Shari House Prayer Letter:  Continuing to Minister in the CommunityWe are praising the Lord for His mercy and grace during these difficult days of COVID restrictions. In my last letter, I mentioned how excited we were to be having in-person services again starting in June. We enjoyed five weeks of lifted restrictions. It was wonderful to worship together, have new converts get baptized, and welcome visitors, many of whom had received one of our COVID-relief food bags through our “God Loves You” program during the previous lockdown.

After the first Sunday in July, our town went back into lockdown, with restrictions of no more than 25 people at gatherings; it was eventually labeled as a dark red zone, which has the highest level of restrictions, with no more than 5 people being able to gather. We are still under these strict restrictions, although a few weeks ago, our area went back to gatherings of 25. We will be going back to in-person services in the next few weeks but will have to do 4 rounds of services each Sunday to accommodate everyone. Please pray that all restrictions will be lifted soon, so we will be able to meet freely once again.

During this time of continued restrictions, our staff have continued to minister in the community as we have been able to. We have seen the Lord open many doors for us. We have continued to distribute food bags to our church members in need and families in the community through funds that have been donated from churches and individuals in the States and through our own church benevolence budget. I had the opportunity to lead Nu, on the left in the first picture below, her mother Joom, who is standing next to me, and Nu’s oldest daughter Pet to the Lord when I and one of our church members took them a food bag. What a blessing it was to meet not only their immediate physical need, but also their eternal spiritual need. For another project, some of the staff men worked together to make up medical supply kits that were donated to our local first responders, along with some much-needed PPE suits. Bro. Jon Beil was able to give the Gospel, and four of the first responders trusted Christ as their Saviour.

Through a generous donation to the Heavenly Treasures Orphan Project, we were able to purchase school uniforms and pay the school fees for 50 needy children and buy school shoes for a further 67 children living in 3 different orphanages. What a blessing it was for so many families in our church and in the community to have this burden lifted. Here is a link to a short video about this project: https://sharihousethailand.wixsite.com/servingjoyfully/post/heavenly-treasures-2021-school-uniforms-fees-project.

Shari House