The last six weeks have been a bit of a blur as the tract project has dominated the agenda - praise the Lord that his word is being published throughout all the region of New Zealand! Below is a report of how things stand as of October 7th in our eventual desire to get the gospel into every home in the entire nation of New Zealand. When the Chick tracts on hand finally get out, we will have covered just about 50% of the entire nation.

New Zealand:
Total of 1,294,341 homes in the nation

Tracts Yet To Go Out:
Chick tracts on hand yet to go out: 213,000 (thus far covered: 437,577 (33.8%)
Funds still needed to finish this phase: $5,200

Results from the latest round of letterboxing over the past six weeks:
13 SAVED - all being followed up on, 24 Other requests for information on salvation or with regard to our NZ Correspondence School of the Bible, 8 Requests for information on a good, Bible-believing church in their area.

We continue to appreciate your prayers for all of the literature going out that has already touched many hearts that we know of - only eternity will reveal all of the results that we do not know about! Please pray for the finances to finish this phase of our "Gospel into every home" project and for the physical strength to hit the pavement and letterbox those homes that we are tracting by hand.

Although the tract project has occupied much of our time over the past six weeks, God has been busy on all fronts - so here is....

The REST of the News:

1) In our September teen group meeting the Lord allowed me to win three boys to Jesus Christ - please pray for Darcy, James and Chris - specifically that they will grow in the Lord and begin coming along to the services. Our August teen group saw a new high of ten teens out for games, ice cream and the BOOK!

2) On September 29 we officially organized as the Marlborough Bible Baptist Church with nine charter members. The folks we have coming along have been keen to step out by faith and officially organize as a local, New Testament church. That morning I preached on the "open door" that God had set before the church at Philadelphia and the great open door that God has given us here in Blenheim. I finished up the message with I Cor. 16:9 reminding the folks that along with open doors come "many adversaries" - and we have certainly seen them this month! The Devil and his crowd have been very busy lately - please pray for spiritual strength for your brothers and sisters in Christ here in Blenheim.

3) After averaging a very consistent 17 for most of the winter (May-August!), the Lord blessed with a number of families coming along in September - for the last three weeks of the month we averaged 27!!! One family we specifically asked you to pray for in our last two prayer letters was the Burgess family - Donna and her two daughters. God has answered and they have been in church the last three Sundays. Please pray that they become a permanent fixture. Another family that has started visiting is the Mark Adams family. They have just shifted into town and are looking for a church - Bro. Mark is a builder and on his first day on the job here in Blenheim, he accidentally cut off his finger with a skill saw. The Lord seems to have his attention at the moment - please pray that they will join with us.

4) The Nelson Bible study is still very much up and down - not counting my family, we had a high of six this month and a low of zero! Please pray that as spring moves along that the folks over in Nelson will become more consistent.

5) For the three nights of October 22-24, the church here in Blenheim will be holding our first ever set of special meetings. Dr. Sam Gipp will be in New Zealand for a week and has graciously agreed to come down and preach for us for a few days. The folks here are really excited and have been putting out the invitations. We have solid promises from dozens of people in town to come along and if only half of them keep their word, we should have quite a good group out. Please make these meetings a special matter of prayer - not only will it be good for our people to hear someone different, but it is shaping up to be an excellent outreach into our community.

6) We have asked you in several letters to pray for a lady in our church named Shirley who has bone cancer - she is in the hospital and doing very poorly at the moment. Please pray for God to work in her life and for his grace to be sufficient for both she and her husband Ralph.

7) Bro. Nigel James and the work we started last term in Dunedin are continuing on. Bro. Nigel and his family came up to visit us last week and help us do some letterboxing - they continue to run in the high 20's, although two of their families are on the verge of moving out of town because of work. Please remember the James' and the Community Baptist Church of Dunedin in your prayers.

8) As a result of the letterboxing Bro. Nigel and I did here in Blenheim, we had a Roman Catholic lady walk into the office one day requesting one of our home Bible studies. God graciously opened her heart as we looked at the scriptures and she trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as her Saviour! Please pray for Donna as she will most certainly be under some persecution - please pray that she will start coming to church and that the Lord will open the door to witness to the rest of her family.

9) Debby was able to lead one of our Sunday school children to the Lord this past Sunday - Anthony is six years old and was very keen on getting saved!

10) We received notice this month that our landlord is selling the house we rent. Finding a rental in Blenheim is very difficult - please pray that the Lord will find us the new house he wants us to live in!

We love and appreciate you all - your sacrifices for the work here are an unceasing blessing as we seek to use the sword of the Spirit to cut through the spiritual darkness. Last week Deb had a chance to witness to our Catholic neighbour - in the middle of the conversation Deb said that the difference between us and this lady was that, "We take the Bible literally - we actually believe the Bible" - to which our neighbour immediately replied with a huff, "Well we don't!" Keep praying brethren!

Thank you and God bless!
Only Because of His Grace, 454,000 Gospel Tracts With Anthony, Fatima, Luke & Caleb Preparing Tracts for Letterboxing

The Williams Family

Field Address: PO Box 484, Blenheim, New Zealand Telephone/fax: 64-3-577-9981
E-mail address: jeffwill@voyager.co.nz
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