Shalom Native Mission, 10508 NE 41st Street
Vancouver, WA 98682, May 2017

I would like to begin the newsletter with a short devotional from Luke 23:33-43. All four Gospels wrote of the incident surrounding the death of the Savior on the cross of Calvary, but Luke brought out four important discussion points that cover three groups of people, the place, and their interaction. It was at Calvary where history was made in that the glory of heaven was brought to earth and redemption was purchased for sinful men, the eternal Son of God became a substitutionary lamb, and man was reconciled to God. What took place at Calvary was the ultimate price a holy and righteous God paid to demonstrates as a loving Father. The true meaning of Calvary is incomprehensible to the human mind because it is foolishness to him.

1. The place – called Calvary, or the place of the skull, where criminals are crucified to pay the ultimate price for their crime. This is the place where Jesus was numbered with the criminals and paid the ultimate price for the sin of the whole world for he is without sin the perfect Lamb of God. Because of what took place at Calvary we are free today, with a future.

2. The person – because of the person of Jesus Christ we have the guarantee of all the eternal inheritance that faded not away. It was God’s divine plan that we should inherit the eternal glories in Christ Jesus. We were given new names as sons and daughters of God and shall reign with him for all eternity.

3. The pleading sinner – there were three groups of people at the cross: Jesus Christ the eternal son of God, the repentant thief, and the crowd. The crowd represents two groups of people: believer and unbeliever.

4. The procrastinators – this group represents the largest group of unbelievers that ignore the truth and exchange the truth for a lie. The unrepentant thief on the cross belonged to this group and the choice he made to scoff the Lord instead of pleading for mercy was very unfortunate.

Urgent prayer need
One thing heavy on our heart is that the government of India has suspended our agency S.H.A.L.O.M., the acronym that makes up Shalom Academy’s name that is registered with the Indian government, the equivalency of the US 501(C) 3. The permission to receive monies from overseas has been suspended as part of the radical Hindu majority led government to indirectly control and restrict Christian mission activities in India. This suspension is not only to S.H.A.L.O.M., but any group/agency that receives money from overseas. At this time we have not been able to transfer funds to our workers for about six months. Please pray this important matter will be resolved soon. We have several people working on our behalf in Manipur and in Delhi to see our status re-instated. Many groups have already been permanently suspended. We thank God that our case is still pending. A final determination is to be decided within the next month. We also recognize that God is greater than the Indian government, the US government, or any other government and He alone is to be our sufficiency. Many lessons, both in India and here in the US, on depending on God to meet our needs, can be told from this time of waiting.
VBS Report from Burma

This VBS report was jointly filed by Evangelist Jamthang and Miss Hoinu from Tamu (a border town inside Burma). VBS was held for the first time in this area of Burma and was conducted by NLC (New Life Crusaders) and fully sponsored by SNM (Shalom Native Missions) ministries. The project was in response to an invitation from Bethel Baptist Church, in Myanmar (Burma). The church has a unique background and history as one of the churches planted by Tongkam Singsit, pioneer missionary in the late 1930’s and the late father of Chong and Lun Singsit. VBS started with 150 students but more children joined and by the end there were 170 altogether. Of these 98 accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord. Five teachers and five helpers conducted the VBS in four different languages: Burmese, Tidim Chin, Thadou Kuki, and English. The church members and pastor were pleased and asked the team to come back next year to do VBS again.
Pictures taken during VBS inside BURMA (Myanmar)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sincerely on behalf and for India Team,
Chong and Rhoda, the Kids

 

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