My Dear Supporting Friends,
I am back from Sierra Leone but many of my thoughts and much of my heart is still there. This country is truly an “open heaven” as my good friend Harold Anderson described it. The harvest there is “ripe” and missionary Mike Peper is certainly God’s man for the hour. It is difficult to believe that this much has been done and he has only been in Africa since March of this year.
I am so privileged to have spent 19 days in ministry there. Harold and I saw almost 300 professions of faith and that doesn’t count the many children who also prayed to receive Christ. Both of us preached 3 nite revivals that ended with the birthing of a new churches on the following Sundays. What a joy that was! Harold was used by the Lord to plant a new work in a suburb of Freetown called “Waterloo”. They had over 100 professions of faith there. On their first Sunday service after the revival (which Harold preached) there were 67 in attendance.
For some time now, Mike has wanted a church plant in downtown Freetown and that was my great honor to have a part in. We held the revival meeting outside and on the last nite, the crowd nearly closed off the street. We saw at least 60 adults come to know the Lord in those three nites. The following Sunday, our first church service (which I was honored to preach), we had 47 in attendance and another church was born. Right after that we had to catch a taxi and race to the airport to catch our flight home.
Mike now has seen seven churches established in his seven months in Sierra Leone. God has blessed and all of the churches but the one just established in downtown Freetown are pastored by nationals. Mike will pastor the downtown church for a short while until he can train a national to take that one. By the way, once a month all of the churches meet together for a combined meeting and that crowd will run between 500 and 700 wonderful folks (the number varies depending on the difficulty many find in getting to the central location). Our first Sunday in Sierra Leone was such a Sunday and my first experience in the country was preaching to this crowd of over 500. We had 35 adults saved that day. Wow, what a country; what a missionary, what a ministry!
In a follow-up letter to this one, I will tell you about the wonderful moving of the Lord in the Bible Institute. Twenty-seven young men (and one lady) are in preparation for ministry and what a delight to teach them in the classroom. Much more about this later.
Many of you have written to ask about needs over there. I will share just one now and more later. Mike Peper needs more monthly support and I cannot think of a better place to put your mission money that this “Open Heaven”. I am committing myself to send Mike $100 each month, beginning today. How I pray and hope that many of you will do the same. For your information, monthly checks can be sent to a missions clearing house in Houston where they will process them for Mike. Checks should be made out to “Central Missionary Clearing House” and Mike Peper’s name should not appear on the check but his name should be used in an accompanying note. The clearing house will keep a record for your income tax purposes and send you a yearly statement. The address is…
Central Missionary Clearing House
POB 219228
Houston, TX 77218-9228
Editor's note: Sierra Leone can be one of the most productive mission fields during the year 2010. I encourage you to get behind this project and let's see what God can really do.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
November Newsletter From Sierra Leone
It has been a wonderful month of blessings.
Two new churches were started, giving us a total of seven churches. The average attendance of the churches for the month of October was 574. We have had 1,097 saved since we started 7 months ago. The Friday night college ministry has averaged 48 each week with 80 students accepting Christ as Saviour.
Two of my pastor friends of 49 years came to Sierra Leone to help us launch the Bible Institute. We had 26 men and 1 young lady enroll. For two weeks they not only gave college level courses to them, but they gave them their heart and lives. What a wonderful blessing they were to this ministry. The students fully engaged themselves into the classroom lectures and studies. I am going to need to purchase 30 chairs at a cost of $15.00 a chair for the Institute.
Our container has arrived and we should be able to get it out of customs and to our newly rented home early next week. We were without electricity for three days last week so it will be wonderful to connect the new generator that is coming in the container. It is large enough to provide energy for our daughter and son-in-law upstairs and for us downstairs.
We desperately need an increase in our monthly support as this ministry moves forward. We ask you to help us cover the additional expenses if possible. Thank you for the confidence you have placed in us. May God continue to richly bless you.
In Christ, Mike & Diane Peper
Editor's note: The Rawlings Foundation has supplied finances for a place for the Peper's to work. However you can see they need additional funds to continue to do a wonderful work. Go to www.impactyouthww.com to see additional pictures of the work there.
Two new churches were started, giving us a total of seven churches. The average attendance of the churches for the month of October was 574. We have had 1,097 saved since we started 7 months ago. The Friday night college ministry has averaged 48 each week with 80 students accepting Christ as Saviour.
Two of my pastor friends of 49 years came to Sierra Leone to help us launch the Bible Institute. We had 26 men and 1 young lady enroll. For two weeks they not only gave college level courses to them, but they gave them their heart and lives. What a wonderful blessing they were to this ministry. The students fully engaged themselves into the classroom lectures and studies. I am going to need to purchase 30 chairs at a cost of $15.00 a chair for the Institute.
Our container has arrived and we should be able to get it out of customs and to our newly rented home early next week. We were without electricity for three days last week so it will be wonderful to connect the new generator that is coming in the container. It is large enough to provide energy for our daughter and son-in-law upstairs and for us downstairs.
We desperately need an increase in our monthly support as this ministry moves forward. We ask you to help us cover the additional expenses if possible. Thank you for the confidence you have placed in us. May God continue to richly bless you.
In Christ, Mike & Diane Peper
Editor's note: The Rawlings Foundation has supplied finances for a place for the Peper's to work. However you can see they need additional funds to continue to do a wonderful work. Go to www.impactyouthww.com to see additional pictures of the work there.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Newest Report and Results from the Lingo's in Colombia
Hi Bill,
We are just now getting started with the evangelistic camps, and are already seeing some amazing results! Since we are only using our own church staff and the rest are all volunteers, we can only do the camps on long weekends. In addition, the task of assimilating the ones who get saved into our churches is a major undertaking, so the follow-up becomes a much bigger task than even putting on a camp.
We call our evangelistic camps Dia Zero -- Un Evento Que Transformara Tu Vida!, which translated is Day Zero -- An Event That Will Transform Your Life! We did one in May. Here are the stats on that event:
Attendance: Campers 272
Volunteers: 162
SALVATIONS 194
We just concluded our second Day Zero on October 12th. Here are the final stats.
Campers: Girls 191 Boys 217
Total Campers: 408
Volunteers: 143
TOTAL ATTENDANCE: 551
Professions of Faith: 263
As you can tell, we are getting better at gathering information. We are also getting better at follow-up. Last Saturday we had 216 people at a Youth Rally in one church, and approximately 40 at the other church. This past Saturday, in just a normal Youth Activity, we had a total 167 kids at both churches.
We are in the process of assigning mentors to the young people who were saved.
Pray for us, this is placing a major strain on our facilities. God is going to have to provide more room soon!
We are just now getting started with the evangelistic camps, and are already seeing some amazing results! Since we are only using our own church staff and the rest are all volunteers, we can only do the camps on long weekends. In addition, the task of assimilating the ones who get saved into our churches is a major undertaking, so the follow-up becomes a much bigger task than even putting on a camp.
We call our evangelistic camps Dia Zero -- Un Evento Que Transformara Tu Vida!, which translated is Day Zero -- An Event That Will Transform Your Life! We did one in May. Here are the stats on that event:
Attendance: Campers 272
Volunteers: 162
SALVATIONS 194
We just concluded our second Day Zero on October 12th. Here are the final stats.
Campers: Girls 191 Boys 217
Total Campers: 408
Volunteers: 143
TOTAL ATTENDANCE: 551
Professions of Faith: 263
As you can tell, we are getting better at gathering information. We are also getting better at follow-up. Last Saturday we had 216 people at a Youth Rally in one church, and approximately 40 at the other church. This past Saturday, in just a normal Youth Activity, we had a total 167 kids at both churches.
We are in the process of assigning mentors to the young people who were saved.
Pray for us, this is placing a major strain on our facilities. God is going to have to provide more room soon!
Exciting News and Results in Cambodia
Dear Beloved,
God is on our side!
This past 7 days we have our Team in the city and in the province go out and did Evangelistic Campaigns in
Phnom Penh, Kampot Province, Kampong Spue, Preah Sihanouk Province and kampot province.
We were able to have 1,301 that listened and attended to the preaching. We also had the "Jesus Film" showed in 5 locations. Hundreds came and saw.
We are very happy to see 828 souls get saved and 64 souls baptized at the camp!
Thank you for your prayers.
This week we are passing out tracts during the "water festival" already we passed out 1,500 this last Sunday.
We covet your prayers for our coming Sports camp this December 10 and our Evangelsitic Christmas programs this Year end.
Thank you for your support.
Yours sincerely,
Lomer Hope dela Cruz
God is on our side!
This past 7 days we have our Team in the city and in the province go out and did Evangelistic Campaigns in
Phnom Penh, Kampot Province, Kampong Spue, Preah Sihanouk Province and kampot province.
We were able to have 1,301 that listened and attended to the preaching. We also had the "Jesus Film" showed in 5 locations. Hundreds came and saw.
We are very happy to see 828 souls get saved and 64 souls baptized at the camp!
Thank you for your prayers.
This week we are passing out tracts during the "water festival" already we passed out 1,500 this last Sunday.
We covet your prayers for our coming Sports camp this December 10 and our Evangelsitic Christmas programs this Year end.
Thank you for your support.
Yours sincerely,
Lomer Hope dela Cruz
A Marvelous Story of Redemption
Hands & Hearts ‐ Liliana’s Story
Have you ever thought that your hands can be a reflection of your heart? I mean what they do, how they look, can be affected by the storms or the peace that rules our heart.
Christ’s hands were nail scarred because His heart was full of love and compassion for the sinner. As a father, my hands can comfort and reassure a sick child or worried wife; if my heart is kind and unselfish.
When Liliana thinks of hands, immediately her memories swirl and draw her back to a dark time in her life ‐ before she met Christ and took His hand and free gift of Eternal Life.
Liliana worked in our OSY evangelistic camps during the month of June as program staff and female counselor. She was a long way from her first 25 years of life. The hands of her father and mother were bloody hands as she recalls her alcoholic father repeatedly beating her mother. He would pin her against the wall as his hands wrapped around her neck and slammed her and held her there under his force and anger. Her mother was a beaten
visage and the blood would trickle and find its way to her hands in a horrible scene that Liliana would watch. Another beating endured another brutal display of a wicked heart.
As Liliana was witness to these repeated anguishes of the heart, her heart became filled with fear. The beatings and abuse did not stay isolated on Liliana’s mother but spread to Liliana’s life and that of her siblings. Her father’s heart would be filled with such rage that he would turn on his
own children in his drunken rampages and throw them out into the streets where they were forced to survive on their own for days at a time. Liliana’s hands learned to find food from the garbage cans outside of local restaurants ‐ a desperate heart and desperately hungry hands.
At 20 years old and after experiencing continued abuse at the hands and heart of an alcoholic father, Liliana’s heart was now filled with hatred. She hated men, and her heart made a decision that no man would ever hurt her again. To find the strength to live such an isolated and guarded life her hands grabbed the same bottle that controlled her father and now without realization she began to fill her heart with the same poison. The alcohol abuse that would control her life for years to come had now begun.
With her hands wrapped tightly around the bottle and her heart numb to relationships with men, almost unnoticeably she entered the world of prostitution where her heart was telling her she was using the men for their money, they weren’t using her for the sex.
Five years into trying to escape the pain in her heart through drugs, alcohol and prostitution, Liliana became pregnant. Her heart was selfish, it was the only model she really had to follow, for her mother’s heart had been broken, but her dad’s had been to dominate.
Her selfish heart chose the drugs instead of being a good mother. The baby was born, but intervention had to be made in order for that birth to take place. Liliana would not leave the street and party life alone, so her mother would tie her to the bed and not allow her to leave until the baby was born. As soon as the baby was born Liliana returned to the streets.
Liliana continued to reach for the drugs and alcohol in an attempt to calm the storms in her heart, but it was killing her and she hated every waking moment of her life, which caused the partying to become even more intense and dangerous. After a night of partying she blacked out with a toxic combination of drugs and alcohol.
The three days of no memory that followed her blackout filled Liliana’s heart once again with fear. All she knew is that she woke up bruised, beaten and her clothes had been torn off. An empty heart, no memory of how this nightmarish image in the mirror - her image - got that way. But it was finally the break she needed. She was empty.
It was now that she sought something real - and through a friend she met Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. A friend who for years had told her there is more to life and His name is Jesus. Now she was willing to receive Christ into her heart as her personal Lord and Saviour.
Through serving at our OSY camps, we saw Liliana’s new heart, as her hands reached out to other girls that were walking down the same dangerous path of drugs, alcohol and prostitution. Liliana was gently
guiding them to the Saviour. Her smile and sparkling eyes are more proof to the change in this once dark, cold, detached heart that is today filled with the love of God.
Liliana’s message today for others like her; “There is a God who loves you very much and wants a better life for you. There is more to life - it is called God and He will help you change - allow Him to.”
This ministry is not only helping the lost, but God is using it to strengthen and heal His children. Hearts and hands once bent on evil and destruction today are reflecting and mirroring the heart and hands of the Saviour.
Please pray for our staff as we prepare for the 9inal OSY camps of 2009.
Have you ever thought that your hands can be a reflection of your heart? I mean what they do, how they look, can be affected by the storms or the peace that rules our heart.
Christ’s hands were nail scarred because His heart was full of love and compassion for the sinner. As a father, my hands can comfort and reassure a sick child or worried wife; if my heart is kind and unselfish.
When Liliana thinks of hands, immediately her memories swirl and draw her back to a dark time in her life ‐ before she met Christ and took His hand and free gift of Eternal Life.
Liliana worked in our OSY evangelistic camps during the month of June as program staff and female counselor. She was a long way from her first 25 years of life. The hands of her father and mother were bloody hands as she recalls her alcoholic father repeatedly beating her mother. He would pin her against the wall as his hands wrapped around her neck and slammed her and held her there under his force and anger. Her mother was a beaten
visage and the blood would trickle and find its way to her hands in a horrible scene that Liliana would watch. Another beating endured another brutal display of a wicked heart.
As Liliana was witness to these repeated anguishes of the heart, her heart became filled with fear. The beatings and abuse did not stay isolated on Liliana’s mother but spread to Liliana’s life and that of her siblings. Her father’s heart would be filled with such rage that he would turn on his
own children in his drunken rampages and throw them out into the streets where they were forced to survive on their own for days at a time. Liliana’s hands learned to find food from the garbage cans outside of local restaurants ‐ a desperate heart and desperately hungry hands.
At 20 years old and after experiencing continued abuse at the hands and heart of an alcoholic father, Liliana’s heart was now filled with hatred. She hated men, and her heart made a decision that no man would ever hurt her again. To find the strength to live such an isolated and guarded life her hands grabbed the same bottle that controlled her father and now without realization she began to fill her heart with the same poison. The alcohol abuse that would control her life for years to come had now begun.
With her hands wrapped tightly around the bottle and her heart numb to relationships with men, almost unnoticeably she entered the world of prostitution where her heart was telling her she was using the men for their money, they weren’t using her for the sex.
Five years into trying to escape the pain in her heart through drugs, alcohol and prostitution, Liliana became pregnant. Her heart was selfish, it was the only model she really had to follow, for her mother’s heart had been broken, but her dad’s had been to dominate.
Her selfish heart chose the drugs instead of being a good mother. The baby was born, but intervention had to be made in order for that birth to take place. Liliana would not leave the street and party life alone, so her mother would tie her to the bed and not allow her to leave until the baby was born. As soon as the baby was born Liliana returned to the streets.
Liliana continued to reach for the drugs and alcohol in an attempt to calm the storms in her heart, but it was killing her and she hated every waking moment of her life, which caused the partying to become even more intense and dangerous. After a night of partying she blacked out with a toxic combination of drugs and alcohol.
The three days of no memory that followed her blackout filled Liliana’s heart once again with fear. All she knew is that she woke up bruised, beaten and her clothes had been torn off. An empty heart, no memory of how this nightmarish image in the mirror - her image - got that way. But it was finally the break she needed. She was empty.
It was now that she sought something real - and through a friend she met Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. A friend who for years had told her there is more to life and His name is Jesus. Now she was willing to receive Christ into her heart as her personal Lord and Saviour.
Through serving at our OSY camps, we saw Liliana’s new heart, as her hands reached out to other girls that were walking down the same dangerous path of drugs, alcohol and prostitution. Liliana was gently
guiding them to the Saviour. Her smile and sparkling eyes are more proof to the change in this once dark, cold, detached heart that is today filled with the love of God.
Liliana’s message today for others like her; “There is a God who loves you very much and wants a better life for you. There is more to life - it is called God and He will help you change - allow Him to.”
This ministry is not only helping the lost, but God is using it to strengthen and heal His children. Hearts and hands once bent on evil and destruction today are reflecting and mirroring the heart and hands of the Saviour.
Please pray for our staff as we prepare for the 9inal OSY camps of 2009.
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