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UPDATE
November 22nd, 2007
Dear Saints:
“O give thanks unto
the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endures forever”
Psalm 107:1
Can I please begin this update on the eve of Thanksgiving Day
celebrated by our American brethren? Please join me in a prayer of
thanksgiving:
Heavenly loving Father, today we would offer to You the thanks of
our hearts. We thank You for Your greatness and goodness. We thank
You for the gift of Your Son. We thank You for the abiding presence
of Your Holy Spirit. We thank You for the church. We thank You for
your precious written Word. We thank You for the privilege of being
able to communicate with You in prayer. We come now thanking You
with our gifts. Accept these gifts as tokens of our gratitude and
bless them to the end that others might come to know Your grace
through Jesus Christ. Amen.
The psalmist observed that the habit of being thankful to the Lord
was good. For us to be thankful brings joy to the heart of our
Father God. For us to develop the habit of being thankful will
enable us to overcome our negative inclinations and will lead us to
face life with a positive and benevolent attitude. For us to be
thankful will be a blessing to others. It is indeed a good thing to
give thanks to the Lord for all the good things in life, including
our church, our country and our family.
15th Anniversary of ICM Malaysia
It is good for us to give thanks to God for honoring ICM Malaysia
with fifteen (15) fruitful years of ministry. So many fruits have
been borne out of the ministry and we give God the glory!
Let me give you a little of her history. ICM Malaysia was launched
at a service when Don Richardson, a missionary statesman and author
of the bestsellers, Peace Child, Lords of the Earth and Eternity in
Their Hearts, preached the inaugural message. Jeffrey Chew, Anthony
Skelchy and Edwin Marsden were installed as the National Board of
Directors, with Jeffrey as the National Director. Edwin led the
first mission trip to Lawas and Bakalalan in Sarawak in the same
year.
In 1995, the Church Planting Institute (CPI) was introduced to
Malaysia. Keith Higgins from Australia was invited for a two-year
term to help spearhead and introduce the CPI material to the local
churches in the nation in discipleship, leadership training and
church planting.
In 1996, Edwin Marsden was appointed the National Director and with
his new team, Edwin crisscrossed the whole of Peninsula Malaysia to
introduce the Church Planning Institute to the local churches of all
denominations.
The CPI program was also introduced in Sabah, East Malaysia
especially to the local ethnic leaders in Sabah. ICM works closely
with the Sidang Injil Borneo (SIB) churches that use the CPI
materials for training their leaders.
ICM saw her first batch of seven Orang Asli (Malaysia’s sons of the
soil) students graduating at the Orang Asli Bible School at Slim
River under the tutelage of Pastors Tan Choo Seng, Arul, Timothy
Cheah and Rajan in 1997.
In 2002, ICM reached another milestone. A National Board was formed
in Medan, North Sumatra. The Board comprised local Indonesian
pastors and included in the list are Pastors Pakpahan and Gordon
Silaban, Dr Parlin and others. Together with the Malaysian team,
they traveled to many towns and villages to pioneer training centers
using the CPI materials. Today, ICM has trained thousands of
believers in Indonesia and within five years, ICM has fulfilled the
vision of planting 100 churches in North Sumatra. ICM conducted the
first Prison Graduation in Tanjung Balai prison in 2006.
ICM was also heavily involved in relief work, food distribution,
medical missions and reconstruction work in Aceh and Nias after the
tsunami and earthquake in 2004. Out of the disaster, many churches
were established and new converts taught the fundamental truths of
Christianity.
In 2006, ICM extended its ministry into Northern Luzon, Philippines.
Pastor Lumahan is the Advisor and General Osia of the National
Police is the head of the ICM Board, with four other leaders. Since
its inception, ICM through the local churches has pioneered 10 new
churches.
Celebration Dinner on 22 October 2007
A dinner was held on the 22nd of October 2007 in Kuala Lumpur. We
were honored to host 600 guests including the Honorable the Minister
of National Unity Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili and his political
Secretary Ms Julita Majungki and key Christian leaders from around
the nation. The Group Chairman of ICM traveled from the United
Kingdom and addressed the guests. Let me summarize some of the
messages given that night:
Message by Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili, the Honorable the
Minister of National Unity
I have known your President since 1995 and worked with
 your
Malaysian directors over the years in Sabah. Your work among the
pastors has been exemplary and the materials you use are
comprehensive and effective.
You are a contributing factor in the building of national unity
through changed lives among Malaysia’s multi-religious and
multi-racial society.
I commend you on your good work and wish you success in all that you
do.
Message by David Vardy, the Group Chairman of ICM
We praise God as ICM Malaysia reaches its 15th Anniversary and
celebrate the faithfulness and ministry of the people associated
with it. Since its inception ICM Malaysia has seen amazing growth
both in its ministry and scale of influence throughout the region.
This is entirely due to the vision of the founders of ICM and the
passion and enthusiasm of the Christian believers in Malaysia who
caught that vision and devoted themselves to the service of reaching
others with the gospel, training men and women for Christian service
and planting new churches.
The Board of ICM Malaysia, under the able leadership of Edwin
Marsden, have
 done
outstanding work and are to be commended for their wisdom,
commitment and endeavor. They are responsible for the development of
the work and, under God, for the amazing results that have been
achieved. The Board of ICM Inc praise God for such Godly people
whose passion for the Gospel has caused them to go the extra mile in
order to extend the kingdom.
Several years ago I have the privilege of attending an ICM
Graduation in a small village in Ipoh. In a local church building,
above a ground floor shop, we celebrated the success of almost 50
students. Some had completed the first year of their studies and
others had fulfilled the obligations of the second year – they all
received Certificates of Achievement. Another group graduated after
completing the three-year course of study and there was great
celebration amongst the assembled group of family, friends and
church members. It was a very moving ceremony as awards were
presented and success celebrated.
Mission teams have gone out from ICM Malaysia across the country and
in neighboring territories. It was a joy for me to see the results
of the work in the Cameron Highlands as I visited small
congregations meeting in the tea plantations. The work of ICM was
very much appreciated by the rural pastors. The training that they
and their congregations had received was a great blessing to them.
The influence of ICM Malaysia has not only been felt in your own
country but also in many of the other countries in South East Asia.
Initiatives in the Philippines and Indonesia are particularly worthy
of note. ICM has become highly respected and much appreciated in
these two countries as a consequence of the efforts of Edwin
Marsden, Wilson Ng and Lucas Lim. Only Heaven will know the
effectiveness of this ministry but to these men and to all the
brothers and sisters who have been involved in ICM ministry over the
last 15 years we know that the commendation will be “well done good
and faithful servants”.
Message by Founder/President of ICM
The best model of effective teamwork is seen in our Lord Jesus
Christ and His disciples. Although the Bible is full of examples of
great leadership by
 individuals,
Jesus is different in that he chose to develop a team. He
understood that the only way to accomplish His mission was through a
team.
International Christian Mission seeks to emulate our Lord’s model
and to this end, we teach a course on the “Fundamental Truths of
Effective Teamwork”. A Board member of our ICM Inc and the President
of ICM Malaysia, Brother Edwin Marsden, together with his team of
faithful directors, in particular Wilson Ng, Jeffrey Chew and Jimmy
Chang, and numerous partners in mission understand that the
long-term success of ICM must be lived out through members of the
team. Teambuilding is hard work, but it pays large dividends, as you
will see from the presentation tonight.
As leader, Edwin demonstrated ministry for his team. He gave himself
to his team members, modeling servant leadership daily. Other ICM
leaders who share their experience and give their time to their team
unselfishly energize effective teams. What an affirmation of each of
them and their potential! A true demonstration of the Lord’s
teaching in John 15:15-16.
Involvement in ICM programs has inspired many individuals and
churches to discover a Christ-like passion for the unevangelized, a
heightened conviction in the power of the gospel to save the lost
and a new impetus to actively reach the unreached people groups in
our generation.
Message by National Director of ICM Malaysia
“Come and see what the Lord has done; How awesome are
His works...” Psalms 66:5
We thank God for the large numbers of faithful partners from all
denominations, local churches and missions organization that have
served alongside us all
 these
15 years. A considerable number of them have now gone on to serve
the Lord full-time. We want to thank all our faithful partners,
those who have graciously, faithfully and sacrificially served
alongside with us in praying, giving and going. Without them we
could not have fulfilled the Lord’s mission to evangelize, to make
disciples, to raise up church planters and to establish churches. As
the CPI track progresses, we are seeing very encouraging results of
indigenous churches being established among the Orang Asli’s in
Semenanjung Malaysia, among the longhouses in SarawaJe and the
remote villages in Sabah, Indonesia and Philippines.
Proverbs 29: 18 – “Without vision the people
perish”. Equally true is that without people the
vision perish. While we cannot possibly acknowledge all our faithful
partners all these 15 years because of space and time, we certainly
want to record a note of our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to
all our faithful staff past and present, partners and all the
willing volunteers who have helped in one way or another, through
the prayers, giving and going have made the vision of ICM a reality.
We also want to thank the pastors and local churches who networked
with us to see and witness the gospel being preached and churches
being planted. Thank You.
About all, ICM in humble gratitude want to thank the Lord for His
faithfulness, His providence, His wisdom, His guidance and His
protection - for truly apart from Him, we could have accomplished
nothing.
“Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in
the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the
dew of thy youth.” Psalm 110:3
Once again, we at ICM count it a great privilege to be in
partnership with you as we work together to bring in the bountiful
harvest of these Last Days. We warmly invite YOU to join with us to
spread the Good News of God’s Glorious Kingdom.
We appeal to you to participate in this end-time ministry. Please
pray and allow the Holy Spirit to lead and direct you to help us
with a strong financial gift for this project. Please send your gift
to us at Suite 2040, 17300 North Dallas Parkway, Dallas, Texas
75248, USA or at 126A Rangoon Road, Singapore 218404.
Please visit us at http://www.icmission.net. We love to hear from you.
God Bless you.
Khoo Hin Hiong
President/Founder
International Christian Mission
E-Mail:
icm@pacific.net.sg
E-Mail:
icmglobal@gmail.com
Web-site:
www.icmission.net
Tel: (65) 6291-2477
Fax: (65) 6292-0996
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