. The angel pointed to the side and then I saw a man in white.  He said, ‘I love you and I want to heal you.  You will have evidence of your healing when you can move your little finger.’ He touched me and I felt so loved.  When I woke up, I could move my little finger!” 

 

“This gave me hope!” she exclaimed. A few days later, she pulled the feeding tube out of her throat, believing God for her healing. From that day forward, she ate on her own. Within three months, she was 100% healed! Jay led Kulap to the Lord and now five years later, she is still a faithful believer. 

 

When we sat with Kulap to hear her story, she called her husband over to join us.  Her husband was still an unbeliever, but as he joined in, we could see such joy on his face as he recounted the miraculous healing he personally witnessed in his wife. With puzzlement, we asked, “What is keeping you from following Jesus?” Our conversation continued (too much to explain), the Holy Spirit touched his heart, and he finally gave his life to Jesus. We’re so happy to he has now come into the family!  

Lalissa unexpectedly receives a 20-year prison sentence - with 3 small children at home

“Would you like to earn 1,000 baht (about $33.) simply by allowing us to use your bank account?” asked a gang of criminals looking for a way to launder their money.  Living in desperate poverty conditions with her husband and three children, Lalissa thought this could be a helpful solution. Jay, our missionary friend, warned her that this was dangerous.  Regardless, she accepted the offer. Unfortunately, a sting operation proceeded with police suddenly arriving on the scene. Lalissa had no warning and no “rights” to inform her family what was happening. Someone saw her being arrested, so the family knew she wasn’t kidnapped, but it was apparently impossible for them to locate her among all the prisons in Thailand. “We had a four-month-old baby, a four-year-old, and an 11-year-old! This was very difficult for me to take care of them and still work,” reflected Lamon, Lalissa’s husband. 

Lalissa pled guilty after being told this would give her a lighter sentence. Fainting in dismay and hopelessness, the judge’s words swirled in her mind, “You are sentenced to 20 years imprisonment!” Lalissa was a lukewarm Christian up to this point. She knew a little about God, but recounts, “I was depressed and felt I had no purpose in life.” Now forced to live in a room with 250 other women among this prison of 6,000 inmates, desperation set in. 

 

But God…! Not too much time passed before a Christian lady befriended Lalissa and invited her to a Bible study!  This prison encouraged religious gatherings.  The Christians had the largest group, encompassing 70% of the inmates. They met together every morning and night and tenderly took Lalissa under their wings. 

 

After a few months, Lalissa’s friend was released.  She promptly informed Lamon of his wife’s location. He was relieved, but due to their distance and need to take care of the children, he could rarely visit. Lalissa’s friend lived closer, however, and was able to faithfully bring her much needed nutritious food and encouragement.

 

Lalissa flourished with renewed faith, passing on Christ’s hope and love to her fellow inmates. She eventually became a leader in this Christian community, teaching Bible studies and leading worship regularly. The prison officials saw this remarkable change in Lalissa and rewarded her with a lowered sentence of three years and eight months! 

 

Now, four years later, Brian and I, along with our friends Jay and Sally, sit together with dear Lalissa and her family on the wooden porch of their modest home along the seacoast of southern Thailand full of love and joy, as they share their wonderful testimony of God’s fulfilled promise, “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose” Romans 8:28. 

 

“Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts…. They celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness.” (Ps. 145). 

 

Thank you for reading our stories and celebrating God’s goodness with us!  

Funniest looking Monkey on the Planet

 From December 4th

In Borneo we had a chance to see the Proboscis Monkey.  

These guys are not in a habitat; they are in their native mangrove environment! 

Thank you for your prayers while we were in Indonesia! Our time with the youth, kids, children’s ministry seminar, and church services all went well. We saw God move in many wonderful ways in so many lives. 

Lorena enjoyed teaching all the kids in the elementary school and high school that one of the

Indonesian churches ran.  Most of these kids come from unchurched poor broken families in the 

neighborhood and are here on scholarship by donations of generous local church members. 

Brian speaking to the high school kids in Indonesia

Preaching in one of the Indonesian churches

Since then, we have been to a gathering of all the missionaries in Asia working with Iris Global, whom we are also a part of. We enjoyed an encouraging 3 days together in beautiful Kuantan, Malaysia. A T-shirt we all received said, “If you don’t quit, you win.”  We like that! 

We are now in Sabah, Borneo - teaching, visiting, and encouraging pastors and leaders in the 4 Square denomination at the request of our Malaysian friend who oversees all the 4 Square churches in SE Asia. One of the church members we had the privilege of praying for had been in an accident 3 years ago where a 50lb sack of cement landed on her back. She has been hunched over ever since, with continual back and stomach pain, along with great difficulty getting up and down from a chair. But everything changed for this beautiful lady!  Jesus touched her - now she can stand up perfectly straight and has no more pain!  Praise the Lord!

Standing up straight for the first time in three years!

We are now in Sandakan visiting another pastor and some of his church members. Interestingly, we experienced Christmas caroling with their youth group for four hours, literally climbing up steep hills in the hot humid jungle to these homes!  This was definitely a new experience for us!  At each home the pastor asked how we could pray for them.  We enjoyed that added tradition! 

  

 

Hiking up Hills / Christmas caroling

Before leaving the topic of Sandakan, we must show you the funniest looking monkey on this planet that happens to only live in the mangroves here in this region of Saba (pictured above). 

 

This is not a preserve or a zoo, btw.  This is their wild habitat. The owners of this land feed these Proboscis Monkeys and built this platform so they would come here.  It was a little unnerving to be so close to them, but also quite amazing! Btw, the way they talk is like belching! So funny.  

 

Ministry continues in Mozambique.

We are getting closer to reaching our goal of distributing 20,000 books of John, Galatians and Ephesians.  Pictured here are pastors receiving copies in their heart language of Lomwe. They also received enough to distribute to their church members who can read in that language.

Prayer Request:

Soon we will be going to Thailand and ministering to the Sea Gypsies with our Malaysian missionary friends, Jonathan and Cally Kwok. They have been ministering to these 5,000 gypsies for 10 years, and are eager to have us come pray over them. Most of them are animistic, but also mix in Buddhism and ancestral worship. Please pray with us that the Holy Spirit will touch their hearts as we minister and pray for them.

Lots of love,

 

Lorena and Brian

 

Now in Indonesia and amazing update from Thailand

 From November 7th

Here’s a quick update since we left Japan with a few prayer requests.

  

Bangkok, Thailand

Our time at the Evangelism School in Bangkok, Thailand went amazingly well!  We enjoyed teaching, praying for the students, and worshiping together.  The presence of God came so powerfully during our prayer times, especially the final day when his weighty glory came like a holy blanket!  The worship band stopped their set, I went up to teach, but then His presence came so strong into the room, we all spontaneously continued worshipping for another hour – no one wanted to stop! Later many told us they experienced peace, freedom, and joy like never before.  Two ladies even had visions of God in heaven, which really impacted their lives.

Pastor Ryan gave us more teaching sessions than he originally planned, which we deeply appreciated and enjoyed. The leaders said our teachings were precisely what they needed. Praise God. Thank you so much for your prayers! We can always tell when people are praying for us!

Here is a link to a short video testimony of one of the student’s healings of glaucoma and cataracts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrFDKpp8uso 

Indonesia 

We are now in Indonesia, ministering to many types of groups – schools, churches, a safe house for children rescued from the sex trade, women’s groups, and youth groups.  I (Lorena) also just finished a Children’s Ministry Workshop for Sunday School teachers from a group of churches in Jakarta. The school is an outreach of one of the churches.  They give scholarships to the children from poor families in the neighborhood, many of whom come from broken homes and are not Christians. Please pray for open hearts, salvations, and the presence of God to come as we minister to the 4th-6th graders tomorrow and hundreds of high schoolers on Friday.  We’ve already seen many touched and healed in the meetings these past few days and are asking God for even more these next few days! Thank you so much for your prayers - God is touching hearts and lives!

Many Blessings,

 

Lorena and Brian

Tokyo to Bangkok

 From October 13

Hey, how are you? We are doing great, embarking on our next adventure today. We just finished our time in Japan with our daughter Danielle, her husband Cody, and their baby, (our grandbaby) Ash, helping them transition into their new phase of ministry.  We’re thankful we could have this time with them, as we’ve been separated for 4 years because of schedules and Covid restrictions. 

Please continue to pray for our Bible distribution project and our on-going seminars in Mozambique. We are excited to announce that we are now doing regular seminars for the women in Mozambique.   Cecilia, Pastor Jacob's wife, has gone out to four districts in the last couple of months. 

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Meet Cecilia, pictured here with the district pastor's wife from Chemba. 

We are now headed to Thailand to minister for a week at the School of Evangelism in Bangkok, run by Ryan and Audrey Aitkin, Spirit of Revival Ministries.  We always look forward to their schools, as the Holy Spirit consistently shows up in marvelous ways.  Ryan told us the school is smaller this time, with about 30 students. “Many of them need a lot of healing,” Ryan warned. Having less numbers, we look forward to having plenty of one-on-one ministry time besides the teaching sessions.  Expecting great things, especially joyous refreshing encounters with our beautiful Savior, we thank you in advance for your prayers!   

We’ll keep you posted…

 

Many Blessings,

Getting the Word Out

We're in Japan!

Lorena and I are in Japan now for 2 1/2 months, then returning to Thailand in October to be with Ryan and Audrey Aitken and their School of Evangelism.

We enjoyed spending the last 3 months in America, visiting many of you and doing much needed work on our rentals. We miss you already!

Why Japan?  As many of you know, our daughter, Danielle, and her husband, Cody, are missionaries in Japan with Iris Global.  We are here helping them as they make transitions in their ministry.  

Lorena with our 6 month old grandson, Asher.

Getting the Word out! Believers (above) receiving their own copy of Scripture portions for the first time. 

"Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God" (Mt. 4:4). Most of the churches have an average of just one or two Bibles - one for the pastor and sometimes one for another leader in the church.  So what can we do about this? Every believer needs the Word of God!

Caesar, one of the regional pastors (pictured above), excitedly receives these booklets we just had printed. They contain the Gospel of John, Galatians, and Ephesians, which he passed out to hundreds of believers in his 4 districts who have never had their own copy of any scriptures before. Five other regional pastors did the same, covering the entire province of Zambezia with hundreds of churches, totaling over 3,000 believers this past month.

"Mozambique suffers from famine, not of food or water but of hearing the Word of God." 

These words the Lord told Brian years ago in 2008 still ring in our ears and push us in our calling to get the Word of God into the hands of the Mozambican believers. 

We are now working on printing about 4,000 more booklets for two more provinces who are asking for them, which will still leave us with 7 more provinces to cover the country. Our goal is to get 10,000 copies out in 2023 and thousands more in 2024. Eventually we would like to make more booklets with other books of the Bible. 

Please pray with us that all continues well with all the print shops and distributions. Please pray especially for hungry receptive hearts ready to receive the Word and grow in Christ!  

More grateful believers receive their own portions of Scripture for the very first time. 

You may be wondering, Why can't we just pass out the New Testament or complete Bibles to everyone instead of making these booklets?

To understand this and find out more details on this project, go to https://transforminglivesministry.org/?page_id=366

Donations can be made through Iris Global by going to https://www.irisglobal.org/give. You can find us under the category of "Iris Missionary" - 

M350 Brian and Lorena W

Donations can also be made directly to us at Transforming Lives Ministry using PayPal

PayPal Brian and Lorena

Ongoing Ministry in Mozambique

 

Even though we are currently in Asia, we continue to minister to the church in Mozambique. In this fun video, a local church expresses their gratitude for the books and discipleship seminar we organized. With the amazing support of Rolland and Heidi Baker from Iris Global, we've been able to sponsor hundreds of seminars and distributed tens of thousands of discipleship books. Our latest aim is to provide Scriptures to every literate person in our churches. Last month, we distribute almost 4,000 booklets containing the gospel of John, Galatians, and Ephesians.  

"Kosukuru" means "thank you" in the Makua language.

Returning to the Philippines after 27 years

 

What do you actually do in Asia?

From Lorena's Newsletter December 10th...

One of the biggest questions we get is, "What do you actually do in Asia, Mozambique, and Ukraine?" Here's a story that illustrates what we do.  

“Can you please pray for me?” Pueng asked almost 2 weeks ago.  “I have a headache that won’t go away. I’ve had it for a month and the doctors and medications can’t get rid of it.  I even got an MRI, but they said it doesn’t show anything wrong.”  “Yes, of course” I responded.  Pueng continued, “My stomach has been hurting for 3 years. I have a cyst on my right side, but the real problem is my left side.  I have been to so many doctors, and they all give different diagnoses! Some of them say I have an infection in my bone. But no one is sure what’s really wrong with me. I have so much pain! I feel hopeless.” Grace, my translator, and I prayed for Pueng.  Instantly, her headache went away!  She felt God’s peace and hope began to rise up in her.  Pueng was a new believer having just accepted Jesus into her heart three days prior.  

Grace is on your right and Peung is on your left

I left town that afternoon and just saw her again 3 days ago. Again she asked me, “Can you pray for my stomach?  It is still very painful.”  We prayed again.  This time all her pain went away!  “Now I need prayer so I can sleep at night.”  We prayed.  Today, 3 days later, I saw Pueng again.  “How has your sleep been since Friday?” I asked.  “Good!  I don’t have any more trouble sleeping!” “Wonderful! Thank you Jesus!” I replied.  I decided to record Pueng’s testimony and found out that on her right side, she had a cyst.  I asked if she could try to find it.  She pressed in as deep as she could, but could no longer feel the cyst or any pain!  Her right side was also still pain free. Attending the daily morning devotions and afternoon Bible classes, Peung is learning and growing in the Lord with great interest.  (Please don't post this story or picture on social media.  Thanks)

The three most common questions people ask about our discipleship ministry are 1) What material do you use? 2) How do I get your materials? 3) Are you going back to Mozambique or are you staying in Asia now?

1)  What materials do you use?  We primarily use the 7 simple discipleship booklets Brian wrote for Africa, teaching the foundations of our faith, marriage, and how to teach/preach Old and New Testament stories. We also use a series of 27 Bible stories produced by Kingdom Wings, which are recorded in many languages and simply illustrated  - ideal for illiterates.   2) How do I get your materials? Since many have been asking for these materials written on a simple enough level for new believers to use, we're making them available on our website.  We're currently updating some of the booklets, but they will all be on the website soon. 3) Are you going back to Mozambique or are you staying in Asia now?  We don't plan to go back to Mozambique, but we are in daily communication with our lead pastors and seminar teachers there.  We are living in Asia now because this is where God has clearly directed us to be.  We currently have open doors in Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, but are still waiting for the Indonesian government to change the laws for the unvaccinated and length of tourist visas. 

Here is what we are now doing to disciple and encourage the Body of Christ.  We are editing, translating, and recording Brian's booklets into Thai for the thousands that are now coming to Christ in Thailand.  Lorena is leading devotions with Brian's material for the rescued girls at Whispering Willow in Thailand each morning, and teaching them the  Bible stories with the Kingdom Wings curriculum 2 afternoons a week.  As the Lord opens doors, we accept invitations to speak in churches, Bible schools, evangelism schools, outreaches, children's programs, homegroups, refugees, etc.  This is what we're doing now in the Philippines for the month of December, since Whispering Willow is taking a month break and we needed to leave the country for visa purposes.  Our old friends and founders of Pastoral Training of Asia have asked us to stay at their base and minister in Dumaguete during this time.  Besides teaching and preaching, we like to partner with the Holy Spirit in seeing people healed and delivered, and encouraging/teaching the church members to do the same. We value discipleship with both the Word and power/presence of the Holy Spirit.

To hear more about what is happening in our lives and ministry or how to donate, go to our blog spot at brianandlorena.blogspot.com. 

If you would like to get more frequent news spurts, short videos, and/or pictures, the easiest way for us to send those is through WhatsApp. It's a free app you can download.  I would just need the phone number you attach to it.  (If you change phone numbers, they give you the option of keeping your old number.)

Many Blessings,

Lorena (and Brian)