MAY 12 1982

ZJfte J^emo'd SoJourning.d in ZJItailand

LByfaith theysojournedin theland ....

looking forward to a city which has foundations,

whose builder and maker is God. Heb. 11:8-10

Box 180

FORWARDING AGENT:
Mrs. Linda Goerke
Route 1

Chiangmai, Thailand

King City. MO 64463

Alan & Janet Bemo

December 1981 -

March 1982

Dear Co-workers in the Lord,

Wha^ a joy itjs to write you again.

The_Lord is good through all things]

Blessed be

the Name"~or~the Lor^l

In our last letter we shared with you concerning our stay in Mipo.
Our leave-takingthere, after three months, was heart-wrenching for all of us.
We had become very close and
would have been very willing to stay on and on if other places weren't calling also. How we
learned to appreciate and love every soul there in Mipo!
Since then we have been back
a
couple of times to find that Brother Nwo is continuing to teach the literacy classes to a
few students so the work is continuing on. Praise God!
Just towards the end of our stay in Mipo we received word that the Overlake Christian
Church wanted to give a special offering to buy a four-wheel truck for us. Praise the Lord!

We have been praying about such a need for two years -- we have told the Lord who gives us
everything we need and we told no one else.
We praise God everytime we go over a bad place
in the road.
Last year alone we spent two miserable nights on the road because we were
stuck.
Another time we had to walk on into the village and leave the car there for four
days. Already this new truck has gotten us out of three jams that would have meant days of
delay in the old truck. We have also gotten a 8,000 pound wench put on it. Come over during
the rainy season and have some fun with us!
On December 15, Beth came back home from school

She^ was able to spend

Christmas festivities.
decorated the house and
celebrated the birth of

in Taiwan for her

Christmas vacation.

a week at Mipo with us before we all moved to Chiangmai for the

It was ^ good to have her in the fold again.
Back in Chiangmai we
Janet made her usual WoFlderful Christmas Eve feast and we joyfully
our Lord with the Tom Love family and several of the Morse family

^nd a new German convert and his Thai friend.

Later, the evening was spent caroling with
the Chinese brethren till 3:00 a.m. as is their custom, eating at every house. At 5:00 a.m.
the kids woke us up and were ready to open, their gifts from near and far. What a night! Ha.

After services at the church and lunch with the brethren, ole' pa here went home to sleep it
all off.

Saturday we went to the Love's home for a delicious Swedish meal.

we all went to the beach to spend a few days together.

Over New Year's

Actually it was a little island in

the Gulf of Siam called Paradise Island. It was very relaxing and enjoyable going snorkling
and swimming with my young'uns.
It was the most beautiful snorkling water I had ever been

in.

All too soon, Beth went back to Taiwan and to school on January the 2nd.

we'll be meeting her in Hong Kong again on May 29th.

Our month in Chiangmai was spent in getting reorganized

Lord willing,

and getting ready

to go to

BingLong on January 23rd for six weeks. Also, during that time a couple in the Chinese
Church here in Chiangmai were married and I had to brush up on performing a formal wedding
service which is not really my line.
The Lord worked it out though and they are a blessing
to the church in many ways.

BingLong proved to be a lot different field from Mipo.

We were staying with Brother
Shen and his family on their second floor which had not been completed yet.
So the first
few days were spent in plastering the adobe brick walls upstairs with a cow manure and mud

mixture.

We also partitioned it off into five rooms with bamboo matting, and it was right
homey. We found the people there generally unreceptive and a lot of the population not even
there because it was the opium harvesting time, and they were in their fields in Burma. Even

though we had services every night at one place or another, very few came except on Sunday.
We feel, though, that our stay in BingLong may have been more profitable than that of Mipo

Our living quarters in Bing Long

Brother Shen's house

Janet teaching Sunday afternoon

because from the first two full-time Bible students moved into our house to study. One, Mr.
Ying, was a 28 year old "Bare-foot Doctor" just recently arrived from China. He stopped his

practice to come and study full-time.

The other, Luke Lwo, was a 28 year old farmer who
stopped his work right during the harvest to study. They were not our doing.
These were
young men that God raised up to prepare for His Work. Soon we were in a routine of studying

three hours every morning, working on agricultural projects together in the afternoons and
then studying again in the evenings.
We studied the Gospel of Matthew, half of a Bible
Survey course, and Christian Music. Cathy Carlile taught them English also. When we left,
both these young men decided to come back with us to continue studying daily while we are

here and then go to Menako with us to study a month before going on to Bangkok to continue

their training at the Bible School there.

God is preparing laborers for the harvest.

Agricultural projects in BingLong in

cluded the building of a 3,000 tree shade

house for propagating peach, apple, pear

and coffee and pecan trees in plastic
sacks.
around

We also put up an

electric fence

Brother Shen's field.

This solar

electric fence was supplied by Grinnell

Christian Church and is probably the first
of its kind in Thailand.
It was good to
see the results of Rod Smith's budding
last year as some peach trees were already
blooming and putting on fruit.
Now back again in Chiangmai for two
weeks we are rather frantically getting
ready to leave for Menako. This time with
the Tom Loves going too, and later some
kJioYi tzacking ^fiothvi Ija)o [Zzit] B Vk, yZng
interns from the Bible College in Bangkok
coming up for a month. We look forward to great things for the Lord, but we really, really
need your prayers!! This village has no car road to it.
We sent up about 1,500 pounds of supplies the day before yesterday by mule train.
We,
ourselves will go a different, shorter route in three days time, passing through Mipo Sunday
evening so that we can have services with them before we go on. It will be about a four to

five hour walk.

(The Christians are sending horses down for the little kids.)

has been asking for a teacher to come

getting there. There are Chinese and

This village

and teach them for seven years and we are just now
Lahu Christians in this area who want to be taught.

Hej^e are-the specifics we woul-d Tike for you-to earnestly pray-afeout: 1-)-our-physical safety
as this is so far from civilization and there have been some armed takeover attempts in this

area. 2) that we might be able to not only teach but set up a teaching program which can be
followed up after we leave and 3) that we can train Chinese and Lahu leaders there to carry
on after we leave. We go forth to this village with a little fear but we are also anxious
to see what the Lord will do there. We look forward to giving you a good report in our next
letter.

Also, during these two weeks we are making final plans to return to the U.S. for a
year's furlough. We have been here four years and can really feel the need of seeing our
friends and families again in the States for awhile. Lord willing, we will be arriving in
Los Angeles on June 11. Janet's mother, Isabel Dittemore, will be getting a cataract oper
ation as soon as we can return on June 15th, so at least Janet and Sarah, and perhaps all of
us will be spending time with her in Joplin, Missouri, while the other children and I set up
housekeeping at 2120 Hayes, Muskogee, Oklahoma, 74401.
I hope many of you can stop bv to
see us and we will try our best to visit all our supporting churches and friends.
Several
speaking dates have already been set up and we definitely hope to attend the Missionary Con
vention in Lexington, Ky, from Sept. 28-Oct. 1. So far we have not had time to write out a
definite itinerary. We will do so as soon as we can. Let us know if we can do anything for
you...we are here to serve.
In deep Christian Love,
Alan Bemo

Non Profit

Foremosa Christian Mission

Organization
U.S. Postage Paid

c/o Mr. & Mrs. Doug Bemo

527 Anthony
Muskogee, Okla. 74401

at

Muskogee,

Okla.

74401
Permit # 15

Horizons
Address

jon Requested

Box 177

Kompton, Ind. 46049

\\

T)lte (Bemo^d Soj,ournLn^A in Tjliailand

By faith they sojourned in the land

;q.,

looking forward to a city which has foundations.

whose builder and maker is God. Heb.ll-8-lO
FORWARDIMj AGENT:
Mrs. Linda Goerke

May - July

Alan & Janet Bemo

2120 Hayes

1982

Rt.

Muskogee, Oklahoma 74401

King City, Mo.

6^1463

Dear Co-workers,

We have come halfway around the world and four months have passed since we
wrote you last. As we are here in the States now, we hope to see most of you
in person while we are here to tell you how wonderful God has been.
Until
then, and just in case we don't get to see you, we want to send this letter.

At last writing we asked you to pray for our physical safety and the work in
Mae Naam Khong. The Lord answered these prayers beyond our expectations. We
had a tiring but

exciting trip therethe

little children

the rest by walking. After traveling for six hours

road -there), we arrived to find out that a

us to live in after all.

by horseback and

(remember there is no car-

house had not been settled on for

Some of our things which

we had sent up earlier by

mule and horse had not arrived so there were some difficulties.
One problem
was that without our bedding we were very cold at night.
Chinese brothers
lent us some blankets and Lahu brethren helped us by putting in bamboo sleep

ing platforms and shelves.

Within three days everything had arrived and

Love and I had built an oven out of adobe bricks.

signed up more than a hundred young people

utes and then Bible literacy for an hour.

for the Bible stories for 30 min

At first Tom and

these classes along with Brother Chen, the local teacher.

before we met him but did not know much about the Bible.

putting him to work

we were able

Tom

In less than a week we had

By teaching him and

to divide the students

After we were there for three weeks five students from

I took care of

He was a Christian
into three levels.

Bethel Bible Seminary

in Bangkok came to help us during their mid-term break.

We had had contact
with three of these students before and had helped them get enrolled in that
school.
By dividing the work load up we were much more free to branch out
into other avenues of service.
A morning English class was taught by Cathi
Carlile and a morning Thai class was taught by one of the seminary students.
The Medical Clinic was really extensive there since we had Dr. Yin with us.
Remember that Dr. Yin and Luke Iwo,
the former opium farmer had left all to
study the Bible in Binglong and had decided to go on with us to Mae Naam

Khong to study some more.

That made 18 of us altogether in our two small
bamboo houses....close fellowship. We probably had around 100 kinds of medi
cines and easily twenty patients a day.
We saw lives saved and suffering
alleviated. During the day Tom and I spent much of our time helping around a
hundred families set up five shade houses for fruit tree seedlings.
When we
arrived in this village there were only two Chinese believers.
We give God
all the credit for the fact that about 30 people were baptized during the
time we were there. We recently received a tape from Tom Love telling us the
Christians are continuing to meet together on Sundays. During the
time
we were there I
had to go back to Chiangmai twice and Janet once,
but
some of our party did not see or hear a motor vehicle or taste one icy drink
for

solid two months.

rl'

ALAN SEWING AN AKHA MAN'S

HAND

TOM LOVE TEACHING YIN DA TRUNG TO

BAPTIZE

BacX to the rat-race of Chiangmai, we all considered we had left real civili

zation in the mountains.

This was especially true since we were only there
two weeks making final preparations for returning to the U.S. We did get off
on schedule and arrived in Hong Kong on May 28th.
After a few days there
where Beth joined us too, we made a six-day trip into Mainland China.
Since
Janet had spent the
first five years
of her life there and her father had
died there, we had long wanted to go to Yunnan.
We spent all six days
in
Kunming, the capital of this southern province.
We saw many sights
in and
around Kunming but the greatest thrill of all was to see how God's church is

thriving there.
because there is

When we see you please remember

a

lot more we would like

to ask us ah^out this trip

to tell you but

cannot do so

on

paper.

arrived

in the

States on June

11th at Los Angeles and once again

enjoyed the special hospitality of

( T G e o r g i a Jones and family.

I /

^
, .-

churches

"

"

and

We spoke

visited with

many
dear friends there
and also
saw Disneyland.
We then had a
precious time in Dallas, Texas with
Cathi Carlile's family before com-

JKg.w

ing on home

to Muskogee,

It was

wonderful

seeing my

family

"There was

much work

to be done on

again

and resettling in our home again.

^ ".J ian Church had stocked our shelves

and refrigerator with food,
^as such a
special welcome

SARAH
SARAH CARRYING
CARRYING CHINESE
CHINESE BABY
BABY
'

no

doubt

about

it.

Janet

which
to us.
s

mom

came to visit us for a few days and then we went to Joplin to see her through
her lens implant operation which went verv well.
Praise God, and thank you

for your many prayers for her.

Janet and Sarah stayed

rest of us went home to finish up the work

on with her while the

on the house and

get ready for a

summer of traveling and speaking.

We'll be traveling all the way from
-Sea-fetlr-Washington-to-Washington, D.C.-,^ so we' d really-appreciate your pray
ers.

We should arrive back

in Muskogee by

August 20th for our

children to

start school.
Our phone nimiber is 918-683-8007.
I will be commuting to
Joplin every Tuesday to teach a two-hour missions class at Ozark Bible Col

lege. We will be speaking in churches over weekends and plan on being at the
Missionary Convention in Lexington, Kentucky from September 28-October 1. Our
booth will be G-1, so we hope to see many of you there.

We have already been blessed by being here and visiting with so many of you.
The family of God is so great.
We are looking forward to a great furlough

year and
Thailand.

getting rejuvenated

for the

great work

there

is yet

to

do

Lord willing.

Yours,

for the growth of His Kingdom,

The Alan Bemo Family

Formosa Christian Mission

Mr. & Mrs. Doug Bemo
527 Anthony

Muskogee, Oklahoma 74401

^S/oaJ
CORRECTION
REQUESTED

{/iC-C3 A^S)c,/a y/g}^

ADDRESS

Ta/ 3? 9a]

in

CHtANOMAI

T)he (Bemo^A Sojourning-d in Tjkailand

"By faith they sojourned In the land....
looking forward to a city which has foundations,
whose builder and maker is God."
HEB. 11:S-10

Forwarding Agent:
Alan and Janet Bemo
Box 180

Linda Goerke

Chiangn^i, Thailand

King City, Missouri 64463

R R

Stateside Address:

2120 Hayes, Muskogee,Okla.74401

Tel:

918-683-3007

July December, 1982

Dear Co-Workers,

Merry Christmas i
It is nice to be saying this from the
same side of the ocean as you are on. We are looking
forward to getting the most out of Christmas with our
families and giving gifts. All of us are daily hoping
for snow. We're hoping you'll have a blessed Christmas.
Since writing to you six months ago we have kept pretty
busy. We have put about 15,000 miles on the van, speak
ing at most of our regular supporting Churches. We've
also been priveleged to speak at the Missionary Conven
tion.
It was so thrilling to hear and compare God's
working from all around the world. We met many old
friends and made many new ones.
I thank the Lord for
the opportunity to speak at two mission emphasis weeks one at Ozark Bible College and one at Iowa Christian
College.
Through this means we met several students who
are interested in going to Thailand as missionaries.
Because of this I have started putting out a little
l e t t e r called

"Gershom".

first boy meaning,

This

i s the name

of Moses'

"I sojourned in a foreign land." If

you are interested in receiving this let me know.

I
have taught a two hour missions class every Tuesday
night this semester at Ozark Bible College.
I taught
on "Missions in Southeast Asia," and, as usual, learned
more than the students.

Everywhere we've been we have learned so

much.
The Roths
in Stronghurst, 111. &
the Wolfals in Treaty, Ind. gave us hand
powered metal canning machines.
We got
the address to buy a big hand-powered
cider press from Ray Lang in Grinell,Iowa.
These things have already been shipped to
Thailand to be used in fruit and vegetable
processing in the mountains.
We've
learned about sheep in Wayne, Nebraska and
apple peelers in Potosi, Mo.

The kids are busy,

Beth was the second runner-up for FFA Sweetheart and now

she is trying out for the school musical. Becky and Jonnie are keeping me
busy "helping" them with Science projects. Becky is learning Banjo. Adjust

ment to the American scene has been satisfactory for the most part but there

has been almost daily spiritual battle in some areas. They have found that
their peers here are much rougher in language and actions than they are used
to.

This is one reason why we decided to stay here a year so the children

could adjust to American culture.

couple of years.

Beth will be returning by herself in a

We are so thankful for the way all of the children are

maturing in Christ.

Nathan was baptised on November 21st.

This was a real

meaningful step on his part as he has been thinking about it for a long time.
Sarah just had her 6th birthday on December 6th.

Whenever we get a chance we take in some hunting and fishing.

Jonnie shot a squirrel.

I got a deer.

We continue to get good reports back from Thailand. Tom & Kathy Love are
faithfully serving our Lord there. They have reported exciting things: a

recent escapee from mainland China coming to

and accept Christ, they were able to go to a
the Chinese guerrilla forces headquarters, a
Khong which used to take 20 mules four hours

their house especially to hear^

formerly closed village which is
road has been opened to Mae Naam
to get equipment to, and the

Loves are moving back to Mae Naam Khong.

New MissicAiaries Brian & Jennifer Smith have recently gone to Thailand to
work with rural Thais. Pray for them as they study Thai in Chiangmai.;

Robert and Eugene have just recently returned to Thailand after furlough.
Rod and Ann Smith were originally going to Thailand in August, 1982 but they
found their son had an eye problem which needed to be corrected by surgery
on Dec. 21st. Let's all pray for them as they are under a lot of stress.

Do you remember Paul Lang?

1981.

He worked with us as an intern in Thailand in

How about Cathi Carlile?

She taught our children in Mipo, Binglung,

and Mae Naam Khong during the 1981-'82 school year.

Well, they were married

on Dec.18th and are now making plans to return to Thailand in the near
future.

By the way, I got to perform the ceremony.

If you would like to understand Northern Thailand and missionary work as a

whole you really ought to read "Eternity in Their Hearts" by Don Richardson.
He is the same man who wrote "Peace Child."

In this book he tells about the

ten "tribes of the lost book," five of which we have worked with during the

last four years.

the flood, etc.

This tells of people who have oral history of creation,

and how they have lost the written record.

They have had

prophecies of missionaries coming for centuries and have been waiting for
lifetimes for people to come to tell them about God. What a privelege we
have to live in this age when God is using us to fulfill His desire to have
"a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all
tribes, and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the
Lamb, clothed in white robes....and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation

belongs to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lambl"(Rev.7:9,10)

As we celebrate Christ's initial coming let us also determine to help as

many as we can to be ready at His second coming.

Yours"In~Jesus r

The Bemo Family

Formosa Christian Mission

NON-PROFIT

Mr. & Mrs. Doug Bemo

527 Anthony
Muskogee, Oklahoma 74401

ORGANIZATION
U. S. POSTAGE PAID
MUSKOGEE, OKIA.
74401

PERMIT NO. 15
Horizons
Box aa^

ADDRESS CORRECTION
REQtJESTED