HOPE is what Jack felt this week as he received reports from students trained in a late February Church Planting Methodology seminar. In our March 2nd Prayer Update I shared that we were “praising God for the (twelve men and women) from all parts of Kenya who desire to teach others to plant reproducing churches - especially in areas with no or few churches.” One report and photo (can be found on Yates/IMB/Kenya blog) arrived from two of the men who traveled north of their homes in western Kenya to train church leaders among the Turkana, a people group where God’s love and salvation is being shared, but there are still thousands of their nomadic members who have not heard our Good News. The newly trained Church Planting Trainers reported that 65 Turkana Christians from 19 Baptist churches and one from another denomination came for the three day training! 
Pray with us that those trained in this new round of training will catch the vision shared by one student at that first CPM Training for Trainers seminar: "Planting churches does not mean forming a body of those who have responded to a proclamation of the eternal gospel - planting a church means producing a group of discipled believers who will share their faith and disciple others who will continue multiplying disciples!"
HOPE is also the word that came to mind as we’ve read daily updates on the “Loliondo drink of life” (1) in our local news this last week. We often see newspaper ads and flyers glued on walls/ trees/ light poles advertising the services of miracle healers/ spiritual leaders/ doctors who can heal everything from straying husbands and broken hearts to illnesses such as diabetes, TB, AID, cancer, etc. Those traveling to visit the “former Christian preacher … turned into a miracle healer … people of all walks of life; the rich flying in by helicopter, thousands others driving in and even more trekking the distance” (1) has been halted to clear the “24,000 ailing people and their relatives … stranded in a queue of more than 4,000 vehicles that extended several miles.”(2)
Living in a part of the world where many people have no access to quality medical care or no money to pay for what is available teaches you a lot about trust in prayer and miracles. I will always remember sitting in church several years ago and hearing members of our new small church share how God had answered their prayers and healed them in the past week. As I listened to their illnesses, I realized they had suffered the same bug our family had experienced, BUT to be honest, we had responded by purchasing medicine and using techniques we knew would help and never doubted that we would survive, THUS we had not prayed for healing! 
Listening that day, I realized that I had money to buy medicines/see doctors and had a level of education not shared by most of our church friends who could only rely upon prayer and God’s touch for healing! So … I will not share my thoughts about this miracle healer and other situations we face like this daily, but simply ask you to read at least one of the articles sited below which will definitely strengthen your ability to pray for those in our world searching for HOPE as you for Christians who are seeking to share the Good News of our loving Savior!
Thank you again for your prayer support – we and our missionary coworkers and African Christian brothers and sisters do depend upon your prayers, BERT
--- --- --- --- --- --- ---
(1) On the trail of the Loliondo drink of life (Daily Nation/3/25/11): http://www.nation.co.ke/Features/DN2/On+the+trail+of+the+Loliondo+drink+of+life+/-/957860/1132222/-/sd243g/-/index.html
(2) Wonder drug gets a clean bill of health (Daily Nation/3/30/11): http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Wonder+drug+gets+a+clean+bill+of+health+/-/1056/1135350/-/ybcoqez/-/index.html
‘Magic herb’ is well known to Kenyan scientists (Daily Nation/3/30/11): http://www.nation.co.ke/News/+Magic+herb++is+well+known+to+Kenyan+scientists+/-/1056/1135354/-/jnh894z/-/index.html
2011 PRAYER NUDGES FROM EAST AFRICA: http://easternafrica2011prayernudges.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment