“...approved
by God to be entrusted with the gospel,” 1 Thessalonians 2:4 NKJV
Friends: May our Lord bless
you in His grace this month! Our verse above is a reminder to us that the Lord
has entrusted the precious gospel, the power of God unto salvation, and that He
approves those He sends to bring the Good News to the nations. How encouraging
it is that God calls, prepares, equips, qualifies provides for and sends for
His purposes in the Gospel! We thank Him today once again for the Gospel and
the Gospel ministry that He has appointed for us!
Late last year I, Jim, was
blessed to visit Lahore, Pakistan with a new friend, Minister John Feroze
Masih—in both photos at the left. It was an enlightening ministry time and I
found the people to be friendly and open. God blessed me with a new view of
Islamic people and how they live and interact with each other. We all share so
many things in common in life and it was a joy to find common ground with the
people and share about the one and only true God and the eternal Son of God,
the Lord Jesus Christ and His great salvation! The children at left gathered
for a Gospel meeting and I taught and preached in various types of meetings for
about 12 days. We visited a very poor area called the ‘brick kilns’ where the
people are brick makers, we also visited professing Christians in their homes
and in house churches. Many churches in Pakistan meet in houses. John’s
daughter Elizabeth professed faith in Christ after one meeting and said, “now I
know what it means to be born again.”
This month I travel to
Guinea, West Africa to minister the Gospel to primarily French speaking and
Muslim people with another new friend Sieh Kargbo, a Christian Minister and
friend of Maurice Bangura of Sierra Leone. I was blessed to minister in Sierra
Leone last June and we were recently encouraged that since then 17 new churches with about 220
people attending have baptized about 120 people in that Muslim land. We
appreciate your trust, prayers and gifts, dear friends in the Gospel!
FACTS: The Republic of
Guinea
Capital: Conakry
Population: 10.5 million
Area: 245,857 sq km (94,926
sq miles)
Languages: French, Susu,
Fulani, Mandingo
Religions: Islam,
Christianity, indigenous beliefs
Life expectancy: 53 years
(men), 56 years (women)
“For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes
in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 NKJV
KAPPY’S
CORNER—Growing and Reproducing
My
husband enjoys gardening. One day he went out and dug up a small diamond shaped
plot in the grass. Out of his care for his highly allergic wife he planned a
pollen-free succulent garden. In the days and weeks that followed he brought
home an interesting variety of small plants bought from the plant sellers that
line certain main roads here. He has tended them, watched over them, and
protected them. His garden is thriving.
There
is one plant in particular that interests me. Some months ago he brought it back
from a ministry trip to western Uganda. It was small and one of the silvery
green leaves died almost immediately after it was planted. We were unsure of
its survival since it came from a very different environment, but it has slowly
and steadily grown large and healthy. The spear-head shaped leaves grow
straight up from the heart of the plant. They become broader and darker green as
they come to maturity and the tips begin to curve downward toward the soil. One
day we noticed an odd looking pale growth on the point of one of the larger
leaves. As we watched it day by day we recognized it as a miniature of the
parent plant. What a design! I marvel at the genius of God’s creation. Since
then the parent plant has reproduced itself many times over.
It
occurs to me that this plant is a picture of the Church. As I was reading in
Acts, chapter 2, about the day of Pentecost, it struck me that a handful of
believing Jews in an upper room in Jerusalem were the beginning of the New
Testament Church, the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit eventually moved them and
others in the early church to write the very words I hold in my hands today,
over 2,000 years later. We know some of these people well from their
writings. As the believers matured in
the Holy Spirit they reached out and, in a sense, reproduced themselves
spiritually many times over. One by one by one, souls came to Christ. We who
are saved are the result of this early action of the Holy Spirit through these
very human individuals.
Just
as a plant can’t live without the root, the Church is rooted and grounded in
Christ, the Word of God. Let this serve as an encouragement to all of us who
love the Lord Jesus Christ that He has and will continue to work in and through
us very human individuals—for His glory.
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