221 Saved and 69 Baptized in Sierra Leone

This past Sunday we held our second combined service with the two house churches, and had our highest attendance thus far. There were 178 in the worship service with 8 adults accepting Christ as Saviour. At the close of our service I had the privilege of baptizing 48 people from the two churches. One of our men expressed what all of us were feeling when he said, “Pastor, the spirit is too high this morning.” Although I did the preaching, the rest of the service was conducted by the nationals themselves. You would be so pleased with the quality of the people God has given to this ministry. We all went away thanking the Lord for meeting with us in such a wonderful way.
So far we have 221 people saved in our churches and 69 people baptized in these last eleven weeks. A young lady from the Salem Baptist Temple in Salem, Oregon, has been working with us since the eighth of April. Her goal was to establish a children’s Sunday school in both of our churches, train teachers, and mentor someone to head up the children’s ministry. She has trained five teachers, and mentored one of them to become the children’s ministry director. We had a total of sixty children last Sunday. She and my grandson, who just arrived, have been developing a college ministry program which will begin this Friday night. I have been so thankful for their dedication and commitment to this ministry.
Discipleship has been a focus in both of the churches. It has been a slow but steady process. We now have several that I have taken through the lessons and two weeks ago they themselves became disciplers. We have our discipleship classes following the Sunday morning service with over forty of our people engaged in intense Bible study. We want both of the churches to be biblically solid before we launch into the establishment of more churches in September.
I will be returning to the states in July for six weeks of deputation. I simply do not have enough monthly support coming in to sustain Diane and myself and the ministry. Bill Dougherty is helping me to fill the schedule with new churches.
Thank you for being so faithful to us. We are partners in one of the most wonderful harvest fields in the world.

Mike and Diane Peper

Bill Aven, reporter