A Word from Pastor (Papa) George
USA– The love of Jesus expressed to a child, Oct 7, 2019
“Lord Jesus, we love our children so much and we know the consequence of them choosing the things of the world over an eternal relationship with You. We know Your heart is to give each person, even our children, their own choice when they become of an age to make that decision of their own free will. We also know we have an obligation to them and we bear the responsibility to give them Godly instruction and examples. Please give us the wisdom to speak words that will let them know that we will love them through their journey of life always hoping and praying they will respond to Your faithful knocking on the door of their hearts. That they may hear Your voice, open the door and let You come in. In Jesus Name we pray and believe, Amen.”
God’s Word commands us to: “Fathers, do not exasperate (frustrate) your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4)
Obviously, we know that is our part, but it doesn’t take away their freewill to receive or reject our efforts.
God’s Word also commands us to: “Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” (Colossians 3:21)
We recently attended a ProLife gathering and a young woman shared her experiences of working with young women and couples that are faced with an unplanned pregnancy and the many issues and concerns that they struggle with in making their decision to support life. She also emphasized how important it is for them to have Godly parents that can support them during this difficult season of their life. I would like each of you, whether you are parents, grandparents or even friends to consider the suggestion that the Lord gave her and she now has shared with us.
Tell your children how you feel about sex outside of marriage and abortion.
Then you might tell them something like this:
“We hope that you choose to live according to those Godly standards, but if you find yourself not able to or pregnant, we want to let you know that we will not abandon you.”
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Africa– Burundi September testimonies, Oct 3, 2019
Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matthew 9:37-38)
Thanks to all of our co-laborers here in the west that pray and support our co-laborers in central Africa. Our co-laborers in Burundi, that included 60 youth, evangelized in 50 communes in 10 provinces in August and witnessed 3,500 new believers that were born again and 816 of them were baptized. We were blessed this morning to receive the September report from our coordinator, Pastor Evariste.
“For the first two weeks we continued the youth evangelization. We preached upcountry in 3 communes. We were 60 persons and we reached 10,000 people and 4,015 got saved and 985 got baptized. We plan in December for graduation of 45 pastors, Next year, we will start the new class in Makamba Province.
We praise God for all for all He did for us. No one got an illness.
Thank you for your prayers and support,
Pastor Habonimana Evariste
Bujumbura – Burundi”
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USA– Harvest Kids, Sept 28, 2019
After all the rain we have had, we were blessed by a sunny and calm day for our Harvest Kids gathering. Much thanks to Isaac for showing up to help George, Cathy, Linda and the kids with crushing the cans. We were praying for enough money from the Change the World donations to finish the $50 needed to meet our commitment to pay support for the teachers for the Wambuti pygmy tribe in the DRCongo and our donation to Comfort Africa that helps vulnerable children in Uganda and we were blessed to discover that again He provided for what was needed. Ironically, today is the day we actually wired the money to support the Africa ministry for the upcoming fourth quarter. In all these years, I still find it exciting to realize I can be so filled with joy when He amazingly comes through like this providing all our needs. I am amazed and happy that I still am amazed? Our teaching for the day was about friendship, with Jesus and with one another. The kids read scriptures that talked about friendship and how love is the ingredient that holds friendships together. We discussed the qualities of God’s love listed in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-6 and then the kids drew pieces of paper that listed the different attributes and they prepared skits and after the skits the adults had to guess which attribute they were acting out. Lot’s of fun. We were happy to have our neighbor, Stacy, join us for the first time and the kids welcoming her by making sure her birthday was put on the birthday board and she got her handprint of the wall. Another fine lunch prepared by Mama Linda, with a special surprise to celebrate the birthdays in September. Afterwards, everyone enjoyed coloring some pictures that Veronica picked out for us yesterday while she was at the Harvest Home. Afterwards, we visited the kangaroo farm in Arlington and then the kids helped Cathy make some zuchinni bread.
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