Monday morning Emma, Bella, and I, were sitting at our table, luxuriating over a meal after an exhausting week-end, which included the big wedding on Saturday, the baptism, preaching on Sunday, and studying almost every free second until 4 a.m. Monday morning (midnight PST) to submit a university essay, worth 30% of my grade.
We were telling stories, and enjoying fried eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, bacon, and fresh mangoes, which fell from the tree right outside our front door, suddenly the dog was barking and there were people at the door. “Could you take Bruno to the hospital!?” Then I remembered that at some point during the week-end Phil told me that he had taken Bruno’s grandma to the hospital. She passed out from all the violence in her home (which shares a wall with our church property) when the police came in and arrested Bruno. He had gone on a kind of rampage, I’m not sure why. Now, Monday morning, he had a broken knee. I took him to the hospital three times this week, and he is scheduled to get surgery next week. Bruno told me “William was arrested and thrown in jail last night.” When I told Bella, she told me that William’s girlfriend was pregnant. Bruno used to want to be a missionary. Bruno, William, and many others participated in church programs. Now they are repeating the stories their parents passed down to them. Bruno wants to reform his life. Please pray for God to transform him. There is so much pain in broken families. At least two of our neighbourhood families had no food in their homes this week, and lots of children. We brought one of them some basic supplies. Our hope is to help transform this neighbourhood. I think of 1 Cor 1:26b, 27 “Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong.” Maybe God will raise up a harvest of missionaries from this violent neighbourhood, people who will serve God with complete abandonment.
We have three major goals:
1. Help develop the local church.
2. Build a training center and host regular events.
3. Plant many more churches, especially among the unreached.
We are low on support. I say this just so you know. (1) We need funds for building maintenance and improvements (2) We need a caretaker home in the church yard so we have someone to keep an eye on things. We need funds to develop the training center, (3) especially an eating area, and (4) a new shop, so we can use our existing shop for a conference teaching room.
One day this church will have enough offerings to care for itself and to help many others. Right now you have an opportunity to invest in a startup organization that will produce missionaries, healthy families, and countless acts of kindness until Jesus returns. |
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