Looking back over this past year to see what God has done

January 9th, 2009

What an incredible celebration as we look back over the past year to see what God has done! Let me give you just a few vignettes from family and ministry.

The family highlight this past year was a visit from most of the family from California. Ryan and Karen, with their children Katie, Stephen, and Nikki along with Jason and his son Sebastien spent six weeks with us in Ethiopia, with a little side trip to Cairo to see the pyramids. What a wonderful family time. We visited our Ethiopian son Tariku’s birth home and did ministry together in several communities including an AIDS community in Addis Ababa. Unfortunately, all the family didn’t make it and we missed those who could not come.

At 2 ½ Tariku is talking constantly, mostly in English although we are trying to have him learn Amharic as well. He loves it when we have other kids at our place. Right now Lynn is caring for a 1 year old girl we found in a remote village who was quite ill and needs surgery. Mimi has been a playmate for Tariku for the past couple of months.

We also opened a guesthouse this past year to help provide support for our ministry here. The Oasis Bed & Breakfast now provides guest accommodations for up to 18 guests and at times we have been very busy. Come and stay with us at the Oasis Addis B & B!

This has also been a phenomenal year of ministry. Horn of Africa Mission which I helped to start six years ago and which I have been serving since coming to Africa merged with CityTeam Ministries. During this past year, we have engaged in several new partnerships throughout the seven countries where we are doing training and strategy development. Through our partner networks we were able to see almost 2,000 new churches started in 2008. What a blessing to see thousand of new believers rejoicing in their new relationship with Jesus. Just last week I was in the Rift Valley where we had a baptism for 40 Muslim Sheikhs (ordained teachers of Islam) who had become believers in the past three months! We helped to start 3 schools this past year, installed 2 water purification systems, distributed mosquito nets, and various other projects. These all open doors to the gospel and in some cases whole communities are being transformed. God is at work!

It has not been without struggles, however. Persecution is on the rise for some of our church planters. Some of their families have been threatened and harmed. Others face isolation from family and struggled just to survive. Some have been imprisoned.

And the economic crisis, of course, has seriously affected us as well. In some cases we have not been able to continue support for some of the families of the church planters or some of the projects we had started. We had to put plans on hold to expand ministry into Uganda and Egypt. Our own personal support has dropped dramatically as well during these tough times.

Our special thanks to those who have supported us in this ministry. During these past few years in Africa we have seen the hand of God at work and the advance of the gospel more aggressively than at any other time during our 37 years of ministry. God has chosen to move in this area at this time in a most spectacular way. By early 2009, more than 4,000 new churches will have been planted with more than 150,000 new believers through the network of partners we have trained and equipped. What a privilege to be in a place where God is working in this way.

I know without a doubt that God will provide, EVEN during these tough economic times – both for you and for us. I hope you will consider being part of our support team for 2009 and be a part of seeing God continue to build His church in East Africa.

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Persecuted Church Planters Continue Their Dangerous Mission

April 10th, 2008

“A few months ago some Mulsim fundamentalists placed a bomb in one of our partner churches in “J” where we have 2 church planters. In the explosion several believers were injured and there was significant property damage but praise the Lord no one was killed. Our coordinator in the area told us that tensions have been escalating lately and this was the latest in a series of threats on these Somali believers. The incredible transformation in the life of Ahmed, one of the new believers who is being discipled by our local coordinator has so enraged and threatened some of the community that one night 20 neighbors came to his house and warned him that if he did not deny Christ and return to Islam within 24 hours ‘his life would be finished.’ Although driven into hiding he remains strong in his faith believing that God is able to protect him and if it is God’s will that he should die his death will bring many Somalis into the Kingdom.”

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Back in Khartoum

April 10th, 2008

This week I’m back in Khartoum meeting with 10 Coordinator/Trainers from around the country. Today brought reports of what God is doing in many communities. Many have come to Christ and new communities of believers have been formed. What a joy to hear the stories of courage and diligence in sharing the Good News in this nation. Pray for these brave “soldiers” that they will continue to move forward in spite of the challenges and that the light of the gospel will spread rapidly throughout this nation.

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A Village Unknowingly Supports It’s Own Church Planter

March 21st, 2008

A report from one of our church planters in Kenya:

“We went from village to village with 6 church planters who were being trained visiting people and building relationships. We were not intent on sharing the gospel but finding the persons of peace (Luke 10) that God had prepared in the communities. In one community we met a woman who had been paralyzed on one side for many years. We prayed for her and God chose to heal her. Some time after we had left the community the village chief met the woman and discovered her miraculous healing. He sent a messenger to find us to deliver an urgent message from him. “Come back to our village immediately. We must talk with you.” Believing that God was opening a way for us we quickly returned to the village, this time at the invitation of the chief. Upon our arrival we discovered that the chief had already gathered all the people together. “Listen to them,” he told his people, “we have never seen or heard religion like this before.”

We eagerly shared the story of the Bible and message of salvation to the attentive villages. The chief asked us to stay and to continue teaching the people about this new and powerful religion. When we tried to object saying that we had no place to stay he insisted with the promise that he would provide rooms for us. So, following the injunction of Luke 10 we stayed in the community and continued to teach the people. The second day some of our team from our sponsoring church brought food to us, but the husband of the woman who was healed objected saying, “No, no. I will supply all the food for you. You don’t need to have food brought in from outside.”

After some time, one church planter was left behind in this village, completely supported by the community. Within a few months he will establish a church there and then begin to raise up leadership from among the new believers.”

Perhaps God will choose the husband of the healed woman, or the chief to be the Christian leader of that community.

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Unique Community Access

March 10th, 2008

Throughout the Horn and East Africa many communities are highly resistant to the gospel. Entering these communities as a missionary, pastors, or religious worker is either impossible or extremely dangerous. But during the past year our church planters were able to enter many of these highly restricted communities through a great variety of ministries that not only offered a valuable service to the community but provided the opportunity to establish relationships that lead to the open door for sharing the gospel. As God revealed the man of woman of peace in the community the church planters were able to begin a discipleship process that led or will lead to the emergence of a church for the community. All the while the church planter was seen as a friend of community – a businessperson, an aid worker, or an educator and it was the insider who spread the gospel to the community and established the church.

In Zanzibar a team of medical workers, supported and aided by a church in California have helped to open doors in this 99% Muslim community, paving the way for the planting of 2 new churches.

A church planter in the Afar region enters communities as a merchant, buying goats in one community and moving on to sell them in another community. Some profit is made to provide for his support but more importantly he is able to establish many relationships some of which lead to the opportunity to share the gospel. In this highly restrictive Afar region several new communities of believers were established in 2007.

In Nairobi a group of children from a slum community were provided the opportunity to go to school. From among the appreciative parents God revealed two families who responded to the gospel and were willing to open their homes to start two new churches.

In Dewale the church planter struggled to get a hearing from the local Muslim community. As he was exposed in training to the concept of access ministries he asked God what he could do. Remembering his days as a school teacher he decided to teach a few children in the small room he rented for his living quarters. His ability to speak three languages gained him immediate access to the parents of the children who came for schooling. Soon his small room could not contain all the children so with a few hundred donated dollars he was able to put up a small shelter that is now school for 130 students. Two “religious” schools in the community have been closed because they could not compete with the quality of education and the community is now asking the church planter to start an evening adult school. Two churches have been planted as this community is being transformed through the power of the gospel through the ministry of one church planter.

When a church planter entered into a community in Sudan as a farmer offering to assist the local farmers in exchange for some land to cultivate himself he was given a piece of land that had been cursed by evil spirits and had long been unproductive. After assisting the local farmers to cultivate their land and plant crops he then cultivated and planted the plot he had been given completely unaware of the history of this property. To the shock of the local people his plot of land produced a bountiful harvest. Entering the community as a farmer provided access to the hearts of many people as God moved in a miraculous way.

Another group from a California church spent two weeks in Ethiopia. Distributing 1,200 mosquito nets in 8 villages opened up many new homes to the gospel paving the way for a new church to be established.

The town of Aroma, in the east part of Sudan along the shared border with Ethiopia was hit hard recently by flooding. Taking in beans, rice, lentils and other essential food along with water and plastic sheeting for temporary replacement homes resulted in the establishment of strong relationships in the community. “Our own people haven’t provided any help for us. Why do you Christians care about us?” was a question often asked by the Muslim villagers. New churches will soon emerge in this community as new homes are built.

In Dar es Salaam a newly installed computer training school with donated computers from California now provides a new means of access to the community.

Addis Ababa is a city of approximately five million people, 80% of whom live in extremely poor living condition with substandard housing, rampant disease, and totally inadequate facilities. In one of these communities we have been able to partner with a church to expand and enhance their HIV-AIDS ministry and to focus on the development of new churches in this urban community.

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Looking back over this past year to see what God has done

Persecuted Church Planters Continue Their Dangerous Mission

Back in Khartoum

A Village Unknowingly Supports It’s Own Church Planter

Unique Community Access

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