The Priceless Gift Catalog (2022-2023)

The Priceless

As the Daylight Dwindles

Do you ever find yourself racing against the clock, wishing there was more time in the day? Who hasn’t longed for an extra hour to meet an important deadline, invest in a treasured relationship, or labor for the Lord? On the last point, even Jesus felt a sense of urgency. “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day,” He said. “The night cometh, when no man can work” (John 9:4, KJV).

Today we are rapidly approaching Earth’s midnight hour. As the daylight dwindles there is so much work left to be done. But how? Even in mission work, there are still only 24 hours in a day.

Ellen White once related the story of a Christian businessman telling a colleague about how he worked for God round-the-clock. “‘In all my business relations,’ he said, ‘I try to represent my Master. As I have opportunity, I try to win others to Him. All day I am working for Christ. And at night, while I sleep, I have a man working for Him in China’” (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, p. 29).

No doubt, like that businessman, you have a burden for the lost. You work for Christ each day, sharing your faith at every opportunity. Would you like to become a 24/7 missionary?

As you read The Priceless Gift Catalog, prayerfully consider which ASAP project you can support or which missionary you could send to work for Christ across the globe while you are sleeping tonight. And pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on God’s people everywhere. The night is quickly advancing, but so, too, is the hour when the earth will be lightened with the glory of the loud cry (see Rev. 18:1). It’s time to work with latter rain power!

John Press ASAP Ministries

Continue reading to discover how your prayers and financial gifts can make an eternal impact on the lives of the marginalized and the unreached.

Our Mission: ASAP Ministries empowers local missionaries to restore and disciple the marginalized with the wholistic gospel.

Our Rating: ASAP’s strong financial health and commitment to good stewardship have earned it a four-star rating – the highest possible rating – from Charity Navigator for the past five years. Scan the QR code or visit asapministries. org/financial-facts to learn more.

GIFT #1 - Transform Young Lives Through Education

Raised by devout Buddhists, Bo Htoo first heard of Jesus through his Baptist sister. “I learned to pray and I decided I didn’t want to worship the Buddhist idols anymore,” he reflects. “I was baptized… because my friends were getting baptized, but I didn’t live the Christian life. I was drinking, doing drugs and got a few tattoos.” Then Bo Htoo attended an ASAP-supported school where his spiritual life grew.

When Bo decided to become an Adventist, he knew it would be hard to give up his old lifestyle. But he prayed and read his Bible, and God helped him overcome. “It was amazing,” Bo says. “My old way of life just didn’t attract me anymore! My dad warned me that I might be persecuted or even killed if I joined the SDA church. My Baptist friends shunned me. But despite these setbacks, I feel God’s call to go into ministry. He has opened the doors for me to attend a Bible training course, and in time I hope to become a pastor.”

When you give to ASAP’s Education Fund you are nurturing young people like Bo Htoo to come out of a life of addiction and hopelessness into a life of ministry. Your gift changes lives.

$75 suggested gift (any amount appreciated)

“COME, YE CHILDREN, HEARKEN UNTO ME: I WILL TEACH YOU THE FEAR OF THE LORD” (PSALM 34:11, KJV).

Gift #2 - Equip Schools

Serving Displaced Children

Can you imagine fleeing your home, sleeping on tarps in the jungle at night, and wondering every day when your next meal will come? This is the sad reality for many of the children who have sought refuge and education at 32 ASAP schools on the border between Myanmar and Thailand. Now the schools have a good problem — they need more school supplies and resources for the new students! Some of the schools also really need toilets and water containers so the children can learn and practice basic sanitation skills. Will you give these students the gift of a safe place to learn?

$3 to supply pencils and paper for one student

$20 to provide one school with a drinking water container

$50 to construct one basic toilet for a school

Gift #3 - Sponsor an At-risk Child, Classroom, or School

Vanthi (pictured) looks like a typical, happy second grader who loves math, bananas, and her little pet chicken. But inside, her heart is hurting. She lives with her Buddhist grandma because both of her parents have been in jail for the past three years. We are thankful she can attend the Samraong Adventist School in Cambodia and learn about Jesus’ love for her. What will your sponsorship of an atrisk ASAP student like Vanthi do? Your gift for a student, classroom, or school, combined with contributions from others in our caring donor community, creates a source of funding that ASAP mission schools can count on. You provide these precious children with a quality Christian education, help fight poverty, give much needed support, and most crucially, offer up your PRAYERS on their behalf!

Gift #4 - Build a School in a War-torn Area

You can provide the ONLY source of education to children in a wartorn area of Myanmar. Due to the remote location and the current political situation, some government schools in Myanmar have shut down, causing the ASAP-supported schools to double in size. Now one of the ASAP schools needs to expand to eighth grade to meet the urgent need. Currently, when the students are not hiding in bunkers due to the bombing, they meet on bamboo benches under the church or under the trees when the weather allows it. Your gift will provide a school building and two small dormitories for them to learn in, while greatly influencing a staunchly Buddhist community and showing them the love of Jesus! $560 for bricks $5,500 for labor and transportation of materials $6,934 for wood $20,713 to fund the entire project

Gift #5 - Help Young Refugees Pursue Their Callings

The dream of attending an Adventist college or university seems out of reach to many young refugees. Thanks to God’s providence and the support of ASAP donors, the Judy Aitken Memorial Refugee Scholarship Fund* was established to help remove the financial barriers that prevent these students from pursuing their God-given callings. Since 2019, the fund has disbursed more than $80,000 and assisted with15 students from Southeast Asian refugee backgrounds so they could study religion or theology at Adventist colleges in the U.S. Your gift will continue the legacy of ASAP’s founder, Judy Aitken, in preparing young refugees for a life of ministry to their people groups.

Evangelism

Gift #6 - Proclaim the Gospel of Peace in Unlikely Places

To the casual observer, Ahmed* and Aung Htin Kyaw* have nothing in common. One is a Rohingya Muslim. The other is a staunch Burmese Buddhist. In western Myanmar’s Rakhine State, this alone would be enough to make the two men mortal enemies. But soon Ahmed and Aung Htin Kyaw may become brothers in Christ.

You see, despite their different worldviews, Ahmed and Aung Htin Kyaw are sincerely seeking truth, and divine providence led both men to ASAP church planter Wendall James.* Aung Htin Kyaw and Wendall’s friendship blossomed after they struck up a conversation during a random encounter. Aung Htin Kyaw knew nothing about Adventist beliefs, but as trust developed, Wendall shared the three angels’ messages with him. Now, Aung Htin Kyaw is preparing for baptism. Likewise, Ahmed was unfamiliar with Adventism when he met Wendall. But what Wendall shared with him about the Sabbath piqued his interest. Today, Ahmed and his wife are studying the Bible with Wendall, and they have even taken Wendall to Rohingya villages and displacement camps to share about his beliefs with their friends and relatives.

When you support ASAP’s Evangelism Fund, you equip church planters to help seekers like Ahmed and Aung Htin Kyaw find peace with God (Rom. 5:1) and peace with one another.

$75 suggested gift (any amount appreciated)

Gift #7 - Sponsor an ASAP

Church Planter

ASAP church planters encounter a mountain of obstacles when witnessing in predominantly Buddhist closed countries. Though many people eagerly listen to the truth because their souls yearn for it, switching religions to become Seventh-day Adventist is like swimming upstream. They fear what the police, their unconverted family members, and friends in the community will say and do. Oftentimes, it takes a miracle in order for them to truly commit. Take Mrs. Ling for example, who had a burning pain in her stomach that wouldn’t go away. Though she took medicine from hospital visits, nothing helped – until an ASAP church planter prayed for her! When you sponsor a church planter, please remember to daily pray for the seekers and others connected to them. Your prayers and support will make a world of difference in the unreached communities where they live and work. $100-$160 per month for a church planter’s stipend,

*Visit the sponsorship section of our website to meet church planters in need of a sponsor. One-time gifts are great too.

Gift #8 - Help Build Ye Thoe Believers a Church

In the coastal village of Ye Thoe, Myanmar, there lives one church planter, five schoolteachers, forty-five church members, and seventy students who dream of having their own church building (their first priority) and school. Banding together, this community of believers has already acted in faith by fundraising $2,500 towards the project, and they also plan to make their own bricks to save money. The church building will be used for school assembly/ chapel on Mondays, prayer and evangelistic meetings on Wednesdays, and church services and Adventist Youth meetings on Saturdays. Additionally, removable partitions will be used to allow for four classrooms to meet during school hours throughout the week. How amazing it will be when these people can finally have a permanent, beautiful structure to use for God’s glory! $10,865 to build a church for the believers in Ye Thoe (any amount appreciated)

Gift #9 - Support the Work of ASAP Media Assistants

Do you remember what picture day was like when you were a kid? Students at ASAP schools have picture days, too, except their pictures aren’t for a yearbook; they’re for ASAP sponsors! Imagine how nervous you would be if you knew someone would be deciding if they would sponsor a student when they looked at your picture. That’s where Somnang, ASAP’s Cambodian Media Assistant, comes in. Somnang talks and jokes with the children, and soon they’re giggling and smiling as he snaps away with his camera. When you support ASAP’s media assistants, you’ll be helping people like Somnang do the behind-the-scenes work that helps keep ASAP schools and projects going.

Gift #10 - Reach Buddhists and Muslims

Through Health and Education

Few Buddhists and Muslims in southeast Myanmar have heard the gospel in light of the three angels’ messages. Social-political prejudice makes traditional evangelism ineffective in this area, and the cry of our Adventist churches there is, “We need more outreach ministries!” You can answer this cry when you fund an exciting new project providing Bible-based math and English after-school classes for 40 children from two villages. The families of these children will also receive weekly visits from teachers offering health screenings, health education, gardening instruction, and community cooking classes. Through prayer, these friendship-building activities will open hearts and minds to receive the gospel.

$50 to cover the expenses for a cooking class $300 for basic health screening kits $600 for teaching materials $3,680 to fund the entire project for one year

Humanitarian Aid

Gift #11 - Help Those Caught in the Crossfire of the Great Controversy

Recently, two villages in southeastern Myanmar became a battlefield as fighting erupted between government soldiers and insurgent forces in the area. As their homes burned and their crops were destroyed, the villagers ran for their lives, seeking safety in the jungle. Facing the imminent rainy season without shelter, food, or access to medical care, local Adventist mission leaders appealed for help. Thanks to the generosity of ASAP donors, 90 families received urgently needed food, medicine, mosquito nets, and other basic necessities.

As the great controversy battle between God and Satan nears its climax, the winds of strife are beginning to blow harder in many of the places where ASAP serves. War, persecution, and natural disasters are on the rise. Your support for ASAP’s Humanitarian Fund allows frontline workers to quickly respond and minister to the needs of those caught in the crossfire.

$75 suggested gift (any amount appreciated)

“… IN THE NIGHT OF SPIRITUAL DARKNESS GOD’S GLORY IS TO SHINE FORTH THROUGH HIS CHURCH IN LIFTING UP THE BOWED DOWN AND COMFORTING THOSE THAT MOURN. ALL AROUND US ARE HEARD THE WAILS OF A WORLD’S SORROW. ON EVERY HAND ARE THE NEEDY AND DISTRESSED. IT IS OURS TO AID IN RELIEVING AND SOFTENING LIFE’S HARDSHIPS AND MISERY” (CHRIST’S OBJECT LESSONS, P. 417).

Gift #12 - Mobilize a Medical Missionary

John gathered the six families in Ba Naung into a circle and prayed the heartfelt prayer of Psalm 27:1 over them. “Lord, you are our light and our salvation, whom shall we fear? Lord, you are the strength of our lives. You know why those people are against us building a house-church and treatment center in this village. We feel weak and hopeless, Lord!”

God heard the cries of His medical missionary and the believers and worked everything out beautifully. Now John’s goal is to reach six villages around Ba Naung and grow that group to church status in the next five years. Join this work by coming alongside John or another medical missionary through your support.

Gift #13 - Support the First Online SDA Refugee School Ever (Eternity ASAP Virtual School)

The children of Pakistani Christian refugee families in Thailand are witnesses to tragic events, having escaped from religious persecution in their home country. Sadly, the effect of these traumas impairs their ability to learn. These refugee families are part of one of the most marginalized communities in Bangkok, without proper documentation to get jobs or enroll in government schools. Thankfully, Eternity ASAP Virtual School exists to meet this need. Using a hybrid online format, it provides Adventist education augmented by the Sensory Trauma Education Program (STEPs) to support these refugee children’s trauma recovery and further their education. Your support of this school gives children hope for their future and healing from present trauma.

$300 to provide a Chromebook laptop for one student

$800-$1,300 per month for a teacher or administrator’s salary

$81,147 to fund all expenses for the school year

Gift #14 - Bring Water to the Thirsty

During the rainy season in Myanmar, finding water isn’t a problem. But when the rainy season ends, water sources dry up and become more contaminated. Villagers have to travel up to several miles just to get one bucket of dirty water. Mothers especially struggle, since they have to leave their young children and breastfeeding infants at home for long periods of time while they fetch water. The mothers worry that their young unsupervised children will fall from the raised platforms their houses are built on and be injured, or worse. But there’s nobody else to fetch water for them! Students waste learning hours fetching water for the toilets and for drinking, and return to their studies with their clothes wet, making it harder to focus. With your generous support of ASAP well-building projects, entire communities can have quick access to clean water so they can spend more time learning about the Living Water of Jesus!

Gift #15 - Prevent Disease Through Training

Auntie June (a pseudonym) suffered for three years with a debilitating disease. Even though her family sold four cows to raise money for the surgery she needed, they still did not have enough to pay for it. We praise the Lord that ASAP donors were able to assist with $300, the remaining amount needed! Though ASAP missionaries love helping in emergencies like Auntie June’s case, they are eager to learn how to help their patients prevent many of these illnesses from happening. You can help ASAP and Oon Jai empower and equip 30 missionaries in a closed country during a ten-day intensive medical missionary training. Your gift will go towards take-home natural medicine kits, hydrotherapy equipment, charcoal, training costs, and more.

$2,913 to cover all training costs

Refugees & the Persecuted

Gift #16 - Advance God’s Work in Dangerous Oppressive Places (GWIDOP)

One day a young man we’ll call Jasper found sermons from an ASAP-supported ministry on YouTube and wrote in to ask for a Bible. Nathanael (a pseudonym), an ASAP church planter in this closed country, quickly reached out to him. Nathanael shared the following. “Jasper was so happy when I gave him not only a Bible but a book about the fundamental beliefs of the Seventhday Adventist Church. He acted like I gave him gold! Though he was busy working construction jobs, we connected and studied the Bible together.”

“When we got to lesson 19, which was about God’s law and Sabbath worship, his family began to strongly oppose his newfound beliefs, which he had immediately put into practice. His father gathered the relatives and neighborhood friends to meet to discuss Jasper’s new faith. Collectively they decided he could no longer live at home or be part of the community. Even his wife and two teenage sons sided with his father. Understandably, this broke Jasper’s heart, but he made the decision to be faithful to Jesus. Though he has no home to call his own, and goes from one temporary construction shelter to another, he looks forward to his home in heaven, and he faithfully joins an online church each Sabbath.”

Please keep Jasper and others who are persecuted for their faith in your prayers. You can join Team GWIDOP by donating $100 or more a month to support God’s work in dangerous oppressive places. Your gifts go to support workers, literature, secret training events, and more.

$75 suggested gift (any amount appreciated)

$100 monthly gift to join Team GWIDOP and receive special updates on ASAP’s work in closed countries

Gift #17 - Provide Relief for the Rohingya

A few years ago, God used an ASAP church planter and a district pastor in Myanmar to successfully plant a church among the Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State. When government soldiers raided their village, six of the new Adventist families fled to a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Thankfully the Lord led ASAP this last year to find them, spiritually encourage them, assess their needs, and connect them with Seventh-day Adventist church leaders in their new country. Please put yourself in their shoes and imagine how hard life must be for these families. Because they are not Muslim, they do not get enough food rations or educational opportunities. They have no help repairing their homes, and no medical assistance. Please come alongside these families and seven other new converts with your prayers and tangible assistance.

$50 to provide one month of assistance for food and other basic needs

$59 to provide religious materials for one month

$500 to help repair one family’s home

$9,200 to fund the entire project for one year

Gift #18 - Equip Refugee & Immigrant Lay Leaders with Training

Refugees and immigrants in North America need spiritual leadership in their own cultural context. ASAP supports training in the areas of youth ministry, evangelism, women’s ministries, and church leadership to refugee and immigrant church planters throughout North America. Your donations help cover the travel and other expenses associated with these training events. These lay leaders are hungry to learn effective ways of strengthening their current church members while reaching out evangelistically to unchurched refugee and immigrant populations. Prayerfully consider supporting these faithful missionaries with your financial gift. $2,000-$4,500 to fund one training event ($26,450 total needed)

Gift #19 - Grow a Chinese Church Plant

God has taken William and Rachel on an incredible journey over the past five years – from enrolling as students at the Reach the World Next Door training program to church planting among the 200,000 Chinese-speaking residents of Houston, Texas. Through the challenges of starting a church plant and keeping it going during the pandemic, this faithful couple has leaned on the Lord and emerged with a testimony of His faithfulness. Now, they are beginning to see the fruits of their labor in weekly Bible studies, a children’s Sabbath worship service, health and lifestyle seminars, and an Adventurers Club composed primarily of children from non-Christian Chinese families! With God’s blessing, your prayers and financial support will help their Chinese church plant multiply in the coming year. $300 to sponsor a Vacation Bible School program for Chinese families

Gift #20 - Turn Houses into House Churches

Every Sabbath a group of about 50 people trickle into Elder Kham Deesut’s* home. Very few congregations are allowed to meet in actual church buildings in the country where they live, but these secret meetings bring life and joy to the church members every week. The only problem is that since these house churches are also homes, the family members have to move furniture from room to room on Sabbaths to make space for the church to gather. Your generous gifts to renovate four house churches in this closed country will provide additional rooms for the family members to live in so that they will not have to work as much on the Sabbath, as well as providing adequate toilets for the families and church members to use. Won’t you help these homes be lights on a hill in their communities?

“OUR MISSION IS THE SAME AS THAT OF OUR MASTER, OF WHOM IT IS WRITTEN THAT HE WENT ABOUT DOING GOOD AND HEALING ALL WHO WERE OPPRESSED BY SATAN.… AS WE FOLLOW CHRIST’S EXAMPLE OF LABOR FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS WE SHALL AWAKEN THEIR INTEREST IN THE GOD WHOM WE LOVE AND SERVE” (TESTIMONIES FOR THE CHURCH, VOL. 6, P. 225).

Creative WIitnessing Projects

Gift #21 -

Help Women Escape Poverty

and Experience the Power of the Gospel

Most young girls and women in Cambodia are exposed to the great dangers of trafficking, prostitution, labor slavery, arranged marriage for money, and domestic violence. Adding to the horror, they have no way of escaping their situation due to poverty and lack of education. At ASAP we aim to equip women to be empowered to earn their living by teaching them financial and literary knowledge, vocational skills, and the wonderful gospel of Jesus.

Sister Raidan, a skilled tailor and a faithful Adventist, felt she needed to do something for the ladies in her village. Why not teach them to sew so they can make a living?

With ASAP’s seed money, she was able to purchase a few sewing machines and open a free class to anyone who wanted to learn. A handful of ladies from poor families came to the class to take advantage of the free class, and through their interaction, some of the ladies accepted Jesus as their Savior!

When you support ASAP’s vocational training programs, like this sewing class, you’re helping vulnerable young girls and women to gain life skills so they can support themselves, break the cycle of poverty, and experience the power of Jesus’ wholistic gospel.

$180 for one sewing machine

$300 for sewing materials

$1,311 to fund the entire project for one year

Do you fondly remember your favorite stuffed animal from childhood? That little lamb or bear you couldn’t part with, no matter how worn-out and dirty it got? The cuddly stuffed animals ASAP will give to our students in Myanmar and Thailand will definitely be their favorite. Here’s why! First, they will most likely be the only stuffed animal these impoverished children have ever owned. Second, because these animals talk to them. Yes, you read that right! There are MegaVoice audio players tucked in the pocket of each animal that tell the stories of Jesus from the Bible and support the Growing Safe curriculum that the children are learning at school. This will not only bring comfort to their little hearts, but truth to the whole family!

Gift #23 - Support Young Barbers Launching New Church Plants

ASAP opened the Tan Jai Barbershop in the capital city of a closed country in Southeast Asia. This barbershop is more than just a place to get a haircut. It is a center of influence where Adventist young people with training in literature evangelism and barbering build relationships with customers and share the gospel with them. It also functions as a training center, equipping future tentmaker missionaries with the skills to open their own barbershops. Local mission leaders are excited about the potential of this unique ministry to plant churches in unentered parts of the country. Your gift can help make this vision a reality!

Gift #24 - Build a Windmill of Blessing

The windy mountain village of Ban Tongchiabon, in Thailand, relies on solar power for electricity. Unfortunately, dense forest shades the solar panels, leaving the village without power for nine months out of the year. A windmill at the Adventist worship center would provide a more reliable source of electricity for evening evangelistic programs and other community outreach events. It would also turn the center into a hub where community members can charge their cell phones, flashlights, and other devices, creating opportunities for church members to mingle with them and share not just electric light, but Jesus, the Light of the world. Help the local church minister to the community by supporting this windmill of blessing.

$5,983 to fund the entire project (any amount appreciated)

5:6)

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.” (Matthew

Gift #25 - Win Souls Through Garden Evangelism

In a poor farming district in Thailand, a small group of church members wondered how they could bless their community with the extra land around their church. “Why don’t we make a garden?” someone suggested, and so their plans began to take shape. The church members decided to plant rice, durian, mangosteen, and vegetables that they can eat together for potlucks and give away to poor community members. People from the surrounding area are also welcome to come and relax in the garden environment, and learn more about farming techniques and Jesus. The church members hope that the garden will provide a way to connect with and witness to their neighbors. Will you help them create a little Garden of Eden in their neighborhood to share the love of the Creator?

$5 for one durian or mangosteen tree

$430 for rice cultivation and harvesting

$878 to fund the entire project for one year