Big Changes

Dear prayer partners:

We great you in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, hoping that this letter finds well and eagerly awaiting the blessed return of our Lord.

Ministry at Central Africa Baptist College

By God’s grace we finished another semester at CABC a month ago; it was one of my busiest semesters so far, but it was also full of blessings as we saw the students grow in their knowledge and love for the Word. This past semester I taught Doctrines (Bibliology and Angelology), Wisdom and Poetic Books, and a new class on Worldview, which was basically a survey of theology with the intent of gaining a Biblical worldview. It is a real blessing to know that most of these men and women will someday be taking the Gospel across Africa.

The last 2 weeks we have held block classes at our campus. Last week we received about 170 leaders from different parts of Zambia (along with our students) for our class on the doctrine of the local church. It was very encouraging to see how much the college has impacted this part of Africa for the advancement of the great commission. The Lord used our guest speaker and we were also able to donate some books to all of those in attendance. Please pray that the Lord would do a mighty work among these pastors and that all that they have learned these days would impact their local churches and the spread of the Gospel in Africa.

Finally, we have just begun our new regular semester this week; all of our students are back and ready to continue with the ministerial and theological training. Please pray for all of us involved at the College as we continue serving him in this ministry.

Big Changes

The last two months have brought a lot of changes to our ministries here in Zambia. During this time of transition, we have clearly seen the Lord’s hand of direction. As many of you know, since we came to Zambia we have been associate members of Faith Baptist Church of Riverside, under which we planted the church in Mindolo. We have always had a great relationship and friendship with everyone at the church and that has not changed. However, for the last few months we have been praying and planning our next church plant which we wanted to do in conjunction with FBCR. However, after much prayer and discussions with the pastors, it was decided that the FBCR is not in a position right now to plant another church. I do believe it is a wise decision that the Lord has clearly directed.
Therefore, knowing the Lord’s calling upon our lives, the confirmation and encouragement of our sending church, and the commitment that we have made with the Lord and others, we expressed to FBCR our deep desire to participate directly in church planting, so they gave us their blessing to join another church under which we may continue our ministry. Thus, we have decided to join Kitwe Church and partner with them in the hope that we will plant churches together some time in the future.

Kitwe church is not completely new to us; we already knew much of the congregation and both of the Pastors are our co-workers at the college, including Phil Hunt who is the president of it. So we know that the Lord can use us greatly to grow Kitwe church and to plant a new church when the Lord allows. In the meantime we are involved in every activity of the church, including the weekly Bible study that we are currently hosting at our house.
Thus, we ask you to pray for Kitwe church and our involvement in it. It is a very young church (no more than 4 years old) that has seen rapid numeric growth but that is still on the path to Christian maturity. Furthermore, the church is in the midst of big changes as we hope to soon move to our permanent location as a church; much remodeling is going on and many of the men are involved in it, we hope to move in a few weeks, so we covet your prayers.

Great time with visitors

By God’s grace we received a team of 8 people from Berean Baptist Church in Livonia, MI. It was so refreshing to enjoy 10 days of fellowship and ministry together. During their visit we were able to minister to 2 different Zambian local churches, one of which was Faith Baptist Church of Mindolo. We held a one day children’s evangelistic activity at each location and had the privilege to preach the Gospel to about 750 children in those 2 weekends. Many of their parents came to church the following Sunday and they also heard the Gospel as I preached evangelistic sermons on both Sundays. We praise the Lord for what he did!
Moreover, the team also brought some clothes and a few other things that we donated to 2 orphanages that Paola visits often (one of them is the one from where we adopted Asher). We are so thankful to the Lord for those who graciously donated some things for these children.

Opportunity to Train Pastors in Mozambique

By God’s grace it appears that I will be traveling to the neighboring country of Mozambique to train a group of about 100 pastors. I will be teaching Hermeneutics for one week starting on the 27th of August. Please pray for my ministry to these pastors and for the Lord to provide the necessary funds for the trip.

Finally, please pray for safety for us and all of our teammates. We were recently robed as thieves broke in our property. Thankfully they didn’t come inside house but they did steal some things from our yard. This is the first time we were robed and we will take some extra precautions, trusting that the Lord will protect us according to his will.

Prayer Requests

  • For the new semester that has just began at CABC
  • For my plans to go to Mozambique in August
  • For our involvement in the ministry at Kitwe Church
  • For the Lord’s continued direction and provision for our ministries here in Zambia
  • For the many people with whom we are currently sharing the Gospel, some of which we believe will soon come to the Lord.