Pastor Ko Salee, his wife, and their daughter, Kayla made a move for God by relocating to Hickory, North Carolina to serve at a Hmong church plant. With the support of Adventist Refugee and Immigrant Ministries, they aim to empower the community and prepare leaders to share the gospel to their own people.
Pastor Ko Saelee, his wife Terri, and their daughter Kayla are about to take a leap of faith for Jesus!
They’re relocating to Hickory, North Carolina, to follow God’s call to be involved with a Hmong church plant. Pastor Ko is a Hmong pastor originally from Thailand, and Terri coordinates Adventist Refugee and Immigrant Ministries in North America.
The Adventist Refugee and Immigrant Ministries was launched in 2009 by the North American Division. Two years later, the 2011 13th Sabbath offering gave it a real jump start with church planting. It allowed a team of church planting consultants from 12 language groups to visit and encourage scattered groups of recently resettled refugee families.
“Our very early goal in reaching other cultures should be to find the people that God has called and empower them to reach their own people.”
These consultants organized groups into church plants, mentored their leaders, and connected them with local conferences.
“They were effective at it. They were respected. People were drawn to God as a result. They were usually church planting effectively, successfully, wherever they went, and they also felt a calling to reach their people.”
With the help of the Holy Spirit, the work began to grow rapidly. The number of language groups doubled. The number of refugee congregations tripled from 57 to 179. Membership quadrupled, and both annual baptisms and tithe grew eight-fold. Once they were organized into church plants, they soon began serving their communities.
“The 13th Sabbath offering enabled us to provide a little travel budget and to enable them to go and plant churches in areas where there were no churches, where they had already begun reaching people. They were able to go and minister, plant churches among small groups, and then they were able to reach their communities and the work just grew and grew and expanded beyond what I ever would have dreamed.”
Pastor Ko Saelee has planted three Hmong churches so far and is facilitating the planting of a fourth.
“When we start working with the Hmong here in the US, it's very challenging because once we become Christian, most people, the family will disfellowship you. They consider you an outcast and disown you. So unless we build a support system, it's very difficult for someone to leave the culture, their family.”
Pastor Ko has created a global Hmong network connecting key Hmong Adventist leaders and members from every part of the globe. These leaders take turns leading weekly worship times.
As the Saelee family moves to Hickory, their dream is to establish a church in Hickory and another one in the nearby city of Charlotte.
“But the second goal, we want to establish a Hmong center, a training center, a place where we can equip our leaders, not just across the country, but we are hoping to be able to have a place where we can train leaders worldwide. And so that will be all our dream and our goal.”
Pastor Ko, Terri, and the refugee churches across the North American Division are grateful to you who, through your generous 13th Sabbath offering, have helped to make all this possible.
“Many, many churches have started because of the 13 Sabbath offering. And so the work among refugees now has gone way beyond what we imagined when we started in 2009.”
Please pray as the work among immigrants and refugees continues. Pray for the Saelee family as they plant churches in North Carolina. Thank you for supporting the mission offering that helps plant churches around the world!
