branhow.com

Greetings family, friends, wanderers, we are quickly approaching summer and the Howard family will finally be able to travel back to the States! We are very grateful that Macau, Hong Kong and Mainland China have opened their borders again after this pandemic. School is still in session at the moment, but most of our students are now preparing/ taking their final exams. While I normally did not share a lot of Christian related events/ outreaches while living in Mainland China; I think it will be alright to share a brief update of what God is allowing me to participate here in Macau.

You all might be noticing these title slides for different sermons/ talks. After coming to MAC 聖公會中學, God has opened up the doors for me to do ministry inside the school! As many of you already know, I came to China long ago to do ministry because I felt a calling here. To help bring the Gospel to the Chinese people. After coming to China full time to live in 2016, things quickly changed. While not going into details, the types of ministry or involvement with the Church or with fellow Christians in China also changed. Finally last year God opened the door for us to move to Macau and we were extremely excited about this opportunity. And here we are! God has opened the door for me to do ministry with students here at our school. If you can read Chinese, you might have noticed the character 聖, which is often associated with Christian or religious things. Yes, my school is a Christian (Anglican) school here in Macau. That being said, a majority of the staff and students working or studying here are not Christian. Thankfully, God has supplied a small but dedicated group of staff members here that are Christian and are passionate about sharing the Gospel.

Here at MAC, we have a weekly Chapel every Wednesday and recently the school has been asking me to lead the Chapels. Due to some unfortunate circumstances with our full time Pastor, he has not been able to attend for sometime while he recovers from some health issues. Please keep him in your prayers, he is recovering but will require more time. He had an extremely serious health crisis, but as for his updates, he is making a good recovery.

There was a void because of his absence and some other teachers mentioned that I used to do ministry and the administration heard about it. So another teacher here at MAC, Pastor Cristian (who is also a trained pastor) have been helping me to lead worship in the Chapel and he has been of tremendous help during this whole process. He has been giving me advice, preparing those songs we sing at Chapel and just prayerfully supporting this entire endeavour. I wanted to mention this here on the blog because I would like to ask you all for some help. Even though we may not have anymore chapels this year because of examinations, I’d like to ask you all to help stand together in prayer for a couple of points for the upcoming school year. Just as Jesus states in Matthew 18:18-20

Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. ¹⁹ Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” 

 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 18:18–20.

• Prayer Requests
• May God speak to the hearts and minds of our staff, teachers and students here at MAC.
• May God continue to provide opportunities for me to serve the staff/ students at our school.
• May God give favor in seeking additional support in understanding Him and further pursuit of a potential degree/ license in ministry or etc.
• May God provide my family and I further insight on how to minister to the greater Macau area (even Southern China) and that more residents of Macau will to come to a saving faith in Christ alone.
• Lastly, may God give me the patience, persistence, passion, acquisition of learning Cantonese and being able to fully converse with locals to share more of the Gospel with them.

Thank you all for your continued support and prayers. I have missed all of you terribly and we are sooooo excited to be traveling back for the summer! May God bless you all and keep you. Until next time…

~ by branhow on June 9, 2023.

Posted in Archived, Macau, Spiritual
Tags: christian schools in macau, Christianity in Macau, Gospel in Macau, Macau, macau ministry, macau schools, schools in macau