God has indeed been good this month in loading us daily with benefits! Although it is hard to know where to begin, we will try to bring you up to date.

The News:

1. THE TRACTS HAVE ARRIVED! On June 18th a semi pulled up in front of the church and we unloaded 7,800 lbs. of Chick tracts with our custom back cover. The Lord got them through Customs in one piece although we are still a bit up in the air as to whether or not we will have to pay duty on them (please pray for no tax on the tracts!) We are so grateful to all of you who have given towards the distribution of these tracts. The status of the NZ tract project is as follows:
   
   1. From our appeal to you folks in April we have had 15 churches or individuals contribute 23% of what we need to get these tracts out. We hope to actually be getting the first of these tracts out in mid to late August. As promised, we will be informing each of you about the specifics of your "adopted cities" so you can pray accordingly.
      
   2. So far we have five other churches here in New Zealand (three of them with national pastors) who have agreed to help us letterbox all or part of the cities they minister in. Because we are in the middle of winter here, such a project will have to probably have to wait until things thaw out a bit (September-October).
      
   
   We would continue to ask you to PLEASE PRAY:
   
   1. that the Lord will bless his word as it goes out; and
   2. that the Lord will bring in the remainder of the funds needed to put out these tracts.
      
   
   
2. The first full month of services over in Nelson has been interesting. We have had several visitors, one or two of whom appear to be good prospects. Sickness has continued to be a problem, although we have managed to average four or five out for each service in addition to my family. We would ask you to specifically pray for Dean and Joanne Adams - they are a saved couple, not in church, who have promised to come along, but whom we have not yet seen.
   

   While out soul-winning, I inadvertently knocked on the door of the retired Anglican bishop of Nelson. He was very polite until I began to ask him about his soul. He gave me all of the vague answers about being a Christian since birth (typical Church of England covenant theology mumbo-jumbo). When I pressed him a bit more pointedly he suddenly had a pressing appointment and had to go. With blind fellows like this leading the single biggest block of church goers in NZ, no wonder the place is in such bad shape!
   

   I also met Bernie, alias "Elijah," this month. This devil-possessed crazy man came to our first Nelson service in May, but stayed pretty low key. I did not get much of a chance to talk with him, but some of the folks who did talk to him told me after the service that this fellow was "way off." While sitting in the office over here in Blenheim three weeks later, this fellow walked in, proclaimed that he was the prophet Elijah and began to rebuke me at the top of his lungs for starting a church in Nelson. I couldn't get a word in edgewise, but managed to get rid of him only to have him show up at church the following Sunday evening in Nelson. I have met crazies and I have met devil-possessed whackos and Bernie definitely fits into the second category. This fellow went nuts while we were singing "There Is Power in the Blood" and deliberately attempted to get my children upset as we tried to get rid of him. Now I know a bit better how Paul and Silas felt in Philippi. It's a war down here brethren - please pray for our safety and spiritual strength!
   
   

3. In the Blenheim church we had a visitor come along to a video on Mormonism that we played in a special Sunday afternoon service this month. Although this lady has not been back to another service, she and her two daughters appear to be excellent prospects - they are saved and Debby has had several good talks with them. Please pray for Donna Burgess to start coming along to the services.
   
   
4. Incidentally, Donna was a contact made through our Bible Correspondence School. Donna, and another fellow named Roy who came along to one of our Nelson services this month, are the first tangible results we have seen in our church services from the correspondence school. We haven't said much about the school lately, but we still get 80-120 lessons back every month. Since beginning the school, we have had almost 600 people respond with about 150 of them currently active students. One letter we received this month stated:
   
   "Thank you for sending me further lessons as requested. I'm finding it so good for me, I can hardly put the papers down when they arrive, going straight into them, and not wanting to stop at the end of each lesson. I seem to have a thirst to learn more...Thank you once again for this valuable chance to learn - it's appreciated more than you could possibly know. Things are not very easy at the moment with some serious worries going on. By taking the time out to do these studies I'm finding an inner peace and strength to carry me through all of the 'yuk' going on about me. Please keep them coming." ---Tricia Salmon
   

   Obviously this lady (and many others like her) are not finding what they need in the dead, apostate religions that NZ has to offer. The comfort and strength she is getting is coming from the BOOK and the only reason she is getting that is because of YOU! Thank you for keeping us here in NZ and for making it possible for us to reach out to every part of the country through the New Zealand Correspondence School of the Bible.
   
   

5. We had a good teen group in June with a new high of 6 teens out for game night, pizza and a message on the rapture. We were encouraged in that four of the teens present were young people we have seen won to Christ over the past ten months.
   
   
6. One of our prayer requests since we knew that we were coming to Blenheim was that we would be able to set up a billboard on State Highway One. Part of this road north of town is a bottleneck for virtually ALL of the car traffic that passes between the North and South Islands - the perfect spot for a good gospel witness! One of the men in our church who was saved back in December just happens to live on this critical stretch of the main road. He also just happens to have a billboard on his property that just happens to have became available this month - Praise the Lord! Lord willing we will send you a picture in a month or two when we get it all painted up!
   
   
7. Another outreach that took a significant step forward this month was the possibility of getting some good Bible programming on television! It is a bit of a long story, but we will suffice to say at this point that there is a fairly new regional TV station that covers most of the top end of the South Island called "Mainland TV." As things stand now, we have been offered three hours of programming on Sunday mornings for the grand total of $35.00 a week if we can fill it with "good Christian broadcasting." We are in the process of contacting several different churches and other sources to fill up this time with suitable Bible preaching, teaching and informational broadcasts. The benefits of course will be to put out the word and hopefully arouse some interest in the things of God and in the services of the churches in Nelson and Blenheim. Please pray that God will give us wisdom in this matter and that he will keep this door open if it is his will.
   

Yes, the Lord "LOADS" us with benefits! Of course the spinoff of this is that things are busy here to say the least. I mentioned in our February letter that if there is anybody out there (ie. YOU, your family, your teen group, etc!) who is keen to come over and help for a few weeks or months, the fields are still white unto harvest and there is "loads" to do! Please pray that the Lord would send us some labourers, and if God so moves, come see us!!! Again, thank you for your prayers and sacrifices on behalf of the Williams' family and the Lord's work here on the South Island of New Zealand!

Only Because of His Grace,

Jeff, Debby, Caleb, Luke & Grace

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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