End of 2010!!!

Friends,

Well, we have come to the end of yet another year. When people ask how many years we have been here in Namibia...The answer surprises me. I find my self saying.. "well, Julia has been here for 23 years and I have been here for almost 5 years". Five years has gone by like a day. We are so thankful to the Lord for all his provision and unfailing grace!!

This year has been a great year looking back. We have grown in our understanding of God's Word and our relationship with the church. As I have said in some earlier posts...This year has been a year of getting to know the people of Monte Christo BC. It has been a joy! We are now just looking to next year to see what the Lord will do with our small vision. Our continued aim is to Glorify God in everything we do. He has called us....He has kept us...and He has led us....as for us...we just want to serve Him. Please continue to pray for the vision for next year and for willingness and passion from the church to see this church grow and be more obedient to God.

I wanted to also just take a moment and thank all of those that gave to us above and beyond these past few months. We were reminded that the Lord knows our needs even before we ask. It seemed that we were living pretty much week to week, and that as each week came, God provided for the next week through people. We are so thankful for our supporters. You guys are our partners in this mission. And we praise and Glorify God for bringing you all into our lives and giving you a desire to support us. May God continue to bless you all and keep you. Thank you!!!!!

This is our last post for the year. Tomorrow we will be traveling to the village in the North. Because there is no electricity there, we will not have access to the internet except through our phones. So we will be able to get emails, but may not be able to respond until we come back. Please pray for us as we travel. Pray that we do not have any issues either with police stops or break downs. We will of coarse take plenty of pictures and will try to post many of them when we come back.

We will be spending most of our time with the family up there, but I will also have the opportunity to be preaching at a church there over the new years weekend. I will have the opportunity to preach 3 sermons. I have decided to preach three of the "bible studies" I did in I Corinthians. I will be peaching on the need to keep our priorities where they should be. Please pray for this opportunity.

Well, I will close just by saying that we hope you all will have a Christ centered Christmas and a great New year! Write again next year!

Sunday Meal together..

Hi everyone...I just wanted to write briefly and give a update on how the church meal went. It really was a wonderful time of fellowship. We had alot of people come, and had a great time eating together. We are hoping to do meals like these next year every quarter. Here are a few pictures of the time together. Enjoy!

Lunch and followship time at the church 05/12/2010

First update of December...

UPDATE:

It is a little crazy to think that it is already December. I guess I knew it was coming!! : ) This past week was a bit of a bitter sweet one. This past week we said goodbye to a dear friend...Nitu. He has been apart of Monte Christo for many years. Nitu served at the church helping with both leading the services and helping with the Junior youth(middle school to high school age). He was also very active in the young adult groups. Nitu decided to go back to his mother country of Angola. Although we are behind him in this decision it is still hard to see such a servant leave the church.

We are also gearing up right now for our church luncheon this sunday. This will be a sort of Pot luck thing. So we will all bring something and have a meal together. This will be something that we hope to do together as a church every quarter next year.

I will also this week be giving our vision for the church next year. There are a few changes that we will be working on and adding some new ministries. Please pray for me as I present it to the church and as we prayerfully and humbly seek the Lord on how to put the vision in action.

We are getting into the holiday already. I think I have mentioned before that here in Namibia we have a country wide holiday where most businesses minus the essentials close for most of December. With this things slow down quit a bit with the church. For example, for the rest of the month we will not have any of our regular programmes such as family bible hour, sunday school, youth group, ect. We will then resume in January of next year.

Needs/praises!!:

I also wanted to just write to thank all of those that gave to us last month. We are so humbled by the way many of you stepped up to help us in this time. Thank You!!!! We praise the Lord for all of your continued support and prayers.

This month also has been a little struggling, but already with some that have given we have seen at least our rent and medical aid covered. We continue to pray for the rest. We are thankful for whatever you are willing to give. Again if you would like to donate to us here please email me at gtbutters@gmail.com and I will write you with ways you can give. Thanks again for your considerations.

We are also starting to think about a visit back to the states. We are at this point looking at maybe May or June of next year. We are looking at these dates because of my classes, and because I am needing to renew my domicile which may take some time. We are wanting to give it enough time. At this point we are asking that if anyone would be willing to donate frequent flyer miles to us then maybe we could use them for our flights. We are members of Star alliance milage plus. I think it will take 90,000 miles for each of us. We both have saved up only about 23,000 miles each. If you are interested please email me and I can give you our details. I know there is many more details needed to figure out for a return to the states, but the plane tickets are the first uncertainty. Thank you for your consideration!

Well I will post some pictures of our lunch this sunday. Thanks again!!

Grace Ministerial Academy!!!

So I wanted to give a brief update on the ministerial college we will be starting next year. As you can see from the heading of this post..we have come up with a name...Grace Ministerial Academy. Again this is intended to train and equip men for pastoral ministry. We are using a model from a ministerial college in Zambia. The courses are lecture based in module form. This is where lecturers come in and in a intense week the students would receive 30 lectures or two full courses. Then the student would have 3 months to turn in the assignments for those courses. The best part is that while doing this, each student is required to be in a mentorship with a local pastor. I love this model, being that it does not take the students out of the local church but makes the training a part of a healthy internship for pastors in training. Each course comes with many books to read as well as tests. Also, because of the fact it is not accredited, we are able to bring this training to those that would otherwise not be able to afford seminary. The curriculum is comparable to most seminaries. We are very excited about this opportunity. We will start out by having two modules next year, one in April and the other in August. I will be both attending this college and working as a coordinator of it. Our brothers in Zambia are really helping us out alot with this first year. I will be working on brochures so to give more info on the college to hopefully attract more students. We currently have 8 students that would be attending, and hopefully more. Please be in prayer for this new ministry. Especially be in prayer that God would bring good men who He has called to pastoral ministry.

Buddy

21 November 2010-Baptisms

Well, This past sunday was a great sunday! As you will see from the pictures below, I had the privilege of baptizing three men and one woman. These were those that have been attending the baptism/membership class I have been teaching for most of this year. That has really been my greatest joy with this group. I have seen as they have gone through this class, that they love the Lord and truly desire to follow Him with there lives. The whole service went well. I started by teaching on baptism, as there were many visitors who came to see there family members get baptized, but didn't understand it. It went well. Pastor laban preached then after we did the baptisms. Then after the service we all came together and remembered Jesus as we took the Lords Supper. It was a Joyful time! I will try to explain each picture below.

(Picture 1). This mans name is Daniel. He was saved earlier this year and came to the church seeking to be discipled. We asked him if he had been baptized and he replied that he hadn't. So he started to attend the class.


(Picture 2). This young mans name is Juan Domingo. He originally came from the angolan refugee camp in Osire where there is a mission church being planted. Juan has been such a joy to disciple over this year. He is just finishing his grade 11 in school, but already very interested in being involved in ministry. I am hoping to continue to work with him going forward.


(Picture 3). This young lady is Arminda Domingo. She is Juan's sister. During the coarse of the class I have seen good growth in her and hope to see much more next year as well.


(Picture 4). This picture is of the group before they were baptized. They stood in front of the church and shared there testimonies. It is always such a wonderful time when we hear testimonies before baptism isn't it!


(Picture 5). This mans name is Nicodemus. He is actually apart of one of the mission churches here in Windhoek called Havanah Baptist church. It is in a outlying area here. He will be going there and start to be more active in ministry there.


(Picture 6). Here is a picture of half of the room while I was baptizing. The church has been growing and things continue to go well.


Please continue to pray for these that were baptized. Most of them are the only born again believer in there families. Please pray that they continue to learn through God's Word. I also just want to thank those that support us here. These pictures serve as a testimony to what you have helped make possible. For those that continue to pray for us here...Thank you!! Prayer is so important. To those that are giving regularly to us...Thank you!! You have made so much possible by supporting me and my family. I Julia and Grace also are so thankful!

Please continue to pray for our support! We are not anywhere close to where we need to be. And we need to be going to the North next month to both see family and so I can preach at a church there over new years with Laban. Please contact me if you would be willing to support us monetarily. My email address is: gtbutters@gmail.com. Until next time!

Buddy

A time of Worship!

I wanted to write everyone with the story of how the time with the woodcarvers went. Probably many of you saw the pictures we just posted.

After talking with a few of them we learned that each of them were really struggling with food. So when the money that some gave came in, we went to a bulk store and bought some food for each of them so to help them in this time. So, on friday we went into Okahandja and met with them. The time with them was so sweet. When I asked them to meet us at the MPMC(multi purpose ministry center) They did not know what we had for them. So we came in and sat down as you could see from the pictures and started to talk. I explained how there was some funds that came in to help them through this hard time. I explained how each of them would receive one of the stacks of food. You could see already how thankful they were. Then we gave each of them a small amount of money for other things at home such as perishable things being we had only bought non-perishables. We then explained that we had an amount for each of them to help restart there shops. Just before I told them this I had asked if any of them were able to get anything yet...they replied no. Some of them had even stopped even going to the market, being that there was nothing. They were so thankful!! I explained that this was the Lord providing! Many of them expressed how they were not able to buy food and that was hard with there children. I then talked with them about how we had another portion of money to help some others in the market. I explained that this was given not for us to go out and give, but for them to help others and to maybe be a witness to them. They really loved the idea and we will hopefully be meeting up with them again next week to talk about how we can do that specifically.

After we talked for a while and for most of it except for when i asked questions they stayed pretty quite. Sylvia at one point just said over and over, "I don't have words!". So we did what we all were feling like doing...Prayed! I put the heading of this post as "A time of Worship", and that is exactly what this time was. We didn't cry out "oh how great are the people who gave" but we prayed and cried to our Father, giving HIm all the Glory. This was a precious time in which not one there had a dry eye. We sat there together thanking our Lord and Saviour in many tears. We took turns praying and then I closed. It's hard for me to explain what that time was like. The best is just to say it was a time of Worship and brokenness! There were some that confessed there fears and lack of trust, and others that just cried through there prayers. It was a precious time!!!

Please continue to pray that God would open doors with those in that market. That we would have wisdom in reaching out to the others at the market. And that God would receive all the Glory!

Buddy

Woodcarves!

Yesterday after Keano's school we went to Okahandja to meet up with the wood carvers. Here are a few pictures from our meeting and we'll blog later about everything else.

Thank you all!

Julia

Sylvia, Innocentia, Sarafina and her husband Marko and Tiago

Woodcarves!

Today we spoke with Sylvia and Tiago. Sylvia said she is pretty much just is staying at home because she doesn't have anything to sell and has very little food at home to eat. Trusting God to provide for their day to day needs. We will be going to Okahandja on friday to give them the money that came in at least than they can buy a few things to start their businesses up again. There is a store here in Windhoek where you can buy things in bulk cheaper so we went ahead and bought them some food (maize meal, paste, rice, cooking oil, laundry detergent, etc). We bought these things in bulk because we can get them cheaper here and save some money for them to use on their stock. We will only be able to go to Okahandja on friday after keano's out of school. Tomorrow we are pretty busy and will only be free on friday. We honestly want to go in tomorrow and give them all this stuff but we can't :(. Praise the Lord for what He has provided and continues to provide. Pray that the woodcarvers will be able to start their businesses up with what they all will receive on friday. Also they will each receive a set amount to give to two of their friends each who is most in need of help. So helping 8 other woodcarvers in total. We want them to be the ones to do this that way they can reach out to each other. So in all you have have been able to help them set up there businesses again, help with much needed food, and reaching out to others also in the market.

Thank you for helping our dear brother and sisters in Christ in this way (finances and prayers).

In Christ,

Julia

ministry update/woodcarvers/needs/support...and I guess anything else. : )

Well, I hope you enjoyed the last post from my wife. It gives a little idea of some of what we deal with almost every day. These last couple weeks have been pretty busy.

Ministry Update

The Saturday before last we had the opportunity to spend some time with the young adult group from the church. They needed someone with a truck who could transport them to a park where they were going to have a fun day. So...being that we now have a truck we were pleased to help. The day was a wonderful day!!! Both Julia and I really enjoyed spending time with them and it was a great chance to get to know many better.

During the week has stayed pretty much the same. We have had to cut back the time spent at the church though. This had to be done because of not having the money for petrol...which I will explain in a bit.

Sunday has continued to be great. This past sunday I taught on I Cor. 9:24-10:13. Paul showed the Corinthians through the bad examples of Israel that they ought to be obedient. It went well. I Really believe this book has been alot of help to the church this year, and we are eager to see what the Lord will teach us as we go on.

The house to house ministry continues to go well. We have had some challenges the last few weeks with having a home to meet in. Many of our members have been either sick or out of town. So the last two weeks we have been meeting at the church building on Monday. I have continued to teach through the book of Ephesians, and this week have finished chapter 3. Honestly, it is much better to meet at one of our houses rather than there. We lose a sense of family by coming there. Please pray that we would be able to go to a house next week.

As we continue to look to next year we are looking forward most to the start of this ministerial college that I mentioned in a earlier post. We will start up with four courses next year and go from there. As I think I mentioned before, I will be a student and a coordinator of it. Please pray for wisdom as we prepare and seek out young men to attend.

Woodcarvers:

I wanted to give a update on the woodcarvers. Really not to much has changed. Except that we have now received all the money that was given, so we will be going to the woodcarvers this week. We had a bit of a delay in getting the money being that Laban was out of town on Mission up north. But we have received it now. I spoke with Tiago this morning, one of the woodcarvers that lost his shop, and he said that really nothing had been done. Really the issue is with the local gov. I had mentioned in a earlier post that there was a company willing to come and re-build the market even better. They came and made up the plans and when they took it to the mayer and regional councilor to have approved...they refused! Since then they have not been helped. So the money that has been given is needed now more than ever. It will help with rebuilding and getting some more stock of goods. Please continue to pray for them and for who we also will help.

Needs:

As I had promised some time ago, we will begin to post some of our needs on a more regular basis. This month has been and continues to be a challenging month. Our support is usually around $1400USD per month. Which usually works out to about N$10,000 namibian. This month we only received $825USD. So needless to say we are really struggling. To give you an idea the amount that came in only covered our rent and medical insurance. Thats it! So...with that said, I would ask that anyone reading this would consider giving extra this month. Or if you are not a regular monthly supporter and would like to help us out this month with a one time gift or would like to be a monthly supporter, then please email me at gtbutters@gmail.com. For those that would like to help this month, because we are right now not having anything, time is a factor. The fastest way to give is directly to our Chase bank account, which I will give the information to those that email. I am not sure why the support was so low this month. I have not received a report on the giving from Apex for a few months now. Please pray about what you can give!

I want to say thank you to those that have been faithfully giving. Although our funding is low we are so thankful for what has been given! You all are our partners and dear friends. Everyday I work with the people here I am reminded of those that support us to make it possible. Thank you! We continue to trust the Lord to provide and supply every need. I know people may say this all the time, and to us it is sincere being that we are totally dependent on Him anyways! May God show you the joy and goodness of complete dependency on Him..as He is showing us! May God bless!

Buddy

Hello everyone :), It surely has been ages since I (Julia) has blogged. So bare with me......alot has happened and is happening. Most of which makes me wish I can express myself in my anger. But than again that may not be so good. I find myself wanting to quit and given up on things. Sometimes it can be as small as a nasty comment made by a stranger just because i'm carrying a "white" baby. Recently we went to a garage (gas station) and a young lady at the teller asked me in oshiwambo "how come you a black lady has a "white" baby? I want one too. I silenced for a while and the guy next to her also working as a teller answered...."oh don't you know that nowadays people ONLY want to open their legs to white men. I was so shocked by the guys answer i left the store and back to the car and told Buddy what had happened. Long story short we decided to just go and let it be. Few days later I spoke to a friend who knows the owner so she went and told him what happened to her friend (me) and they called us in to identify the workers....so he gave them written warnings. Things like those get me so upset that I just leave and don't say much just because i'm afraid of saying something in anger and later regretting about it and the person is no-where for me to find them and apologize, my conscience will tare me apart. It also serves me as a reminder that we live in a sinful world and people like that will always be around and its up to us (Buddy and myself) to protect our child/ren. I know we don't want our kid/s to grow hearing comments like that, we know they will but for now its time for us to continue preparing ourselves.
I love my husband and i will not let it hurt my marriage just because of things like those :). Thats it for now....till next time its bye bye for now.

Julia

ministry update...

Well I first want to just say thank you to all that are following for your patience in waiting for this blog post. Things have been pretty busy over here, which has been great.

I guess I will start this update by sharing how things are going with the church. All is going well! I have been continuing to teach the family bible hour on the sunday morning service. I am still going through the book of I corinthians. And I know I may have said this before, but I really love this book. Last week I taught through chapter 8. This is a very practical book, showing that we have a responsibility to use our knowledge with love. That when we use our knowledge without love, it will not edify. I continue to get good feedback from those in the church. It seems more and more people are coming up asking me for copies of the teachings so they can go and share it with family or friends. I am not saying this for my glory, but to God's glory alone being that it is him that reveals these truths. As we come to the close of this year we are now in reflection of this year and busy casting a vision for next. This year really has been a year of learning and immersing. Julia and I have built many good relationships with some of the members of the church and I feel a little more "in" the church. Please pray for wisdom as we cast a vision for next year. Pray that we as a church would see the ministries the Lord is calling us to, and that we are faithful in them.

We have come to the end of the membership class. It has been a great class, and I am already looking forward to the next class. We finished our class with the responsibilities of church members at MOnte Christo Baptist church. It was a great ending to this class. Now, many of them have not been baptized, so on the 14th of Nov. I will have the privilege of baptizing some of them. I am looking forward to this being that I have gotten to know them pretty well over most of this year. Pray that God would use these members in the church to share the Gospel and bring much glory to God through there membership.

I have started to spend two full day at the church every week. This has been a great time of both prayer and encouragement. This will be a time for counseling as well. Most of all it is a great time for Laban and I to spend some good quality time together in discussion and prayer for the church. We both have been enjoying this!

The House to House ministry continues on. We have been meeting at Paulina's house for the last few weeks. By meeting there, we have another guy joining our bible study on a regular basis. This past week I taught through Eph. 3:1-7. I am loving this book more and more! We have been inviting more people to join our group lately. Please pray that God would add to our number. All of us who are meeting together see the value in this group. It is really the only opportunity right now for interaction and many questions.

Lastly, I wanted to share about a pastors fraternal that I attended last week. For those that have been following our ministry for a while you would remember what these are. But for those that this is new for, let me first start by explaining what these are. These fraternals are times when all the pastors from like minded churches(reformed baptist) get together for prayer, encouragement, sharing of praises and trials, and talking about the needs of the churches and how we can help each other through it. These are precious times that I would never want to miss. They are kind of also a retreat! This time we decided to meet at swakopmund baptist church on the coast. So monday morning we drove over to the coast to meet up with the other pastors. It was a very refreshing time that was much needed for many of the pastors. One of the big topics of this fraternal was to decide if we would like to implement our own ministerial training school here in namibia. This would be geared specifically towards training pastors. We had a guy named James Williamson come from Zambia to share what they are doing in this resolve. He is a part of the copperbelt ministerial college. There website is http://omegaserver.biz/cmc/?page_id=83. We are hoping to start this in some capacity next year. I will be attending this college. So please pray that God would provide the needed funds to do this. We are excited about this opportunity. It will realy allow us to give good solid pastoral training to the men in our churches. Please for much wisdom in this. It will be alot of work on our end, but it is very important.

Well, Thank you for your continued interest in the Work here. We are so thankful for your continued love and prayers. And as always we are so thankful for those that are giving funds each month to help with our day to day needs! You are our partners! I hope this has been encouraging to you and please continue to pray for us as we press on in the calling the Lord has graciously given to us.

Oh....and grace and Julia are doing great!...I will try to post some pictures soon. Thanks!

Buddy

brief update on woodcarvers..

Hello friends,

I just wanted to write you to give you all a status on things with the woodcarvers. Currently, they are in the process of rebuilding the market. A local business stepped up and agreed to rebuild the market for them for free. This is a huge praise!! Also, the local gov. came and gave some money to buy food for each family. This is great being that they did not have food at home. Now the need that is left is to some how restock there market. There has been given a amount of $3000USD toward this need by some of you reading this. We will be able to take a portion of this to help those from the bible study to get back on there feet, and take a portion to reach out and help some others at the market. Our aim always is the Glory of God! So please pray that through this we will be able to reach out to others in the market and that God would be glorified! I will write again very soon with a ministry update.

update...and explanation of pictures.

Dear friends,


Today we were able to go and visit the woodcarvers. I can't really express to you how I felt when I saw the market to the ground. I was reminded of devastation that I saw from a tornado that hit Xenia, Ohio. There was just nothing left! You can see from my post of pictures that, that is true. But more than that, the people also were about the same. Most just sitting under the few trees in front of the market that were not burned, hoping for some kind of help. As I talked with them I learned more about what had happened. This was one of those strange happenings. The fire started at a house about 200 meters away. And between that house and the markets was a main road, and another house. The other house was totally untouched. The fire started in the middle of the market and spread outward to the rest within 15-20 min. Those on the ends(including those from our bible study) tried to save items by moving them away from the market, but the fire reached them and burned them up. They lost everything! Our aim was to meet with those from our bible study and have a time of prayer and reading some passages from Scripture. But very quickly it turned into a market wide study. A couple of the pictures I posted shows that time. See over the past few years of having this bible study, we got to know many of those there at the market. Even if they never came to the market they knew we came every thursday for the bible study. It was a great honor to be able to read the Word with so many today. We hope to see them again next time we go in. Then we had a chance to sit down with just those from the bible study(Tiago, Sarafina, Innocentia, and Sylvia). I asked them some questions, and I learned more about there specific needs. See, the biggest problem that they are facing right now, it that there is no food at home. All of them have children, and they all do not know how they will feed them. At the market they are cooking Pap for those there, but that only feeds those at the market not those at home. And since they have no source of income now, there is not much they can do. Please pray that God would provide for these needs. They are also hoping to rebuild, but that seems far off for now. To rebuild there stock would take both time and much money. Please pray that the Lord would provide! More than that though, pray that there dependency would be upon the Lord alone. And that they would "wait on the Lord" and be courageous! That there witness to there fellow carvers would be glorifying to the Lord! I will write more soon....Please Pray!!!

Pictures from today at the woodcarvers!!

Urgent Prayer request!!!!!

Dear friends,

I wanted to write to ask that you all be praying for the woodcarvers that we have been working with. Today there was a massive fire that spread through the market. It started from a fire in a house across the road, but because of the wind it blew the fire across the road to the market. It burned the whole market down within about 15-20min. Our dear friends Sylvia, Innocentia, Sarafina, and Tiago all lost there markets including there wood items for sell. As we continue to try to get ahold of each of them, we did speak to Sarafina and all are devastated! They really don't know what they are going to do.

Please pray for these! This for many like Sylvia is the only income they have. And remember that Sylvia has two young children at home, one in high school(grade 12), and one in college. Please pray that God would supply there needs! I am reminded even now of Isaiah 40:28-31,
"Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
[29] He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
[30] Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
[31] but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint."

Pray that they wait on the Lord and continue to trust Him! Please email me(gtbutters@gmail.com) if you have any questions or would like to help these out. Also please pray that the owner of the house will not have t lay off any workers from his business being that Julia's father works for his company. Please pray!!! I will update again soon!

quick update...

I hope you enjoy the pictures....Isn't she cute!!!

This week really has been focusing on two things:
1. Getting everything with the car figured out.
2. A women's conference.

We are so happy with the car the Lord provided. It is a Isuzu 2.8 turbo diesel. It is a 2000 model. We do have to put new tires on it which we hope to put on today. Also we would like to have a canopy eventually, so we will be looking for that. It will help to just have it for traveling and even carrying more people in the back. We want to once again just thank everyone who gave towards this truck! We pray that God would show you the goodness of His grace!

The women's conference is going well. The theme was "what is the role of women in the church?". It is every evening starting at 6:00pm. This is a conference that both men and women could attend. Tonight will be the last night for it.

Also, we have taken in a boy named keano. Some reading this may know him. He is the boy that was with Todd and Erin Hammerstrom. They are currently in the process of adopting him, but not all has come through yet. So as he is now going to school here in windhoek..he needed someone to stay with. Please pray for all the details of the adoption to go through quickly.

I will write more a little later on how the conference ended and such.

pictures of grace and new truck...

Hackers!!!!!!!!

So I just wanted to write just in case anyone saw the last posts that I just deleted. My account was hacked!!!! Not nice at all!!! Sorry, but those posts were definitely not from me. I will post again soon the pictures...

update...

Hello everyone,

Thank you all for your patience being that I have not written for a while. Things have been busy, and good being that they have been busy. Now...as it has been a little while since I have written I am going to try and not make this post so long, but we will see.

First, I just wanted to share with you all how the church has been going. I think that we are finally getting past that "we are new" hump. We are getting to know the people alot better and this obviously opens alot of good doors. Two sundays ago was a special sunday. One I taught on I Cor. 6:12-20, which is focusing on using our bodies for the Lord. The teaching went really well and I got as direct as possible without firing myself.: ) Then we also had Grace's Baby dedication. This was a very special time for both us and the church. I will post some pictures soon. This sunday Pastor Laban was gone to Zimbabwe for the Sola 5 Conference. This is the group of churches here in southern Africa that Monte Christo is a member of. You can check out more if you like at http://www.conradmbewe.com/2010/09/day-four-2010-sola-5-conference.html. This is a blog of each day of the conference. This link is just for day four, but you can view the others if you like as well. So that gave me a chance to preach again on sunday. I preached on Acts 6:8 through all of chapter 7. It was along passage , but such a good one. It is mainly focusing on Stephen and his amazing sermon to the arrogant jewish leaders that were accusing him of blasphemy. It was a good one.

Last week was a week full of counseling as well. We had our first pre-marital counseling session with a couple from the church. This is something Julia and I will take on. That any pre-marital counseling that is needed will be done by us. The first session actually started kind of rough. We listened to how they met and why they wanted to get married. Then I asked them to share there testimonies. This is where it started to get hard. It was evident that after talking with them..the woman was a believer, but the guy was not. So then I shared the gospel with the guy for about an hour. It was hard because he was evidently disagreeing with much of the gospel while the woman agreed. Please pray for our next session for this thursday. I also had my first counseling session with a young man who has been struggling with sexual sin and has now a son with a woman he would like to marry. Our first time went really well. We read scripture and prayed together.

The house to house ministry is going well as usual. We have now shifted to another house. We have moved to Paulina's house. This is our first time being at this house and are looking forward to meeting some of the neighbors around. Last week we had one neighbor come. Please pray that God would use us in this community.

The Membership class continues. We have just 3 weeks left of the class until we are done. Then at the end of the class we will have on one sunday baptisms for some in the class. So this is something I am looking forward to. It really has been great to see how many in this class have grown. These last few weeks I have seen alot of good responses and questions showing there growth. Pictures will follow...

As many of you who have followed us for a while know...although we have moved to Windhoek, we still have a heart for okahandja. Last week we were able to go into okahandja and see some of the people there. We went and visited the woodcarvers and were able to see Tiago(one of the woodcarvers/dear friend). He is doing well. He is spending most of his time on the coast now, being that business is better there. Please continue to pray for that group. We continue to hope to see them more often.

Lastly, I wanted to share a praise with everyone. We have found a truck to buy!!!! It is a 2001 Isuzu kb280. This is a 2.8 turbo diesel. It needs a little work right away, but the important things(engine, transmission, ect) are in great condition. We just have to get things like new tires. I can not tell you how excited/relieved we are that we will soon have this truck. We want to publicly once again just thank all those that gave towards this truck. We never could have gotten it with out your generous giving. We will post some pictures as soon as we have it. It will probably be monday at the latest.

Well...I think that is all for now. Like I said I could probably write forever. But I won't. I will try to post some new pictures of grace as well very soon. She is really growing like a bush weed. Take care!

Update on the Car.

Hello everyone...I just wanted to write to share with you that our car sold today!! Now we are just looking for another car to get. Julia and I went around today at all the dealers we knew and we only found 2 trucks in our price range. We did call about a 2005 Mazda 2.6. The owner is out of town, but will be back this weekend or monday. We are really hoping that one will work out. It has low km's and according to the seller is mechanically perfect. He said there is a few things on the body that needs help, but all fixable. We are hoping that will work. We will continue to look. We basically have till next tuesday to find a car...that is when our honda will go to the guy that bought it. Please pray that God would provide a good reliable truck for us. We have figured that we have about N$85,000 for a truck. We will keep you posted.

Worship in song!!

This is the young adults singing at church this past sunday...I hope this works!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxEKQ5xa4JM

picture !

A few updates...Car/Christian and Nelda

Hi everyone....I wanted to write a short post to update on a few things.

First, after getting a email from a friend about Christian and Nelda, I realized I had not shared what the outcome was of the divorce. Now as the divorce is finalized, she was awarded the house(full sell price minus amount owed) and all the contents of the house. We are thankful to the Lord for protecting her through this and we will continue to help her and council her after. Please continue to pray though!!

Also, I wanted to update everyone on our car situation. We still have not been able to sell our car. As I wrote before we were given $4000USD toward a new car. We had found what seemed like a perfect truck for us, but found out today that it has sold. It was in perfect condition and everything we were looking for, but it is gone. So now we are back to square one. At this point we are not finding any trucks for the price we originally thought(N$65,000). We have seen some for around N$90,000 and above. This will be very hard to reach with out help. We are in need of more money towards this truck. I would ask that you please pray about what you can give. We would like to have a double cab truck that will be dependable(being we really can't afford a lemon..:)). All in all we trust the Lord that he knows our need, and He will lead us and provide when the time is right. It is an opportunity to help us both as a family and in ministry. Please pray!

Thanks for reading! May God continue to show His amazing grace in your lives. I included a picture of Grace...

ministry update...for this week: )

So before I get to this week in ministry, I wanted to give everyone a brief update on us as a family. Things have been going well. We continue to learn that our lives now seem to revolve around our disciple(commonly know as Grace). Grace is doing well. It seems as though she is sleeping alot longer, which is such a blessing!!! The last few nights she has been sleeping between 4 and 6 hours at a time at night. I figure for most parents this is the most exciting thing to happen in since the babies birth...: ). She is now 2 months old!!! I can't believe how fast that time has gone by. Maybe it is all the lost sleep...hmmm??:). Julia and I are doing well. As we have come to the next big phase of our marriage, we decided it probably would be good for us to revisit the biblical principals of marriage and our role's. It has really been a refreshing time. Where as we study together we recognize area's where each of us needs work and where we can be more obedient to God in our marriage. We continue to try to take each tuesday as our family /date day. Sometimes we are able to go out, but sometimes not. But all in all, I consider myself to have been shown so much grace(God's grace) when I think of my marriage and family. God truly has been gracious to us!! Please continue to pray that we would be an example to all that see our lives, and that we would echo these words by John Newton, "I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I wish to be. I am not what I hope to be.Yet I can truly say, I am not what I once was. By the grace of God I am what I am.”

So now...what have we been doing in ministry this week? This week has been a good week, and also a different week.

Last friday I continued with the membership/baptism class. It went well, except that this week the girl that usually translates was not able to make it, so we did not cover much in the class so that we would not leave any behind. See the class is in english translated to Oshiwambo. Julia was the translater before the baby came, but since it has been cold and we meet in the evening she has not come. So this past week we only looked at one section and that was "what is the purpose of the local church?". We learned about the chief purpose of glorifying God, and then we looked at Matt. 28:18-20 expounding the great commission. Over all it still went well.

This sunday we did not attend Monte Christo Baptist church. Once a month we are given a sunday off to go and visit one of the other churches we are associated with. The hope is that when we are able to get a truck we will also be able to visit some of the churches up North as well. This sunday we visited Westside Baptist Church. This church is primarily Herero in attendance. The Herero people are another major cultural group here in Namibia. The church seems to be doing well. We joined them for there bible study which started at 9:00am. They have been going through the book of Exodus. So this week they looked at chapter 24. It was a good bible study, and it was evident that there was good understanding of the Word. The sermon then was in Galations 5:13-26. It was a great sermon and overall we really enjoyed the service. Please pray for this church, that God would continue to lead there leaders and bless there ministry.

The house to house ministry went well this week. This is a part of our week we really look forward to. We are still meeting at Tate Immanuels house. This week we finished chapter one of Ephesians(Eph 1:18b-23). We looked at three things Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand. 1. That our Hope was received at salvation(vs18b). 2. That our future is to be Jesus' inheritance or "riches"(vs18c). 3. That we would understand God's Power(vs.19-23). It was a good time. Then we spent about 30 min. in prayer for one another and for the church. And as always then we had some great time in fellowship as we ate together. Our hope is that sometime soon we would begin to reach out even do ministry together. I believe that it is important not only to study the Word, but to put it in practice by sharing the gospel to those outside. Please pray for strength and wisdom as we strive to be obedient to Christ.

I also thought I would share with you this week how my studying has been going. I have been reading various books as part of my study. First, I have been reading a biography on Dr. Martyn LLoyd Jones. It is a two book biography, and I have started on book one which is on his first 40 years. So far it has been really good. I have found that I really enjoy reading biographies of missionaries and pastors. I am just in his early years right now, but already it has been great! Martyn L. Jones for a long time would not agree to anyone doing a biography because he feared he would be glorified rather than Christ. Even in the early chapters one thing is evident...He was all about God's Glory!!! I also have read The Doctrines of Grace by James Montgomery Boice. I tell you the truth!!!!...This is one of the best books I have ever read, and in my opinion the best of this doctrine. If you are able to get this book....BUY IT!!! It is wonderful. After finishing that book I have just started The reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter. Although just started..really looking forward to it. I will keep you posted!

Lastly, I wanted to update you about Christian and Nelda. We went into Okahandja today and were able to meet with Nelda for some time. She is doing ok. The divorce has been finalized. So there is a little relief on that side. She is now trying to kind of start over(if that was at all possible). Please pray that God would continue to guide her. We will meet with her again next week. Also please pray for Christian that he would repent and turn to Jesus.

Well...thank you for reading this post. I know it may be long, but hopefully you enjoyed it and have been encouraged. Again, if anyone reading has any questions or comments please leave your comments here on the post, or email me at gtbutters@gmail.com. I will write again soon!

some ministry pictures!!

Here is a few pictures of the house to house ministry meeting together at Tate Immanuel's house. My photographer has been on leave since she just had a baby girl named Grace.....ha ha ha. I love and appreciate my wife and her help to me in taking pictures. Enjoy!

Here is a picture of the sunday childrens class(under 12 years)

These are a couple of pictures of the bible study(family bible hour) on sunday mornings as I teach through I Cor.

Stay tuned...I will post our weekly ministry update tomorrow.

ministry update...

Well...as promised I want to give you all a update on how ministry has been going in the last week or so. Really it has been going well, but very busy which seems to make the time go by very fast.

The church is going well. Last week I was able to meet with Zecca ,who is the sort of youth leader, about various ministries and targets. This was important since still over half of our regular congregation are of the young adult age. So we discussed how things are going now, and how we can improve and be more effective. Last Sunday I had the grace to preach on Acts 6:1-7. This was an important passage. We saw the great mandate to serve, and how service is needed in the church. I preached through this passage and explained some principles of church leadership and the need for deacon type service. It went well and there was very good feedback. See, the church has been struggling with serving. Every sunday before the service starts we have to set up chairs and things. Well, past week people have started to come later and later to avoid helping set up. Then came Acts 6:1-7!!! This week people came and helped early to set up. It is a joy to see those that came to serve and to see the joy they had as they did it. This week pastor Laban came back from visiting the churches in the North, so I was back teaching the family bible hour. So I continued in our study through I Corinthians. I taught this week on I Cor. 6:9-11. I have been teaching that Paul has been giving reasons why we as a church should judge each other in the church. So this week I explained another reason was for the sake of the self-deceived. Paul shows that part of the responsibility of the church is to judge each other so that there are none deceiving themselves. Here is one of the points I made:

"The church must be honest about sin, and that ones life should not be marked by these sins paul lists in vs 9-10. We some times see people deceiving themselves into thinking that "as long as I prayed a "prayer" of salvation, then I am good". Those that think such things are deceived! In Eph. 1:3-14, we can see God active in all parts of our salvation. That there is no part that we can claim to do. This is evident also in Rom. 8:29-30. And we know that in Eph. 2:8-9, that "by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." So if our salvation is grace alone, as in God is the one that gives salvation. Then how can we prove our salvation based upon something we do? We can't!!!! It must be based upon something God does. And as we can see in Rom. 6, one of the things God does is regenerate our lives! So it is our lives that can be a proof of our salvation. It is true that we need to pray for salvation as we confess that we are sinners and ask the Lord to save us as He is the only Saviour, but it is our regenerated lives that prove that we truly have excepted Him. I believe this is what James is saying in James 2:17-26(read)." It was a good sunday!

The house to house ministry continues to be a wonderful part of our week. Both last week and today went very well. We are now meeting at Tate Immanuel's house. We have been going through the book of Ephesians in our bible time. Last week we looked at Eph. 1:15-18a. In this we saw Pauls prayer that the church would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation. I explained that Paul prayed this for the purpose of them having a closer relationship with God. Vs 17, "in the knowledge of Him" shows this. Then today we were going to go through the rest of the verses of the chapter , but that did not happen. Some times when we meet, there are many questions or something someone is wanting to understand. We will take time and answer them. So this week one of our members shared how she had been struggling through wondering if she truly is saved and wether she really will go to heaven. We read through a few passages including Romans 8:29-30. Vs. 29 says, "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren". I explained like I had explained in the bible study yesterday that those God elects also will be conformed to be more like Jesus. Explaining to her that the fact that if our lives are regenerate that is evidence of that salvation. Also explaining to her that it is God that seals our salvation. There was obviously much more that we talked about and said, but that is a part. After this she shared how convicted she was after reading the passage in Rom 8:29. And how she can see that that she has no need to worry about her salvation. It was a good week.

The membership class continues to go well. We have now started a section on the local church. This will be one of the last sections of the class. After this we will look specifically at what Monte Christo is doing and how if these become members they can and should get involved in some way. I am looking forward to this friday to continue this.

Well...hope this update has been encouraging to you and gives you a little understanding to what is going on here. Please continue to pray for each of the ministries we are apart of and that God would open more doors so that we may share the gospel to many more. Also be in prayer that we sell our car very soon. We did look at what seems to be the perfect car for us today. We don't have enough money to buy it without selling our car. (about $2000USD short to buy it outright.). So be in prayer that God would send the right buyer or reveal to us that this is not the car for us. We will try to take some more pictures of these ministries soon and post them here.

picture !

Family and stuff...

Well...we have come to another week. I truly do not know how this week has gone by so fast. I guess maybe because it was so busy.

I figured I would start this weeks post with a brief update on us personally. Grace is now 7 weeks old. Last week I forgot to mention that she had her 6 week shots...That was not so fun. We have been really debating on wether she really needs all these shots. So we will see what we do next time. But other than that everything is going well. Grace has grown so fast!!! When she was born she was 2.56kg and now she is a little over 4kg. And...when she was born she was 49cm, but now she is 57cm. She is growing like a weed. She has been doing ok at night. There are some nights that she sleeps right through the night, but then others when it seems like she is up every hour. Julia is doing well. She has pretty much completely recovered. Also it was her birthday yesterday. So we spent some time out during the day, and then I cooked her a meal for dinner. These are pretty much what we do for special occasions.

I also wanted to give everyone an update on our car. As you may have read before our desire is to sell our car and purchase a double cab truck so we can get to the north easier for both family and for ministry. Right now we are just waiting on the radiator to come in from Japan(21 days) so that we can fix it and then sell it. As we have been looking at the price of trucks, and when we tell someone that price for our current car...they pretty much do not even ask further because it is too high. Well, this week we were contacted by a supporter that is giving $4000USD toward the car for us. This was such a humbling gift! This will allow us to sell our current car for a little less(more reasonable) and have some extra money to add to the price, so to buy the truck. So now please just be in prayer that our car sells quickly and a good truck becomes available to buy for us.

Well that is a little update on us right now. I will post the ministry update next...stay tuned!

July 30th

Well greeting once again to all you who are reading this, which might just be both of you. ha ha ha...I know...I think I only have one more time to use that joke. Well I hope you all are doing well. Things here have been busy.

This week has been good. The membership class went very well last week as well as today. Our topic has been prayer! As we came to the close of the topic tonight I could see how it has been edifying to those in the class. When they would pray you could hear the deeper understanding and sincerity of there prayers. I just pray that going further, that prayer would be a key part of there day as they and we strive to be more and more conformed to His will. E. M. Bounds wrote.. "What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use -- men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men -- men of prayer." This is my prayer for us and Monte Christo Baptist Church. That there would be men of prayer!!!

The sunday church service went well this past sunday. I preached on Acts 5:12-42. I love this passage because it is one of those times that God was glorified so much. I loved in this passage how when Peter responded to the jealous accusations against them, he just shared the gospel!(vs29-32) He shared the message that the religious leaders were condemning them for. It truly is the Gospel that is "the power of God unto salvation". At the end of the sermon I contrasted the religious leaders and the apostles. This week we will look at Acts 6:1-7-A call for servants! It should be a good one. But that is for next weeks post.

The house to house ministry went well this week. This week was the last week at Meme Ester's house. Next week we will meet at Tate Immanuel's. We continue to study the book of Ephesians. This week we studied vs11-14. Our study has gone into discussion of how Salvation is totally given by grace, worked out by all three persons of the Trinity(God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit). It really has sparked some good conversation. After our study we spend some time sharing various prayer requests or praises and then pray. Then we enjoyed a meal together talking and growing in community.

This week we have also been vary busy with leather bag orders. We had two unexpected orders this week, so in some of the evenings I have been busy with that. See all the bags I make are mostly custome made to the persons needs, so it requires much time to design the bag and then the actual making of it. Maybe some of you didn't know that we do leather work as a sort of "tent making". It is a way that sometimes God provides for our needs. We actually set up a website...www.buddybagsafrica.com. Check it out. Read the bio of us...It's the most important part!

Well I think that is all for this week. Tune in again next week!!(saying that in my head like a radio announcer). Please continue to pray that after we fix stuff on our car that it will sell. Hopefully, we will be able to get a more practical vehicle(double cab truck) for both ministry and family. Thank you again for reading!!!

Praise the Lord!!

Hi again...I just wanted to write a quick message so to share with you all that God has provided for the radiator for our car. We had someone donate the money needed to fix it. Thank you all for your prayers! Now we just will wait the 21 days until it arrives from Japan...

Update on car situation!!!

Hi everyone,

Well I thought I would blog again....I know...two in one week...wow! Anyways, I really just wanted to give a quick update on our car. As I said in the previous post..our car is in serious disrepair. We found out that our radiator is cracked. And a replacement will cost us N$3892($556USD). Well, today I went to a radiator place to see if they could just repair it and that way keep us from having to get a new one. Unfortunately after looking at it they said there is no way to repair it, I would have to get a new one..: (. So I called Honda and asked if they could order one in being that it was a Japan item. They said they could, but it will take 21 days. This is not so good!! Most of all we do not have the funding for this part, being we are actually already fixing other issues like brakes, shocks, aircon/any air flow, ect. So again if anyone is willing to help us to fix the car we really would appreciate it.

Really our main goal is to sell this car. We are really needing a small truck so we can get up north to the villages. A used 1995 ford or mazda will cost us on average N$65,000($9,285USD). So our hope is that when we fix the few things wrong with our current car we can sell it for that amount or raise money to offset the amount. Please be in prayer for us with the car. If we were to not have a car it would greatly decrease our ability to do many ministries. It is one of our biggest needs right now. If you would like to help us in any way or have any questions, please contact me via email and I can give you our bank details there in the states. My email is gtbutters@gmail.com. Thank you for reading this post and your support.

Buddy

pictures!!!!

Here is a few pictures of Grace. And there are a few pictures of the house to house ministry. Enjoy!

Greetings!!!

Well as I promised...here is the first of many blog posts.....This week has been a pretty eventful week. Last friday we had the membership class that I lead. This week we started our next section on "Prayer". Already it is shaping up to be a pretty good lesson. After this we will start to talk about the importance of the local church, and look at what the role of the church member is as a part of it. We will also be looking at what is a healthy church member. For this I will be referencing a book by Thabiti M Anyabwile called "What is a healthy church member?". This book corresponds with Mark Dever's book "9 marks of a healthy church". I am thankful for both of these books.

Sunday service went well. I preached on Acts 5:1-11. Oh yes!!...Ananias and Saphira...After expounding the sin they had committed I gave three points from Peters response. 1. There is a right of ownership(vs4)..2. The role of Satan in there sin-spiritual warfare(vs3)...3. Sin is always against God(vs4). It went well and people responded well to it after the service. The family bible hour went ok this week as well.

This week we were not able to make it to the house to house ministry. It is always hard to miss the house group. The other leader in our group Nitu, led the group through the next few verses of Ephesians. We are looking forward to next week already.

Our daughter Grace continues to be such a blessing. She is doing well. Last night was a good sleep night!!! We love those, they seem to be few. Julia is doing well. There is next to no pain and recovery is good. Thank you all for your prayers during the birth and over this past month.

I also want to share with you all something to pray for us and a opportunity to help. Today as I was driving I noticed steam coming from the front of the car. I wasn't far from the house so when I got home and investigated I found that there is a major crack in our radiator and it will need to be replaced. I called Honda here and they said the part would have to be shipped in from Japan and would cost us N$3,892($556USD). That is about N$3,892 more than we have to put in the car. That is also without labor cost. We are wanting to sell the car to get one I can do the work on, but we have to sell this one first. Really we are wanting to get a new(used....alot!) car that will better suit us. Please let us know if you would be willing to help us with this. We really need any help possible.

Well I think that is all for now for the blog post. I hope you and the other person reading it enjoyed it(ha ha ha). I will write again soon.