Ministry update

Hello friends,

First I want to thank everyone who was praying for me as I was sick. I can with clarity tell you that the parasite Giardia is no fun at all!!!! If you have been following me and the ministry here for a while, I had gotten this parasite about 4 years ago. This time was a bit different in that it seemed to be more intense and "explosive" than before. But thank you for your prayers! I got some medicine and am much better.

Ministry has been really going well. And it has been busy!! Which is probably why it is going so well!! : ). I am going to just walk through our weekly schedule.

MONDAY:

This year we have started to meet as a church to pray together. Part of our vision this year is to commit more to corporate prayer. The first few weeks went well. And each week we have seen amazing growth. Last week we had close to 20 people attend. This is a big number for a prayer meeting. We praise the Lord for this! Please pray that the people of Monte Christo would continue to have a passion for prayer!

TUESDAY:

This is my family day. This has been a wonderful time for us as a family to spend the day together. I do believe it is important to have a day like this. I don't want my family to hate the church because they feel it has taken there daddy away. Right now Julia and I also take our dates on this day as well. This is also a day we use for time to go and visit Okahandja sometimes.

WEDNESDAY:

This is another busy day. In the morning I am meeting with Pastor laban. The last few weeks we have been watching some Mark Driscoll sermons together. Last week we started our day by discussing a passage in I Cor. 14. It was a wonderful time. The in the afternoon, we meet together with our house ministry group. We have grown a little since last year and are meeting at Meme Zimba's house this month. We are currently still studying the book of Ephesians. Last week I finished chapter 4 and we will start this week with chapter 5. Please be in prayer for this group. That we grow in the Lord and our love and fellowship will grow for Gods glory!

THURSDAY:

This is a empty day on purpose. What I mean by this is that although I spend most of the day in study, I also use it to schedule meetings and counseling sessions. This day is a wonderful day for preparation for sunday.

FRIDAY:

On fridays this year we have a church fellowship. This is a time for those in the church to get together and talk with one another and get to know each other better. To be honest this is a part of the week I really look forward to. It is great to see the church coming together and talking. Most fridays, we have even had some come with questions. So we will sit with them and look to the Word together. It is a joyful, rich time!

SATURDAY:

On this day we have started two studies. I am leading a bible study through the Firm foundation material. I have on average about 6 students. It has been going well so far. Last week we finished the third lesson. This was the lesson looking at the spirit beings and Lucifer rebelling. Julia is also leading a group of young women on the choose to wait material. There is about 11 young women attending. We praise the Lord for giving us these opportunities. Pray that God will continue to lead these groups and that the students will grow in there walk with Jesus.

SUNDAY:

Sunday continues to be a very busy day. This year I am given more "pulpit time". Pastor laban will only be preaching two sundays a month, and I will have the rest. There is alot that we are doing this year. First, we have started to have a resource table. This is where we will make available to the congregation reading and audio material. We will get books and sell them at cost as well as offer previous bible studies and sermons that we have recorded. This has been going well. This upcoming sunday we will have a church meal together. This is where everyone brings some kind of food and after the service we will all eat together whatever is there. We are looking forward to this sunday.

This past sunday I had the opportunity to preach at a morning and evening service at a sister church called Grace Reformed. In the morning I shared with them on Eph. 1:1-14, "The accomplishment of salvation by God". In this sermon we saw how all three parts of the trinity are active in salvation. And how without one there would be no salvation. Then in the evening I preached through I Cor. 6:12-7:9. The title of this was "How to Glorify God with your bodies". This one also went well, and I am thankful for the opportunity.

OTHER WORK:

Lastly I want to share a few other things that are going on and are starting soon. First, the church has started to support a school for disabled children called Opanganda. Every week we have a box put aside and people in the church can come and bring food to give. This is a big deal because the church has never done anything like this before. Our hope is that the people in the church will continue to see this ministry as a church ministry. Please pray for us in this.

Also we are starting up he membership class again. Already we have had more than 10 people asking to become members. This would be a number higher than we have ever seen. The church even this year has already grown. Each sunday seems to be a challenge when it comes to seats. Please pray that we will be able to disciple many and grow together in Christ.

We are also preparing to kick off a student ministry. This is a ministry to the college and university campuses. I will be meeting with the young adults this saturday to discuss how we will start and explore areas we can bring the gospel to the sudents.


Well if you have read all the way to the end you can see that God is doing alot here. We know that none of this is by our own power or strength, but that by God's grace. We continue to pray that God keeps us humble and that the church will glorify Him greatly. Please don't hesitate to write with any questions. I hope we will praise the Lord together with you for the mighty works the Lord is doing here! Talk again soon.

Buddy

Family update...

Hello everyone,

Our apologies for not keeping you updated in the last few days.

Health

Our family is doing much, much better now. The last couple of days really since January we have had some health challenges. Grace has not been her normal self since the beginning of this year. We took her to the dr in February i think the 2nd week. Now you maybe ask yourself...why would you wait that long to take her to the dr? That was the available time we could get. But before that we tried to get her an appointment with my dr and he was not available either but one of his colleagues was so we took her to him and he saw nothing wrong with her accept the running tummy. He gave us some meds and asked we do a stool simple, as soon as i started giving her the meds two days later i notice she was getting a bit of a rush. I stopping giving them to her. Anyways our appointment with the 2nd dr the pediatrician went really well. The dr called in to get the stool sample results and Grace had/has a fungus, and because of the month long running tummy she has of corse not picked up weight. She was 71/2kg but she needs at least to be 8 OR 9kg not too bad. She is doing alot better now.
Last week Wednesday night Buddy got sick...and things got worse Saturday night, he was going to preach Sunday morning but had to call Pastor Laban so he can preach that morning. He went to the dr Monday and confirmed that he had a parasite called Giardia!! He got some meds called adco-metronidazole and he is doing better. It was a pretty rough weekend.

Please keep us in your prayers. Pray that our family recovery's well and that everyone will be back to their normal self.

Ministry updates will fellow shortly but right now i have to run, Grace is up :).

Thank you!

Thank you everyone praying and supporting the ministries here. We appreciated it! Words cannot express how thankful we are.

Thank you to all who sent us Christmas cards and to the House Church that sent us the package. Thank you! It was a great surprise. Again thank you everyone....it is our prayer that the Lord who is above all else bless you according to His riches in glory.

Happy Kiddos January 30th

Thank you Samaritan purse!

Ondangwa Evangelical Baptist Church...

Well hello again for anyone who is following this. I wanted to write about another opportunity that we had when we went to the North. Before we went up, I was invited to Ondangwa baptist church for a new years conference they were having. They asked me to preach three sermons, but unfortunately I only was able to do two. we had never been to this church, so we were really looking forward to it. Like I mentioned already, I was privileged to preach two sermons. I preached through I Corinthians 8 and 9. I had enjoyed teaching through these passages when at Monte Christo, so I adapted them for that. It went well, and we really enjoyed getting to know the members of that local church. Here are just a couple of pictures of that time. Stay tuned...We will write again soon.

Happy 90th Birthday Nana!!!

Happy Birthday our dearest Nana! We are so sorry we couldn't be with you to celebrate your birthday. We love and miss you so much! May the living God bless you.

What a year so far...

Dear friends,

Please forgive us for not posting anything for awhile. There is much that has been going on including changing our internet provider which caused a very limited internet usage. We were basically on a prepaid 3G device, but now we have the internet hooked back up and can post more freely now. So...I will be posting something new everyday until we get caught up. This will include many pictures..and explanation. We had a great time in the North and since we have been back things have really gotten busy. So please check back each day this week to see something new. Thanks for following how things are going here!

Buddy