Missions Blog

Sunday Services, Crowning Princesses, A Family Dinner, and Swimming in the Pool!

It's our first full day of spending time with all of the great ladies of Faith Haus. Our team made it to the school, on time for Sunday Service. Why service at the school, you ask?  Well, during COVID, all of the local Christian churches closed. So what does the team there do? Plant a new church and invite the local community!  These ladies and young girls are creative and very adaptive. Throughout their life, they have had to rely upon God in so many ways. Their trust in Him is inspiring. 

It was beautiful to hear everyone sing praise and worship in Thai. Next up, Pastor Ron Moore gave a sermon on SSAFE. In Christ, we are: Significant, Secure, Accepted, Forgiven, and Empowered. It was a great sermon and well received by everyone there. 

If you would like to watch the sermon, please click here. Next, we had a meal with the girls and staff, saw the rooms (very, very, clean), and toured the facility. There is a single two-story dorm building for the girls, typically four girls in a room. However, sometimes they will go up to six with two girls sleeping on mats. My personal favorite is how the girls painted the outside of their rooms and some of the buildings. There's love and hope here. 

It's truly eye-opening how much can be done with so little. Contrasting the size of the traditional American home, to what the girls have, we are so very lucky. 

The plan for today is to provide a retreat for the young ladies and staff, so we are off to a local hotel where the girls can enjoy the pool, some great spiritual and life teaching, and a feast worthy of what Ester gave the king! I was lucky enough to crown six of the princesses, those smiles were bigger and brighter than the stars.

Next, the girls hopped back into the truck, and we headed out to dinner.  I'll tell you, these princesses can EAT! From fried snapper to spicy Asian noodle salads, rice, seafood soups, and Greg's favorite, chicken knuckles! 

These girls don't have a lot of frills in life. Going out to eat, and being able to swim in the pool, is a tremendous treat, like going to Disney.  After what they have been through and how hard they work in their studies, I wish we could give them more.

After we returned from the restaurant, the girls asked to go for a night swim, and with a simple head nod, there was thunderous applause!!  Personally, I thought it was louder than the Steelers pulling off a pick-six at Heinz field.

A spectacular day, looking forward to tomorrow. 

As always, many blessings to you, and thank you for your prayers and support.  

Greetings from Thailand!  We arrived to Faith House this afternoon after flying over 10,000 miles over 4 days with 14 pieces of checked luggage and 8 pieces of carry-on luggage.  As you can see by the pictures below there are big smiles on the team's faces and the girls' as they say Hello - some for the very first time.

In the short time we have been here this afternoon we have learned about the war raging in Myanmar and how it is impacting the girls at Faith House.  Maria has received 10 new girls in the recent months and 6 are from the war zone area.  Thankfully, Gigi has a counseling degree now and is working with these traumatized girls to help them deal with so much emotion.  Many have family in Myanmar and they are fearful for them but can't go back to see them.

We are looking forward to being the hands and feet of Jesus here this week.  Tomorrow, Ron will preach at the Worship service that Faith House holds in their compound.  Afterward, we will take the girls for a special trip to a nearby resort to begin our lessons through the book of Esther and continued study about the names God has called them. Oh, yes and swim in the pool which will be a wonderful treat for these young ladies.  Right now it is so hot here it feels like you do when you stand in front of an open oven door.  HOT!!!

In the Spring of 2019, The Bible Chapel sent a mission team to Thailand that changed my life. Through that trip, I became aware of human trafficking happening in our world today. Gary Haugen, founder of International Justice Mission that rescues victims of human trafficking, has said there are 40,000,000 human trafficked victims in our world today.

I am so excited!! Because we get to go again- for our third time! The Bible Chapel is set to return to Faith House April 19^th- May 1st. Our team is led by Glenn Delich and Brenda Tenison. Joining our team is Pastor Ron Moore, Greg Devore, Gary Gould, Bill Harms, Kathleen Belack, and myself (Dee Johnson).

We are going to lead the girls through the book of Esther- our precious princess warriors will understand Queen Esther and how God can also use them at “such a time as this.” These princess warriors are going to change the world!!

We will, also, teach some identity in Christ chapters from Aubrey Sampson’s book Known. It’s my new favorite! I will lead them in acrylic painting of some Bold Blooms (please pray for that!), and we will do some sewing and other activities leading to a banquet to help them personalize the teachings of Esther.

We cannot rescue 40,000,000 people, but we can participate in bringing the healing teachings of Christ to these 35 rescued souls at Faith House; the girls are ages 9-26. I wish you could join us in the amazing worship with these girls. Their sweet singing takes us right to the throne of God.

Please pray for our mission trip to Faith House in Maesot, Thailand, and that God will enable the girls to understand the teaching of Esther and His vision to use them to reach the world for Christ. Thank you for your partnership and prayer as we bring the gospel and Jesus to these precious girls. Your faithfulness and generosity mean so much.

Happy birthday to Tony today!!

Well, this incredible, crazy, whirl-wind trip is coming to an end! Although they said it was illegal to hide the missionaries in our checked bags…the memories we made with them will last us a long time. As we said goodbye to the friends we made, we know that the high school and college students are still in good hands. As we end this blog, I wanted everyone to share a little about the trip. Sooo enjoy! :)

Tony Carrola - “Meeting with and getting to know the missionaries in Budapest was one of the highlights of the trip for me. They were truly kinda and hospitable, and I enjoyed encouraging and working alongside them. It was also a wonderful experience travelling with so many great friends from our church and getting to know them better.”

John Palmer - “The best part of the trip was the growth. I grew in my faith, maturity, and relations with people. I really enjoyed the people that I served with: Matthew, Emmy, Tony, Ricky, Jennifer, and Jonathan, to name a few. I also really enjoyed talking to the other students that were my age and experiencing the world in a really different culture.”

Jonathan Lingenhoel - “This week I was reminded of God's call to serve Him in whatever capacity He asks of us. I watched our team do just that, whether it was chatting with teens and college students, witnessing to strangers, washing dishes, or patiently sitting and waiting as our accompanying missionaries figured out what our next class our task was, they did so with joy as unto the Lord. I saw true Christian fellowship and humble service in action, and it was a joy to behold. :) I pray that we are able to continue with that attitude, being willing to do whatever task God places in front of us, no matter how menial or (seemingly) meaningless.”

Meagan Lingenhoel - “What an amazing week! I'm so thankful to have been able to share Budapest with the team this year! Talking with Hungarian high schoolers and college students was so very sweet.  Deepening relationships with the Hungarian Cru missionaries is always such a blessing! Praise God for using us and keeping us safe!”

Matthew Nuzzo - “I got to know a few of the missionaries from FÉK much better this trip. Góki and I were able to talk a lot after FÉK PÉNTEK, the event they held for the highschool and college students we spoke to during the week. We spent time talking a lot about our hobbies, but also about the great work happening in Budapest. He explained that he thinks the BHHP has been an amazing success - they’ve been seeing an increase in numbers coming to their events these past two years. He also explained that he loved getting to meet a few of us again and that he was encouraged through us stepping out of our comfort zones throughout the entire week.”

Ricky Andrews - “It’s hard to summarize an entire week of fun and exhaustion and blessings from God in a few sentences. This week, God brought us to Budapest and did some very amazing things to us and through us. We met so many amazing people, formed bonds and connections that will last a lifetime, and saw Jesus working in incredible ways, as well as facing our fair share of challenges along the way. We ate delicious (and sometimes strange) food, saw the beautiful city of Budapest from the inside and from a bird's eye view, plus many other experiences that would take me days to list. So to sum it up, Isten áldja Budapestet és Isten áldja a Magyarokat (God bless Budapest and the Hungarian people)!”

Corbin Rutan - “This trip was a great opportunity. It allowed us to grow closer to those of the faith from both America and Hungary, and we planted seeds of the gospel in the minds of nonbelievers.”

Jennifer Cook - “I’m finishing our last day with traveling back to the US.  To those of you who have considered doing a missions trip with the church, but think 'I just don’t think I could put myself out there and share my faith.', I encourage you to to go. It was the easiest and most joyful experience. The missionaries you work with have such an enthusiasm to teach us, and an earnest desire to share Jesus. I have been changed by meeting them and have grown in my faith. I am sad to be leaving and looking forward to returning to see them and Budapest again. I feel as though the others on the team are close friends now and will miss not spending the day with them. It also is a great reminder that we are so blessed to be from the US and have such a wonderful church led by God fearing men and women that want to help us spread the gospel around the world.”

Emmy Nuzzo - “I wrote the blog so I have said a lot for the week already ;)”

Thank you to everyone following along and praying for us on our journey!

Friday! One of the busiest days of the week! We started our day by going into more schools! As we went through this week, one thing we realized was that teachers really need more credit (sorry to my mom, who is a teacher)! We were exhausted by the end of the day! A good exhausted, but still exhausted. One of the schools has a student who was a new believer and who has been doing a Bible study with Kiso (one of the missionaries). This student wanted to share the FEK organization but didn’t know how, so she was excited that we were there to help get the other students excited!

After the schools, we had about an hour or two break to prepare ourselves for their big event in the evening! We met early and went over what was happening that night, our expectations, and an overall game plan! We prayed for the students, our hearts, the missionaries, and for overall energy for the night, then waited for the students to show up. We saw students that we had met earlier in the week, and it was an encouragement to continue our relationship with them and that they were excited about the event and organization! It was an exciting night, and the missionaries said that it was the biggest event that they had!! So many of the students were connected with the Hungarian missionaries, and it was a time of fellowship and new friendships being formed. The missionaries had everyone fill out a survey so they can keep in touch with them and hopefully find a spot where they can be connected.

At the same time, we were doing the event for the students, Meagan and John went and helped with another event! It was a marriage enrichment event, where campus crusade focused on pouring into married couples and enriching family life. They helped with the dinner, washed dishes, cleared plates, and talked to other couples!

Overall, it was a great day, and it was awesome seeing all the events come together! God is working here, and we feel so blessed to be able to see and experience a part of it.

As we finish out our week here, our prayer is for the missionaries we are leaving. We pray that they can make lasting relationships with the students and that a revival will be starting in Hungary.

Our Hungarian word of the day is felfedezés which means exploration!