(a recent prayer letter received from Grant Skelton, Hong Kong)

Several years ago, my pastor encouraged me to get a legal pad and start a list of unsaved people the Lord brought into my life. He also encouraged me to pray for them regularly and periodically note where there were in the process of trusting in Christ. I have talked about “The List” in past prayer letters. Honestly, I had gotten behind in updating my list. Thankfully during all the Covid-19 downtime, I was able to update it! I want to share it with you, so you can join me in praying for these souls.

Sharon, Aha, Stephen, Tanya, Pete, Luciana, Linus, Alan, Ling, Wilson, Alan G., Foon Foon, Foon’s Mom, Candy’s parents and brother, Vihaan’s cousin, Angela’s sister and parents, Veronica’s husband and mom, Agnes, Auntie Gun, Kamen, the Benz Family*, Tony*, Chris*, Candy*, Corina*. (*new additions since the last update)

These are all names of people who we or someone in our church has contact with and are actively praying and working with them. Through all the challenges and delays of the past several months, we know that Hong Kong is a harvest field and God has us here for such a time as this!

Last year, we met a Chinese man from Beijing. He was visiting Hong Kong to look for schools for his daughter, as they were considering a move here. We found out he was a Christian and gave him information about our church. He said he would visit us after they moved. Well, he and his family moved to Hong Kong six months later and they visited our church! We have grown to be very good friends. We learned that he and his wife got saved in a Chinese speaking Baptist church in Vancouver but had never been systematically discipled. This past month, Grant and our friends started a bi-weekly ZOOM discipleship meeting. They are journaling through the gospel of Mark. They are very faithful to this and are very excited to meet. Rebecca has also been meeting weekly with their teenage daughter. Christina was a little “fuzzy” on her salvation. Rebecca has been leading her through a Bible study on salvation and assurance. Please pray for this family. We are hoping the Lord will grow them and soon use them to serve in our ministry.

After three months of stricter social distancing and no church activities in our building, Hong Kong is finally allowing churches to resume meeting effective October 4th! We are so grateful for every step we can take towards normalcy. We have tried to use the time as wisely as possible! We were able to (with the help of a very generous Christian friend) install a new sound system in our church. We have made major progress and are almost ready to launch our new website. Please pray for God to give wisdom as we have many logistical decisions to make for resuming services and other ministries.

After eight months of ZOOM, on campus language classes have finally resumed! It recently occurred to me, in my year and a half of Cantonese language school, I have not met ONE SINGLE (of any evangelical denomination) missionary who is also studying the language. However, I have met at least 12 CATHOLIC PRIESTS AND NUNS. And these folks are here on a mission! They are evangelistic! I am having to compete for time with my teachers and other classmates because the priests are actively trying to win them too! The bottom line is we need more likeminded workers here in Hong Kong! There are missionaries in Hong Kong, but so few in relation to the seven million people who live here. Because Hong Kong is so expensive, it is not easy to raise funds to come here as a traditional missionary. However, there are other opportunities for “tent-making” missionaries to come. By far, the easiest form of access to Hong Kong is teaching English. At current, even with all the political challenges and changes, Hong Kong is still a very safe place to live. There are numerous people groups you can reach from one city! In our ministry, we could use people TODAY to serve in our Filipino Ladies ministry or to work with children, teenagers or singles. THE HARVEST IS PLENTEOUS BUT THE LABORERS ARE FEW. Please pray that the Lord would call more people to come to Hong Kong for the sake of the gospel! If you have a heart for missions and interest in ASIA, would you pray and consider if God has called you to come and serve with us? …even short-term?

We have not yet received our work VISAs. However, we have a very helpful VISA agent and have been told that we should have VISAs in hand in the next four weeks! Thank you for praying!