October Ministry Update

“Glorifying God by working together to establish reproducing

Churches focusing on unreached peoples of the world”

Once more we give thanks to God for all that He is doing through the ministry in Suriname.  Your continual prayers and support have enabled us to keep on proclaiming the Gospel and making disciples among the Hindustani and Guyanese.  The Lord continues to give us many opportunities to disciple believers, preach, teach, coach, and evangelize.  It seems like there is so much to do and very little time to get it all done.  Thus, keep on praying that the Lord will send forth more workers to come and join us in our efforts to make disciples and establish local churches. 

October 27, marked the completion of the first training model for the Guyanese leaders.  I began to teach the leaders and their wives on Church Organization and Leadership with the purpose of helping them to establish the local churches they are shepherding.  Although it was difficult at times to get the men to come weekly because of working outside the church to supplement their salary, yet we stuck to the goal of equipping them with practical teachings on how they can work toward getting the churches established.  I plan to teach another module on Making and Multiplying Disciples in January 2012.  Pray that the Guyanese church leaders will implement what they have been taught in order to get the church organized and established.

A few weeks ago, we met a Hindustani man who professed to believe in Christ.  We visited his home a couple of time to build friendship with them.  Last week, their son had a birthday and he was disappointed that his parents did not do something special for him.  As such, we invited them in our home for a meal and we surprised him by having a birthday cake for him and the living room decorated with balloons.  The family was delighted to see that we did this for their son.  We spent time learning about each other and sharing stories about our upbringing and experiences.  It took the family about 2 hours to get to our home with the bus and we drove them back to their home. We are planning to have a Bible Study in their home on Wednesdays.  Pray that God will use this time to make disciples among this family and others in their community will be impacted with the Gospel.

Marco & Marjolein Schuurmans, who has been seconded to World Team to come and work in the jungle of Suriname, has arrived safely for their vision trip.  Thanks for praying for this couple during their successful application process.  They have been accepted to join our Suriname team to train Wayana church leaders.  The Schuurmans are here with us for about 6 weeks.  We had a good orientation time during which I was able to encourage and challenge them to stay focus on our vision and purpose of training reproducing Tribal church leaders who will be able to establish the Wayana churches to be all that God would have them to be and to do.  Roy and Margaret Lytle, veteran Wayana missionaries, and the Schuurmans have already departed to the Wayana village of Lawa where they will spend two weeks, and from there they will move on to Apetina for another two weeks.  The Schuurmans will be introduced to the Wayana people and the church leaders in both villages.  They will also be able to see some of the needs in the area of leadership and discipleship and what can be done to meet those needs.   In addition, Roy and Margaret will also spend some time teaching them  the culture and some basic Wayana language.  Upon their return to the city, we will have a time of debriefing and working on the paperwork so that the Schuurmans, upon their return to Holland, can begin the application process for their resident permit.

Pray that God will use this time to give the Schuurmans a greater vision, burden, and love for the Wayana people and the desire and determination to learn the language upon their return to the field for full-time ministry in April 2012.  Pray also that God will provide for all of their needs so that they will not be delayed in their coming to the mission field.                                   

Thank you very much for standing with us in prayer, encouragement, and giving so that we can keep on making Christ known by making disciples.