January 1999
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
"A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God
are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the
year." Deuteronomy 11:12
We praise the Lord that his eyes are upon us from the beginning of the
year until the end! January is usually a pretty quiet month with the
"great Kiwi exodus" taking place - we are at the height of summer down
under and everyone seems to take off to the great New Zealand wilderness
for a few weeks of vacation. Even though things should have been pretty
quiet, God has been blessing on all fronts….
…The Rest of the News:
1) One of the really neat blessings we had this month concerns a Roman
Catholic lady named "Flo" who was saved while out knocking doors. We knock
doors regularly here in Blenheim but have seen very little visible fruit
from it over the past three years. In any case, we knocked on Flo's door
and she gave us some standard response about being Catholic and having an
"appointment" in a few minutes. I asked her if she was a saved Catholic or
a lost Catholic and that one threw her. "I think I'm somewhere in
between?" Thirty minutes later she was professing Christ as her Saviour!
Please pray for Flo to come to church and for open doors with the rest of
her family - the very next day after talking to her, Flo had her daughter
and three grandchildren moving back in with her from out of town. Two of
our ladies (both ex-Roman Catholics themselves) have taken Flo under their
wings and started discipling her. We'll keep you posted!
2) God has blessed us this month with a heap of visitors! Granted, many of
them were out-of-town visitors, but several locals have shown up out of the
blue - not a typical occurrence for us. Please pray for Ken especially -
this man has a Baptist background, but has been in a Charismatic church for
the past 25 years. His wife passed away a few months ago and he is
"looking for a new church." Ken came to visit us primarily because of a
tract he received from us in our last round of letterboxing.
3) The correspondence school continues to hum along. We have been
averaging one or two new students a week for the past year. In November we
placed a small ad in an ecumenical magazine that circulates around the
country and have seen almost 30 responses in the past month! The
correspondence Bible school continues to be an avenue for getting the
gospel and sound doctrine into various areas of the country that we would
never otherwise reach. Below are parts of two letters we received back
this month:
"….To the NZ Correspondence School of the Bible I give thanks for all the
preparation and work involved and the Quiz Sheets of which I am really
enjoying and of which help strengthen my faith and knowledge of God's Word
the Bible." Kay who just completed her lessons over John and Romans.
"The Bible I read is a King James Version and this course has been a great
help and confidence booster to me. Not so long ago I attended a Bible
group at a Baptist church. As we sat around to discuss a subject we were
all asked to read a portion of scripture. After some had read from their
bibles which included N-I-V's, Good News, etc…. When it was my turn I was
shocked when I was asked by one of the members if I wanted to borrow a
spare bible as they did not prefer me to read from my King James. I told
them I would not read at all if I could not use my own bible. I have since
joined another home group - where I can read it!" Julie who has only
completed her first three lessons in John and who has provided us with this
insight into the average Baptist Union church in NZ without us ever mentioning the
existence of any "King James issue"
February is gearing up to be super busy for our little mission church. We
have a "Bring a Friend Sunday" in store with a church-wide visitation day
lined up to kick it off. Our fall term of Bible institute starts this
month, my Mom and Dad are coming for a visit from the States, and we have a
Blenheim-wide letterbox drop ready to go in mid-February. Please pray for
God to bless his word as we attempt every conceivable avenue to get out the
truth before the trumpet blows!
Thanks for your faithful prayers and support for our family and ministry.
Only Because of His Grace,
Jeff, Debby, Caleb, Luke, Grace & Beth
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