Ready for the Printer

 We have been busy translating tracts into different languages. Mrs. Gaiser a faithful Sunday school teacher in our church has translated our new Spanish tract and it is now ready to send to the printer. We also, now have a Burmese language tract ready to send to the printer as well. Two Ka'ren men in our church have translated that tract for us. We are excited to get these tracts to the printer and have a bunch made up to help us more effectively reach our city for Christ. I am thankful for the help of our members in getting it into these different languages. We have a French tract as well as Swahili under construction right now too. Soon those will be ready for production! Praise God!

 Our overall day was a good one. We had 127 in Sunday school today with four public professions of faith being made and one following the Lord in believer's baptism. We had 40 in attendance on Sunday night with two University students that were visiting coming forward and trusting Christ as their Saviour. They then followed the Lord in believer's baptism. Praise the Lord!

Translation and Interpretation are Necessary to Reach this City

This is Amoit pictured here with Bro. Jonathan, she is from Sudan, Africa. This past Sunday morning she helped put the finishing touches on a new Arabic tract (in her hand) that we are going to be sending to the printers. Amoit has a very strong working knowledge of multiple languages and speaks Arabic with much accuracy and ability. We have used her on numerous occasions to help during our invitation in giving out the Gospel to someone who doesn't speak English. We are starting to translate our own Gospel tracts in multiple languages, so we don't have to rely on other ministries as much for our foreign language tracts. We appreciate these other ministries and will continue to use some of their tracts, but every church should desire to produce their own Gospel tracts that are customized to their particular church.

In the past thirteen years I have discovered the great need for good interpreters to be used in our soul winning. Early on in our church we prayed right away for Spanish speaking soul winners and God blessed by giving us some. More recently I have prayed for Burmese and Karen speaking soul winners and God is working that direction. The fastest growing population in the state of Nebraska is the Asian population, thus the need is there to reach these people with the Gospel.

This past Sunday morning we had one Karen lady saved by using a man in our church as an interpreter to get her the Gospel. Praise God for that! We had a good attendance in Sunday school and good attendance on Sunday night. God blessed us Sunday night with getting to see a baptism take place. Praise God for the work He is doing here in Lincoln!

Yasmine getting baptized Sunday night!

New Faces on the Soul Winning Trail

Last couple of Thursday nights we have had some new faces on the soul winning trail. This is a picture of Saw who has come out the last two weeks. He was Bro. Jonathan's partner this past. We had 26 soul winners out this past Thursday night too. I love the diversity we are starting to get in our soul winners. Saw helped Bro. Jonathan led two folks to Lord who are from Burma that did not speak any English. Saw translated into Burmese for Bro. Jonathan. This gives brand new soul winners an opportunity to be used right away in witnessing. Saw was very excited and said that was the first time he had ever translated anything for anyone before.

We have soul winners out every Thursday now that can speak these languages in addition to English; Spanish (we have several excellent soul winners that can speak this), Swahili, Burmese, Karen, and Malaysian. Our city here is very diverse, which requires a very diverse church to help reach it. God is blessing our efforts and our church because of it. By the way, we also had 30 saved this past Thursday. Praise God!

Since our revival, I have been preaching a series on Sunday nights from the book of Nehemiah. It is becoming a great blessing to help create the mindset I am looking for in our church. A mindset of building and rebuilding the work of God. We will continue to push onward and forward in building a wall for God and fighting the enemy while we work. Somebody say, Amen!

In Thirteen Years...

We not only finished up our revival this past Sunday, but we also celebrated our 13th anniversary as a church. God had blessed our revival by allowing us to have 27 saved this past week. We also baptized Nubia, which was exactly what we have done for thirteen years now. Reach people!

In thirteen years we averaged 106 in Sunday school. In thirteen years we have averaged 16 soul winners every Thursday night for church-wide soul winning. In thirteen years we have also averaged 24 soul saved every week for a total of 16,555 souls saved. In thirteen years we have averaged 3 public professions of faith being made each week for a total of 2007 walking the aisle and professing Christ as their Saviour. In thirteen years we have averaged 2 converts following the Lord in believer's baptism for a total of 1097. God has been good to us in thirteen years!  

Ta Blu Dòh Mä

Ta Blu Dòh Mä which means "thank you very much" in the Karen language. My wife and I recently took a trip celebrating our 25th year wedding anniversary. Of course we go soul winning every week of the world by a solid conviction that God wants all of his people to be soul winners. 

During our trip we passed through the town of Nacogdoches, Texas and while driving down the street we saw a vehicle with a Karen flag hanging from the review mirror. (We have a Karen community of about 1,500 to 2,000 people living in the neighborhoods close to our church in Lincoln, so we are very familiar with these people.) I decided to follow that vehicle to an apartment complex and discovered that there is a community of about 200 of these people living in Nacogdoches, Texas. We were able to converse with some of them and win several to Christ. 
 
I told my wife it felt like being back home for a little bit. I love winning any kind of people to Christ, but I must admit I have a soft spot for working with the Karen since I deal with them so much in our own ministry. It was amazing to be able to find some in an area of the country where I wouldn't have imagined there would be any. I thank the Lord for allowing us to feel like we were at home when we were away!

A good soul winning week

This past weekend was a good one. God allowed me to lead 13 people to Christ total. One of my converts on Saturday was Chuol who is from Vietnam. I asked him if my wife could take a picture of us together. He spoke very good English and was glad to have the picture with me. We thought it would be a good one, since I am so tall and he was so short. He was very happy to have trust Christ as his Saviour.

Then Moo Doh was a return visitor to church on Sunday. I had won him to Christ a couple of Thursday nights ago and he has come two weeks in a row. He made a public profession this past Sunday and I am going to be teaching him in the near future about following the Lord in baptism. Of course we believe in baptism being immediate, but sometimes when we deal with people from other countries we have to take a little more time to explain.

My wife won Julia to Christ this past Thursday night and she came and followed the Lord in believer's baptism this Sunday. She had recently moved to town to the western part of the state. Something interesting happened on Sunday morning when she first came. She checked her kids into the nursery and discovered one of our nursery workers was a relative of hers that she had not seen for many years. God works in wonderful and mysterious ways sometimes. Somebody say, Amen!

Good Week After the Campaign

The month of April came to a close and we finished up our campaign called, "Christ is Our Victory." It was a good campaign having 163 saved during it. I enjoyed the theme of the campaign probably as much as anything.

However, this Sunday was the week following the campaign which is usually a down week. Adding to that fact was the city of Lincoln marathon that takes place the first Sunday of May every year. The marathon makes travel to our church very difficult as we are boxed in by the route that they use. It has over 12,000 runners in it, which adds to the difficulty of the travel.

We prayed hard and God blessed our services anyway with several visitors and a few return visitors from the campaign. We had two make public professions of faith and follow the Lord in believer's baptism today as well. One of those is Jack Diaz pictured in the white shirt with myself and his brother Edward who is a member of our church. I preached this morning on "Christ is Touchable" and Jack fell under conviction. I praise God for Jack coming to Christ and then getting baptized!