First Conversion in the New Nairobi Church-Plant
Next week I will feature a full article on the new Nairobi church-plant, but this story was too exciting to delay posting. Sam writes:
“In addition to the Sunday evening Bible studies that we host in our house, I have also focused my follow-up on 2 young men in the course of the week. We have one-on-one Gospel discussions as we study the book of Romans together. For the last month, I have been meeting with Duncan on Thursdays to work through Romans. Two weeks ago, as we finished Romans 3, Duncan clearly saw his need of salvation and accepted Christ as his Savior.
He was brought up in an Anglican home, and fulfilling all the church rituals made him believe that he was a Christian. Duncan is an intelligent man, an engineer by profession. He carefully weighed the Apostle Paul’s arguments in Romans 1-3, that both Gentiles and Jews (despite their privilege of having the Law) fall short of the glory of the God and are saved by Christ alone. After a long pause in thoughtful silence, Duncan confessed that he was like those Jews, thinking religious rituals would save him, and called on Christ for salvation. Please pray for Duncan (right) to grow in grace and in love for the Lord.
The other man we are engaged with is Mr. Sosi, a journalist that is also part of our Bible study group. Please pray that his heart will soon be opened to receive the Gospel in faith.” (While visiting Sam 2 weeks ago, I also had opportunity to share the Gospel with Mr. Sosi. He intellectually accepts the truths of the Gospel, but says that he does not know what is holding him back from embracing it. Sam and I urged him to obey Christ’s command to repent and believe.)
An Open Door for Bill Issa in Democratic Republic of Congo
Bill Issa, missionary pastor in Kampala, Uganda, writes:
“On September 11, I traveled to Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was in response to a ‘Macedonian call’ from a small group of people who are growing more interested in biblical doctrine. They are members of a confused Charismatic church led by a so-called ‘prophetess.’ One of them visited our church while in Kampala and found that we are more biblical than they, so he went back to his country and described our faith to his friends. These poor people were already tired with the disorder of their ‘prophetic’ church.”
(While I was with Bill last week, he told me more of the story. A ‘prophet’ showed up at their church, claiming that God had shown him the church in a vision. After a short time there, he again claimed that in a vision God told him that he and the ‘prophetess’ should be locked in a house together to fast and pray for a month. No one should approach the house, and their joint fasting and prayer would bring a mighty miracle from God. When the month was up, they emerged from the house. Within a couple of months, it was obvious that the ‘prophetess’ was pregnant. When her husband rightly complained, she told him that while she was fasting God showed her that he was not her true husband. She and the ‘prophet’ left to start a new ‘church.’ I wish I could say such stories are rare, but sadly, they are all too common in the chaos that is called ‘church’ in Africa.)
“Just like in Acts 2:37, these people wrote to me asking, ‘what shall we do?’ That’s when our church decided that I should go see the situation on the ground and spy out the land for possibilities of planting a biblical church there in the future. The spiritual situation in DRC is, well, alarming! People are lost! I spent a few days taking them through various biblical doctrines and answering so many questions, but they need so much more teaching. Please pray that the Lord would guide us in the next steps with these spiritually needy people.”
(At the same time that Bill was visiting northeastern DRC, Conrad Mbewe was preaching a conference in southern DRC. Please plead to the Lord with us that He would thrust forth laborers to shine the light of the Gospel in this dark, unreached land.)
