Lighthouse Newsletter 2014

It takes a single light to guide a thousand ships in from the night.

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. (1 Cor. 3:6-7)

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been another busy and eventful year in many ways. I wish we could sit down with each of you over a hot
cup of coffee or hot chocolate and share from the heart what God has done in our lives this past year. It would be a
long talk, and it would be a good one. As Sally and I talked, trying to recap this past year, each of us had some highlights that we wanted to share, special events, people, and lessons learned along the wayIt would be a very long
newsletter indeed, and it would be good to share all those things.
But I want to focus on how God is blessing us with seeing the fruit of evangelism and discipleship. After all, the
reason for every Christmas is Jesus. He came as a babe in order to be a Savior. This is good news for all people. It
never ceases to be old news. It is as fresh as a home-cooked meal served with love and joy.
I want to start by sharing about Regina, who is from China, who was only in Berkeley for the summer. She is
one of those people who is very open to Christianity and I believe one day will become a Christian. I (Vieng) had the
privilege of sharing the full Bridge illustration (Gospel) with her in 30 minutes during cold-contact evangelism on the
Berkeley campus. Months later, the seed of the gospel is still working in her heart as she writes an email to me from
China. This is what she wrote:
Dear Vieng,
Long time no talk or email. Now I'm in China. I want to say thank you so much for sharing your ideas about Jesus and the stories of the Bible with me. You are a very devout person, from your behavior and your warm heart, I can
feel that. Just as I have said before, belief is one of the most important things even the most important one for people,
me included.
Also, life needs us to enjoy and then we can feel the pulse and the voice of its heart. This semester, I'm busy
making preparation for my examinations, my life is filled up with different things, to be honest, I don't have enough
time to read the Bible. But I think I will spare time to do it. The things you shared with me are in still in my mind and I
will keep them! Thank you so much, my friend, Vieng! Best wishes to you and your wife!
Regina Yu (From China)
This email was very unexpected and unprompted. I share this to let you know how encouraged I am that God
moved her to write that email. So many hours I had been evangelizing on campus and sometimes wonder if its all
worth it. And I get an email like thisGod knows how to encourage His people to keep on keeping onespecially in
sharing the gospel faithfully in a difficult campus like Berkeley. Then there is Eric, a PhD student, studying at Columbia
in New York, a student I met three summers ago while doing cold-contact evangelism. Like Regina, what he wrote is
also very unexpected and unprompted. This was his (edited) baptism testimony sent a few months ago:
I grew up in China where students are taught in school that "there is no god. For me, I had trouble believing
that there was a god. I strongly believed science was the only way to explain everything. During that period, I sometimes couldnt help feeling depressed because if God does not exist, then human are just puppets of scientific laws
Therefore, I came to believe that there is a god who made the world as it is today, even though its unexplainable with
an all-scientific view. I also realized humans are really limited in their intelligence, so I accepted the fact that I couldnt
fully understand or explain everything.
I still couldnt help but think about all the possibilities out there besides God. During my time of doubt, I just focused on being a good student and having fun with my friends. I did not think too much about the spiritual world because its just too painful to dive into those big questions. But I was very lucky because I met three missionaries throughout my college years. One missionary Ben helped me practice speaking English when I was a sophomore in college. The
second missionary was Vieng, who talked with me about the Bible for four days and introduced me to a house church in
Beijing my senior year. The third one is Anna, who I met since the start of my stay in New York. She leads my Bible study
small group, where I learn a lot about Jesus.

The big change in my heart happened on March 1st this year when I was at the RWC retreat. I
messed something up really bad the week before, and I was very hard on myself. But I was moved
by the music, and the speaker. Although I knew my limitations as a human and how much I was
prone to fail all this time, I didnt realize thats why people needed salvation and Jesus, our only
Savior, who died on the cross and washed away our sins by His blood.
So I decided to drop the doubts in my head, took a leap of faith and trusted in God. After that, well, the difficulties did not just go away. But when I felt overwhelmed, I prayed and it really helped. I think God answered my prayer by
sending one of my best friends from St. Louis to New York, who encouraged me a lot when I was the most depressed. I
feel very grateful for what God has done to change me, and I am happy to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
There are many others I could share with youWasabi, and Justin, and others Im sure we dont know about.
But one thing that I am sure of is this: only in heaven will the full story be known, and God will get all the glory, and we
who are faithful will be commended by the Lord and rewarded for our obedience. I share these stories to encourage
you that it is worth it to be the link in the chain of God using us to help unbelievers come into the kingdom. One last
story is about Clayton C. He was someone I shared the gospel with this past summer time, and ran into him again a
few months later and he seemed very friendly. I asked him to write about his experience to encourage a fellow pastor
to go cold-contact evangelize with me several months ago. This is what Clayton wrote:
When Vieng first approached me, I thought I knew how our conversation would play out. He would ask me

questions about my beliefs and my feelings toward Jesus Christ, and when I was through talking, he would briefly summarize his beliefs, why he became a Christian, and why I should do the same. If I had questions, they would be vaguely
answered, either because he is unprepared for them or he does not intend to have an engaging conversation, and once
the point is across, we would go our separate ways..
This has almost always been my experience, but I realized this would not be the case with Vieng the moment he
sat down on the grass next to me. To me, this represented his willingness and confidence to share his thoughts and respond to mine. Throughout our conversation, Vieng answered my questions and brought up interesting ideas that I had
not thought of, referring to specific passages in the Bible as support. We talked about modern issues and theories in
science, again relating them to descriptions and explanations in the Bible.
Most importantly, he introduced me to the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Until reading this book, I
had always felt there was a lack of well-thought reasoning by Christians in explaining their beliefs. Because of this, I
never felt like I understood Christianity and its ideas. This book has changed that. I do not claim to truly understand
Christianity, for I believe this knowledge is only reserved for true Christians, but I am beginning to realize its wisdom and
the benefits that a society and its individuals would have by understanding and living by its message.
I think it is important for Christians to help people see the relevance and compatibility of their beliefs with the
discoveries and values of modern society. Vieng did this for me through open, honest conversation and Mere Christianity did it through clever and intelligent inquiries. In a world with so much information and opinions, it is refreshing and
inspiring to hear from two unique perspectives, where the individuals were able to find what is important, and do not
just teach their beliefs, but demonstrate the result through their intelligence and character.
After this email, written several months ago, Clayton and I have since become fast friends. We have had
lunches together, and he has come out to church about a half dozen times, and enjoying the last message by Danny
Furuyama, our co-pastor at our church. He has even come over for dinners at our place and played several board
games with us. I gave him a Gideon New Testament about a month ago and he has been reading it and asking me
some very good questions. He is not yet a believer to date, but is actively seeking God and reading and enjoying His
Word. Please pray for his salvation.
One thing I am learning is that evangelism is a process. After each encounter with unbelievers, whether we
share the gospel verbally or not, we want to move them closer to Jesus. This is done intentionally and it does take a
love for the lost and the skill to do it well. Please continue to pray for Clayton and Regina, who have yet to put their
trust is Christ for salvation and pray for Eric, who has just been baptized and is learning to be a disciple of Christ who
will live for him and help others come into the kingdom as he has been helped.
I (Sally) am challenged at each Marketplace Ministry Bible study to evaluate how and what I am doing to make
an impact at my workplace among my co-workers. This year there were seasons with more activity than others and Im

thankful to share that I am motivated to be more active in this current season. So I recently had coworkers over to bake, watch movies and celebrate Christmas. Vieng and I made a point to share the
gospel with each of these individuals, whether one-on-one or in a group such as at the Christmas
party. Please pray for God to water those Gospel seeds. God has blessed me with good friendships
with my co-workers and given me favor with several of them.
Additionally, in the past few months, I committed myself to helping three Christian sisters grow in their Quiet
Time devotions: Katie, Quynh and Stephanie. Let me tell you their stories...
Katie (my friend and former co-worker) became a believer in 2012 and was baptized in our church this past
August. Since her baptism, Vieng and I started meeting with her regularly for discipleship. She is currently a UC Davis
student, but she comes home to the Bay Area several weekends a month. We have been very encouraged by her desire
to read the Bible and to see her reach out to her roommates and tell them about Jesus. One of them expressed interest
in knowing more about God after experiencing amazing answer to Katies prayer for her! Please pray for Katies spiritual growth and for her to continue to love her roommates with the love of Jesus that they may believe.
In December, Vieng introduced me to a sophomore Cal student named Quynh. Vieng was with his friend, Zac,
who was doing open air preaching at UC Berkeley. While he was open air preaching, Vieng was watching out to see
who was listening and he gave out church tracts to a few girls. One of the girls he met was Quynh, a recent believer
who attends another church in Berkeley. From surveying her, he realized she needs help establishing a strong foundation since she shared she had some doubts. At the end of the 30-minute talk, she thanked Vieng and said she was willing to meet up the following week on campus for help with Quiet Times. Since then, Quynh has been very faithful and
is learning how to do Quiet Time and pray using the Prayer Hand model. We have been very encouraged by her desire
to grow and how she has been faithful and teachable!
Recently I started discipling Stephanie, a senior Cal student, who starting coming to our church in the summertime through Ellen (now a junior whom Vieng met 2 years ago through cold-contact evangelism). Stephanie decided to
be baptized with our church and has been regularly attending our church and fellowship. We knew she wanted to be
discipled, and also Vieng realized that of the four individuals who were baptized by our church, Stephanie was the only
one not being discipled. And Matthew 28:19-20 commands us to make disciples and baptize, as well as teach them to
obey Gods commands! So, after discussing what discipleship means and what our expectations are with her, she and I
started meeting weekly. I have been encouraged by how proactive and honest Stephanie is. She also desires to grow in
the Word, has a heart for the lost and loves prayer.
At the last ICA Staff Training, our director, Pastor Min, gave the staff six promise verses that focus on evangelism, discipleship and spiritual generations. We are claiming Isaiah 60:22: The least of you will become a thousand, and
the smallest a mighty nation. I am the Lord; in its time I will do this swiftly. Our hope and prayer is that as we invest in
seekers and disciple believers, the Lord will in His time multiply these individuals into a thousand, through spiritual generations.
Summary of Prayer Requests:
1. Salvation for Regina, Clayton, and Justin.
2. Eric to grow in his new life in Christ.
3. God will water the seeds of the gospel in Sallys co-workers hearts.
4. Katie, Quynh and Stephanie to grow in their Christian life.

We wish you and your family a blessed new year 2015!

Thank you for all your love and support for us. We thank God for you.

in

Vieng & Sally Wong

For more photos and our archived newsletters, please visit sallyandvieng.weebly.com
Visit our new church web site at LHECBerkeley.org!
Email: viengwong@yahoo.com

Address: 2240 Blake St. Apt. 403, Berkeley, CA 94704

Phone: 310.525.4176

2014 in Review
Campus Open-Air Preachers gather
on campus to proclaim the Gospel
Friday Night Fun over a Cities & Knights game with
(L to R) Minh, Justin, Nathan and Clayton .
Sallys students & coworkers celebrate her birthday.

Our churchs first baptism:

(L to R) Michael, Stephanie, Ellen, Katie

Marketplace Ministry Event

Hotpot Dinner
Meeting with Quynh

Marketplace Ministry Event Dinner at Yoshis

The group we co-founded with Ben since 2006

Christmas party with Sallys co-workers and students