Dear friends
I am glad I can send a quick update on what’s going on in our bush village. Most of this comes from my co-worker and he gave me permission to share it with you all. This is an abbreviated format, so if any of the points should prick your interest for more information, then please feel free to write and we will be happy to explain.
My co worker thought that their schedule would slow down a bit after I left a few months ago, but he says, “Our schedule has not slowed –in fact, it seems like it’s ramped itself up a notch. I am believing that this is in part because of our emphasis as main teachers to meet each morning for a serious time of prayer as we wait on God for the work. Yes, there are needs within the church, but the only way to face these is through prayer, asking God to empower His Word within the lives of the believers. Currently, we’re teaching 3 evangelistic lessons on Saturday through Monday evenings, ladies discipleship on Sunday AM, men’s discipleship on Monday AM, teacher training on Sunday AM, teachers evaluation meeting on Tuesday AM and teacher trainee practice teaching on Saturday AM. Please pray for grace and wisdom to keep the main thing the main thing.
You guys know the importance of passing the baton and so you can praise the Lord, that God h as given us 6 new teacher trainees here in our home village and bit by bit, they are teaching more and more of the evangelistic lessons; allowing us main teachers to fall back to teacher training and discipleship. Please be in prayer for Gabby, Otto, Vincient, Topa, Poulsen and Sande as they develop as teachers.
In the next weeks, we will beginning an inductive Bible Study coursein our discipleship classes to fur ther prepare the church to study God’s Word on their own. This will be a huge stepfor them as it’d been drilled into them that the Bible is a forbidden book –something that they can’t study for themselves. Please pray for wisdom in how to make this practical so that every believer longs to study God’s Word on their own. Our two main teachers have been involved in writing up this course, and summarizing it into a 6 step resourse sheet; which they will now begin to use to write our weekly discipleship lessons. Please pray.
Many of you guys know very well how we have struggled with witchdoctors and shamans persecuting the church and trying to prevent the church from reaching into their areas. And we have been praying for years that God would brake these stronghold, and just in these days we heard that the south coast police will be hiking into our area (involving a 3 day hike) with the purpose of solving some outstanding cases and to arrest the 4 local, spirit shaman in our area – and there are others who are implicated with him and involved in sorcery. Typically the police are not known for their gracious interrogation tactics so we do not know what if anything will come of this. Please continue to pray for the demise of these strongholds for the sake of the advance of the gospel.
The closer outreach to the south of us is going ahead on Wednesday night and Thursday AM with a lesson on the security of the believer and a discipleship lesson for Teli and Kariang and their family. The plan is to have this tick on slowly until after the evangelistic teaching is finished in our home village when teachers and trainees are freed up to start a literacy class and an evangelistic teaching there. Praise the Lord for the growth in Teli and Kariang as they could very well be teacher trainees for this upcoming literacy and teaching. Please continue to bathe this work in prayer as it’s very much pushing at the stronghold of the enemy and Teli is very, very bold in his faith. This is a crucial outreach for us as it positions the church into reaching very hard to reach animistic villages just above our village.
Dave says that “the north coast missionaries have been with us for the week for encouragement, discipleship and refreshment. God is continuing to bombard them with more opportunities to share truth then they can possibility undertake –often they find it difficult to have time alone as a families or to study as folks are continually clamoring to talk about the Lord. And believe it or not, they are praying about beginning a satellite evangelistic teaching in the next hamlet over as there are folks there also demanding to betaught.” They continue to be in desperate need for your prayers for their marriages,families and continued growth spiritually.
Praise the Lord for not one mechanic, but two coming to help our team in August to get all our equipment back in tiptop shape. Praise the Lord for the provision of a new 48” walk behind mower for our airstrip –to replace our aging tractor and broken slasher. Please pray for these couples coming and for all the parts we need to make this happen. Also pray with us for the funds to be able to buy this mower, even though we are out of the tribe we are feeling responsible to help carry the ministry expenses.
Thank you so very much for your continued faithfulness in standing with us through prayer –we couldn’t do this without you!