Tuesday, August 24, 2010

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


Wednesday, August 18, 2010

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...

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

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!

Monday, August 16, 2010

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.


Monday, August 09, 2010

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 !

Saturday, August 07, 2010

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!