Sierra Leone According to Ed Rothenberger

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.