Hi y’all hope everyone is doing well. I am super excited to be writing this update this week. The past few days have been full of God’s blessing and grace and we have seen some wonderful fruits for the Kingdom. Ministry and evangelism can be tough at times as we are planting and watering seeds but often go through periods were we are not seeing the harvest. Well this week that was not the case, this week was all about the harvest and I am so grateful and thankful that the grace of God allowed us to see His harvest with our own eyes. He has been working in the hearts and minds of the kids big time and He so generously provided us the opportunity to partake in His divine plan this week. So I will jump right into it, this week I will be providing an update of all that took place this last week. I will try to keep it concise and to the point but if you have any questions feel free to comment them below and I will do my best to respond to them as soon as possible.
Monday – To start the week we are always in the capitol of Manzini to grocery shop and to get WiFi for posting blogs etc. This is also a time for us to ATL or “ask the Lord” and this past weeke we went to a public park to do some prayer and worship there. In the time that we were there we got to share the gospel with many people in the park and pray over them. One of the women on our team even led a teenage girl to giving her life to Christ and was able to get her a bible as well. This was the first person who gave their life to Christ since we have been on the field and it was an awesome gift from God to experience our team being used to advance the kingdom.
Tuesday – We were back at the care point on Tuesday spending time with the kids and preparing food for them. This week I had to the chance to teach the older kids (12+ year olds) about what repentance is and how when we live our lives for Christ we should desire to repent and change our ways. That walking with the Lord and desiring a relationship is something that should produce change in our lives and that when we we partner with Him He is faithful to help us change and move away from our former life of sin. The kids really enjoyed this message and were excited to hear it. They teach the OT here quite a bit because it focuses so much on Kingdoms and authority and being a Kingdom nation it seems to resonate with the people here and helps the King establish his authority over the people and remind them of what it means to be apart of a kingdom. This is great and all but the best part of the Bible is the new covenant and our freedom from the authority of the Law with which all are found unrighteous and unable to obtain salvation. So the kids were very open to hearing about the new covenant and what a life with Christ looks like.
Wednesday – On Wednesday we were back at the care point again and on this day my team mate Noah was able to share with the kids a message about what it means to be baptized and to give your life to Christ. Once again the kids were very excited to hear this message and many of them wanted to participate in getting baptized, what a blessing! We asked the kids if they were interested in getting baptized to share this desire with us and then to go home and talk to their parents about being baptized and receive their approval to do so. We had quite a few kids say they were interested and desired to be baptized and born again into the body of Christ. This was super exciting and we had been hoping that this would be the case so we had bought an inflatable pool over the weekend in hopes that we would get to help steward this.
Thursday – Thursday was a holiday, ascension day where the country of eSwatini celebrates Jesus rising from the dead and ascending back into Heaven so we had the day off from ministry. Our ministry host’s husband wanted to take us fishing so we spent the day relaxing by a pond and fishing I caught a personal record sized bass. All in all a great day but nothing compared to what was going to take place on Friday.
Friday – Finally the day had come where we were planning and hoping to be able to do some baptisms for the kids who had heard what following Jesus was all about and were fully on board with making that commitment. We assembled the local pastor, the leader of the care point and elder women who served at the care point and asked them to facilitate the process and exercise their spiritual authority in these kids life. After we leave it is that group of people who are going to be discipling and helping these kids grow in their faith so we wanted them to be apart of the process and have the experience of baptizing new believers into the body of Christ as several and never done so. We were able to come along side them and support them as they baptized 16 kids on this day, 9 young women and 7 young men. What a marvelous day and gift from God that we got to participate in this and be used as His vessels to help fulfill the harvest. It was a great day full of empowering these young kids and helping usher them into their new identity in following Christ. It was also a huge encouragement to the local pastor and leaders of the care point. Several of them had never baptized anyone before and it was cool to watch them take action and participate in this. The pastor was especially and encourage by the time and gave me one of the greatest compliments I have received in my life, he said “you guys are actually doing the Bible”. This was very cool to hear as that is our aim in being on this trip, to not only be knowers and followers of the Bible but to be doers of the it as well.
I want to especially say thank you to everyone who has helped me get to this point in my faith journey and on this trip. Wether you supported me financially, spiritually, through mentorship, in prayer or any other way that you can think of, I want you to know that you too were a part of bringing these kids to follow Jesus. All glory belongs to the Father who has been working in their hearts and minds, but as far as me getting to be here and be involved in HIs work you all are to thank. None of this experience for me would have been possible without your constant support and efforts to help me be where I am today. I am eternally grateful for the wonderful community that God has blessed me with and I want you all to know that just as much as me or anyone else here YOU were responsible for making this happen. Thank you for being apart of the body and answering the call that God put on your heart to help spread His kingdom to the world. We are all one body working towards a common goal and this week, together, we all accomplished this goal. I am certain we will see more fruit as we move forward in our journey and I can not wait to share with you all the impact you are having for the Kingdom of God. To God be the glory forever and ever!!
