MALAWI and MOZAMBIQUE, February 1-5, 2023
Despite some natural resources deposited in these lands, both countries are some of the most underdeveloped in the world. The great challenge for them is to raise up leaders with a biblical model of church empowered by the Spirit of God. We expect around 50 key leaders to join us as we introduce God’s Plan for His Disciples and God’s Plan for His Church. The gospel is spreading in both countries, but many do not have a sound biblical foundation and understand how to help people grow to maturity in Christ. Please pray that our teaching and mentoring would be received and multiplied. (Randy) Remember Paul’s instructions on how the Church should mature. “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11–13).
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Last year, after a four-year commitment to train 1,200 EMS missionaries in Nigeria, God led us to train their missionaries and leaders who are planting churches in other African countries. This journey led us to Chad, Cameroon, Gambia/Senegal, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. Now we head to Malawi/Mozambique and Zambia before I proceed to Uganda where our key leader, Rogers, and his team, have trained over 500 people in GPHD. This year will fulfill our commitment to EMS in Africa, yet we are amazed how God keeps opening new doors. Thank you for going with me in prayer. Prayer fuels the mission with God’s power and grace! We have ALL heard His voice asking, “Who will go?” Thank you for encouraging me to say, “Here I am! Send me!” The following is the first leg of this journey our Lord has laid out for us: Travel to Africa, January 29-31, 2023 This trip has a few more moving parts than normal. I fly from JFK to Entebbe in Uganda, then make a connection on Ethiopian Airlines to Malawi. Please pray that there will be no delays or flight interruptions so I can meet up with Joshua (EMS Cross Borders Coordinator) in Addis Ababa for two flights to Blantyre, Malawi. (Randy) We will post the next leg of Randy’s journey tomorrow. As a few on our team age (including myself), there will come a point (if the Lord does not return very soon) when the older team members will not be able to carry on the work. We have prayed for some time that God would raise up younger “Timothy’s” who will carry on this ministry and even help it spread. God has given us a couple of younger men, and their development and preparation is taking place. We have total confidence that God will provide laborers for His work.
What makes this extra challenging?
We actually do not see these items as obstacles. When Paul came to a city that was plagued with moral evils, he did not compromise the gospel to make it appealing. “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). The power of the gospel alone was evident in the Early Church (Acts 6:7; 12:24; 19:20) and did not need extra social programs to make it appealing or effective. We encourage you to examine the New Testament to see if these principles are true. One of our team has gone to Nicaragua to encourage the Lord’s work and come alongside a dear brother who has a big heart for God’s work, not just in his own country, but in the whole of Central America. Here is the news we received from Jonathan.
“Good afternoon from Nicaragua brothers. We arrived yesterday and went to our first meeting this morning in Nagarote. David had introduced GPHD to this Pastor who attended a seminar with him last year. We did a graduation for those who completed GPHD today and the brothers and sisters were so excited for the things they had learned of the Lord. There were so many amens and moments of giving thanks to God; it was simply amazing. David and I didn't have GPHC to give them because they had run out of books. They need at least 1,000 GPHC. Please pray for God's provision. It still seems so foreign to me to see that much excitement and then to see their desire to continue studying God’s Word through GPHC made my cup overflow with joy. We know God provides in His way and His time. Please pray.” We have lost a special servant! Carmen lived many years of her life paralyzed, but she was perhaps more active and effective in the Lord’s work than those of us who travel and train around the world. She prayed daily for NFI and other ministries, specifically naming countries, places, and events that were taking place. She had global vision for what God was doing from the United States to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).
On Monday, January 23rd, Carmen entered the presence of her Lord who she spoke with every day. I can’t begin to imagine all the things God did because of her faithful prayers. She circled the world in a unique fellowship with the Lord of the Harvest, laboring in prayer that He would accomplish a divine work in every place. None of us will ever know the extent of what God did because of Carmen’s faithfulness. Her prayers were a special aroma of Christ to God because they expressed the missionary heart of Jesus for the lost and the great needs of the Church to embody the missionary Spirit of reaching the unreached with the gospel of grace. We will never know the extent of her ministry. What we do know is that her reward is full, and she has “entered into the joy of her Master” (Matthew 25:21). Please pray for God’s comfort to rest on her husband and family. We are very thankful that one of our newer team members has caught the vision for God’s work in some of the neediest places around the world. Through a contact, Tom received an invitation to introduce God’s Plan for His Disciples in Arabic to believers in the refugee camps of Northern Uganda. This response below is from a pastor of a church in a refugee camp who wants Tom to introduce GPHD to their church when he returns.
“Our Church elders have approved the material, God's Plan for His Disciples, as a tool to disciple the church. And we have the following plan in place:
Since GPHD engages people in the Bible and encourages discussion, we all agreed that this material must be used. Pray with us as we start the study next week.” What is amazing is the places, circumstances, and people God is drawing into this study. Most have never experienced such a powerful transformation before. That is what God’s Word does. I was speaking yesterday with a friend who shares a deep love for the pure gospel as I do. We were going over Paul’s first letter, the one he wrote to Galatia. He is first “astonished” (Galatians 1:6) that these believers “turn to a different gospel – not that there is another one, but there are some who…want to trouble you” (7) and even says that such persons be “accursed” (8) because of their distortion of the gospel.
Was Paul being too severe in his characterization of such persons? The more the Spirit gives us understanding in the gospel of grace the more anything that misrepresents or detracts from its purity becomes abhorrent to the heart that loves Jesus. John Piper reflects on Paul’s bold approach to those in Galatia and the false teachers and says, “He (Paul) was indeed jealous for gospel accuracy, and he was indeed concerned for gospel love and humility and kindness.” I would add that any inaccuracy in proclaiming the gospel robs Jesus of glory that is rightly His and weakens in the person receiving the gospel a full appreciation for what Christ has done for us. Any desire on our part to glorify Christ and His redemptive work will come from a growing love for the fulness of God’s grace demonstrated in the cross of Christ. As Paul is summarizing his life and ministry to Timothy, he refers to the reward that will be his in the presence of His Lord and Master. “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day.” He may have been thinking of what he wrote to Corinth; “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is duefor what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10).
Paul was confident that he would receive a reward from the Lord when he stood before Him. But that confidence was not just for himself. “Not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8). I ask you; do you love the appearing of Jesus when it happens? Is your expectation for His reward so real that if it happened right now you would be ready? Would you have any regrets about what is engaging your life right now, in the past week, month, or year? To “love His appearing” is to love His person as well as what he will do when He comes. William Borden wrote in the fly sheet of his Bible, “NO RESERVE, NO RETREATS, NO REGRETS!” Is that how you would describe your life? There is so much to learn from the Apostle Paul. I am especially thinking of a dear young brother in Christ, living among the Rohingya people of Bangladesh, who has been put in prison and is being mistreated because he stands up for Jesus. This isolation along with mistreatment is hard to bear.
As Paul writes to a young church that had also suffered much, he reflects on the time when he and Silas we put into prison in Philippi. “But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict” (1 Thessalonians 2:2). Notice how the “conflict” did not hinder them from having “boldness in…God to declare…the gospel of God.” I remember times as a young man when with my father took me with him to preach on the streets of Oakland, California. It was a rough part of town and persons who passed by would launch words intended to intimidate and discourage us. We would stop and ask God to give us the necessary boldness to proclaim the greatness of Jesus in spite of opposition. Paul further puts this kind of suffering into the proper context. “But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts” (2:4). If we focus on the opposition, we will let the enemies of God stop the work. God tests our hearts to make sure we are focused on Him and His great message. This afternoon I received a message from a pastor in Quito, Ecuador who wanted to express his gratitude for our resources and training.
“I just want to say thank you for God’s Plan for His Disciples and God’s Plan for His Church. These books mean a lot to us. The pandemic was very difficult for us, and we could not meet in church buildings, so being able to study this material at home was a big help. It has not only been for us (pastors), but we have been able to share it with our families. Thank you so much for your help.” Our work in Ecuador and many other countries around the world is made possible by those who pray and support this ministry. To you we say THANK YOU |
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