MALI MISSION MARCH09: Begins today — PLEASE PRAY

Keith Arnett departed for Mali at noon today, March 18, via Dakar, Senegal.  He and his French-speaking-only driver (!) will be joined tomorrow by Penny Warner, a missionary specializing in Yalunkan literacy materials, along with Pastor Barry, two IMB ‘Journeygirls’, and a translator.  Greg Pruett, of Pioneer Bible Translators, who has been translating the Bible into Yalunkan, was unable to travel with Keith as planned due to the sudden death of his sister.  Please keep Greg and his family in your prayers, as well.

Ø Pray that the Holy Spirit will move mightily in Village F.  It is the largest Yalunka village in that area, and so far few there have stepped out to say, “Yes, I’ll follow the Jesus road.”  Pray specifically for the two Chiefs (one of whom made a decision to walk on the Jesus Road last June), for the women in that village, and for teenage youth.

Ø Pray that the believers in Village X will make a new level of commitment to their walk of faith, and that the Church might begin emerging among them.

Ø Pray for the Church in Village Y, that the Holy Spirit will demonstrate His power and empower them as He brings forth leadership from among them.

Ø Pray for Village K.  There 33 new believers are awaiting baptism.  Pray that this demonstration of new life in Christ will stir everyone in the area to seek Him who has power over death and the grave.

Ø Pray for all those in the mining camp near Village F.  The camp manager, while friendly, has been reluctant to engage in a discussion about faith in Christ.

Ø Pray for no difficulties in reaching the Yalunka villages during the days of ground travel.

Ø Pray that nothing would hinder the group in Village F who has been asking to hear the gospel from hearing and responding in faith.

Ø Pray for wisdom for the team as they seek ways to deepen the Yalunka people’s ability to hear, read, and understand God’s word in their own language.

BASQUE TEAM: On the ground in San Sebastian

Dear Friends;

We are safely in San Sebastian,  (luggage arrived with us - first time).

It is beautiful sunny day, please continue to pray.

We had opportunity to witness to one of the TSA folks while checking in.  He saw our DVD - God of Wonder and told me he needed something more exciting.  So the door was wide open and I told him about the video.

On our first flight a young man had a very serious grand maul seizure and it took several of the flight crew to keep him down.

We all prayed and right after we prayed he calmed down until the plane landed, and the EMS folks can in to help him.

Upon exiting the plane I saw him and his mother and told her we had prayed for him.

More updates coming.

Basque team

Another FULL day of ministry in New Mexico by FBCK youth

What a blessing today has been!  Praise God for answering many prayers we’ve made about this mission trip:

• For our youth to serve others,
• For discipleship with the people of Carlisle Community Baptist Church,
• For people in this community to come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord & Savior,
• For our work to be done without injury or incident to anyone,
• and many other prayers…

We completed our 2nd day of work at Love INC (In the Name of Christ).  We completed 3 days of setup for block party activities/engage with the community/take down block party activities.  This labor of love has been SO rewarding to both youth and adults alike.  Again, may God be praised for His hand upon all of us.

A team of 9 of our youth and 2 adults made a delivery of furniture this morning to a family in need. We prayed over that family as we left and encouraged them to participate in a place of worship where the Bible is preached, such as Carlisle Community Baptist Church.

In the afternoon we setup the final day of block party activities.  Today’s turnout was more than we had attend the previous 2 days.  Four youth stood on the sidewalk corner next to Carlisle Street which is a block away from the actual church and waived in as many passing cars as they could.  We know this seemingly silly technique was blessed by the Lord because one brand new Christian told us so.  She was a nurse coming home from work who had avoided coming to the block party yesterday, but when she passed the enthusiastic youth pointing to the block party area and holding a sign, her two young kids convinced her to stop today.  This stop was no accident, it was a divine appointment that changed her life starting today.  Praise God!

After shutting down the block party today, we met in the church sanctuary to recap major events of the day and give “shout outs” to those we observed serving Christ throughout the day.  We heard two youth tell about leading 4 different kids to the Lord who came to the block party.  An adult leader spoke of the nurse who accepted Jesus as her Lord as well. Another youth who was a brand new Christian spoke of an opportunity she had to pray for the needs of an individual today.  By this time it was almost 8:30pm, but they could have gone on talking about how God was working in our midst today that we probably could have kept testifying for another hour!

Instead, we loaded our vans and enjoyed a great meal at Fuddruckers where we celebrated Meredith Freer’s 15th birthday by eating some cake afterwards.  

Today we saw the wonderful work of God’s powerful hand upon our youth.  All the adult leaders were glad to see the love of Christ shared with this community in such as powerful way today through our youth. 

We’ve added even more pictures of the past few days posted to our picture site:
www.fbckeller.smugmug.com/missions

Please continue to pray for this mission trip as we get some rest tonight and do a little clean-up work at the church following our block parties in the morning.  After that we plan to visit a nearby reservation and do some sight-seeing in the afternoon on Sandia Peak.  Tomorrow night we plan to have a worship service at 6pm and many of the folks who came to the block party have promised they’d come to the service tomorrow.  Please pray for even more opportunities for us to share the love of Jesus Christ tomorrow!

God Uses Students for His Glory

Day two of the High School Mission Trip was a testimony to the Lord’s sovereign natue.  At the end of the day we are all left with a feeling of awe because of the way that we have experienced the Lord working around us. 

The day was under way around 9:00am as we stepped on to a job site of a ministry called Love INC.  We quickly discovered that this ministry was not called Love INC because they carry the incorporated status, their name stands for Love (In the Name of Christ).  We worked alongside the minstry’s leaders to help organize all of their goods.  Recently, Love INC received a grant from Home Depot to be the beneficiary of all of the local Home Depot’s returned goods….so we had an eventful day of organizing toilets, bath tubs, vanity’s, medicine cabinets, and the like.  Love INC processes requests from local churches to aid members of the community who need these types of goods but may not be able to afford them. 

In the afternoon, day two of our community block party was under way.  We had an exciting time of fellowship and outreach with many members of the community who currently are not attending church.  One family of a young man named Gilbert who was in attendance at the block party with his fiance and four children received a special blessing today.  As one Julie Durrwachter (one of our students) was making bead bracelets with Shania  (Gilbert’s daughter) she presented the gospel message to Shania using the colors of the beads representing sin, Jesus’ blood, new life, etc… and Shania asked Julie if Jesus could come into her life and save her from her sins.  Julie prayed with the Shania and she accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior. 

At the same time Gilbert was speaking with one of our adult leaders about spiritual issues when he too realized for the first time that he was a sinner in need of a Savior.  At that time, our adult leader was able to present the Gospel and Gilbert too accepted Christ as his Savior.  God drew two members of the same family to himself at the same time!  He is awesome!  All glory to him!

While we were eating dinner at CiCi’s pizza tonight one of our leaders was approached by a man name Presley who stated that he was driving by and saw the name of the church (Carlisle Community Baptist Chruch) that we had written with shoe polish on the windows of the vans.  Presley stated that he had been having suicidal thoughts that evening and had just left the house to get away and go to the grocery store which was adjacent to the CiCi’s.  Presley stated that he saw our vans and wanted to talk about what was happening to him that evening and to have someone pray with him.  One of our adult leaders met with Presley and presented the gospel message to him and encouraged him.

We stand amazed tonight at the way God is moving all around us.  It cannot be explained except to say that He is still God, and He is still alive and working all around us.  We feel priviledged to be used by God in this way and we are giving God all the glory for drawing people to himself!

Block party yields +1 soul for Christ!

After the Sunday morning services at Carlisle Community Baptist Church, the high school youth from CCBC and FBCK setup a block party.  The youth moved tables & chairs out onto the church parking lot.  Some moved 3 basketball hoops into place while others setup a bounce house and multiple awnings for cover.  Still others setup a grill for hot dogs, a cotton candy machine, popcorn machine, and snow cone machine.  A few stood by the entrance road to the church and held up a sign welcoming passers-by to come enjoy the block party. 

As people stopped, they were greeted warmly with music and smiles.  Kids were treated to facepaintings and balloons.  As conversations were struck we were delighted to see a relatively large number of people attending the block party from 2pm-5:30pm. 

Around 4pm, one man and his wife struck up a conversation with Jay Leone about their Catholic background.  Tim Dicken came and sat with them and presented the plan of salvation.  The woman (Rita) was already a Christian but the man (Mike) had never opened his heart to the knocking on the door of his heart.  But today was the day that God entered his life and changed it forever.  Pastor Tim Tsoodle spoke with Mike and Rita at length and they agreed to come to this church next Sunday.  Praise God!!!

Pastor Tim Tsoodle noted that four families said they would visit the church next Sunday, and another four families said they would like to join CCBC as their home church!  Praise God again!

Pictures of the trip on Saturday and the block party on Sunday have been uploaded to:  http://fbckeller.smugmug.com/Missions

God is working among the youth and adults on this trip.  We can’t wait to see what He will do tomorrow.  Please continue to pray for our efforts and actions here to be following the leading of the Holy Spirit every step of the way.

Praying for our Basque Team & their friends

NOTE:  Derek & Mandy E. are with the IMB in the Basque Region.  Please include these specific participants in the evangelism weekend in which the Keller Team will be leading.

Dear Keller team,

I wanted to let you know we are excited to meet you all soon and we are praying for you!

The members we have signed up for our weekend are listed below, so you can pray for them:

1. Alan and Vanna, a couple of recent university students.  Alan is doing his internship with a technology company and Vanna is working at a technological company.  Don´t know much but they both have good English.  He has jsut recently started coming to a group.

2. Rachel - a young lady who studied computers and works nearby.  She actually called for our second weekend a year ago, but it was full!  So she is coming to this one.  young, friendly, with a bit lower level.  she is also coming to an english group weekly.

3. Anthony - a middle aged man with a university aged son and a teen age daughter.  He is very talkative, has a decent level of English and is really easy to be with because he likes to talk!  I meet with him about 2 times a month.  He doesn´t need to learn English but works hard to do so!

4. Uri - He is a long time friend of ours.  He was actually my language partenr in 2004!  Since I returned in 06, he was studying away, so I practied languages with his father.  This family has always been SO nice to us, and uri is going thru a hard time right now.  He recently graduated but cannot find a job in aeronautical engineering.  So, we invited him to the weekend for free, because he is concentrating on improving his English as he works on a master´s degree.  His family, like I said, has always invited us over for meals and treated us so kindly.  We wanted to bless them, know Uri better, and be intentional in showing him Christ´s love.  So he too is coming.

5. Annie - She is a believer who goes to a local church here.  she may even bring a friend from church.  she is sweet, smart and so capable!  We always thank God for her and her family, as they are followers of Jesus.  She came to our weekend a year ago, and she understands our hope to offer neutral services as a means to show Christ to people in very natural ways.  You guys will really enjoy talking to her!

We are so thankful to God for this weekend.  It was actually really hard to fill up, so God has truly worked a miracle.  The weekend is a holiday weekend, so everyone it seemed, had plans.  We had put out about 1,000 fliers for advertisement, and up until just two weeks ago, we only had one person signed up.  I was really beginning to be discouraged.  We are thankful for this number because it helps cover the cost of the room and board (though the food budget will go a bit over - so we especially appreciate you guys giving the extra funds for administrative costs!).  but the number is also great because we can have lots of different types of interactions, and we can touch that many more people.

Also, another praise:  When I called to confirm our plans with the caserio [country house, or bed-and-breakfast], she responded surprised that she had not understood what I wanted.  The result was she had NO ROOMS AVAILABLE!!!!  I panicked, but God quickly led us to another place the very same hour, which is smaller, but the number of attendants is perfect for this new place.  

We are so excited about the weekend and being together with you guys!  Please let us know if we can pray for you in a specific way.  Please pray we´ll have strength to make it!  We are tired because of this other team, but so thankful that God has given us Christian family to come and work alongside us.

We thank God for you each, every time we think of you,

Derek

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