Informal Bible Studies in Full Swing
October 10, 2022
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Judy and I hope this finds you enjoying blessings from the Lord. We are very grateful for what He has done in and around us this month. When the school year begins, our regular activities increase. There are seven regularly scheduled Bible studies that take place apart from regular church services. I lead only four of these. Three of these Bible studies began recently. Judy has children’s Bible classes in the city of Campagne sur Arize while the adult study takes place. Meetings in this city began just a few months ago.
Many of you are aware that Bible studies have been a major tool in our ministry here. I was motivated to use this approach years ago through the reference to Paul doing so in the Book of Acts. The Bible studies are informal, but the goal is for people to see from the Holy Scriptures what God says. This is how most of the disciples here have come to Christ. After they trust Christ, they continue to grow as they continue to read, examine and follow His revelation in the inspired written word.
A new Bible study began last Thursday evening in the city of L’Union. We have prayed for an opportunity to start a Bible study in this city for a long time. There were 8 people at the first meeting. Most of the folks have little or no familiarity with the Bible. Besides Judy and me, one or two of the participants profess to be believers. Three of the participants are originally from Iran. Your prayers for these meetings are greatly appreciated. The couple who hosts these meetings in their home are not members of our (or any) church. The lady made a profession of faith as a child and her husband has Muslim origins but makes no profession of faith.
We are also thankful for the blessings of God displayed in the regular church and youth meetings.
God answers prayer. I will close with an interesting answer to prayer shared by a family in our assembly 2 or 3 weeks ago. They and the church along with them have been praying that God would enable them to become acquainted with people from the neighborhood into which they recently moved. Their desire is to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with their neighbors. This summer has been extremely hot and dry. Grass and many plants have died. A fire started in a yard of the neighborhood and through underground dead roots spread into several yards. Neighbors from many homes came out to fight the fires and the Veuillets from our church got to meet many of their neighbors!
Your fellow laborers,
John and Judy
Contact Info:
John & Judy Hatcher
4, rue d’Aspin
31170 Tournefeuille, France
JMHatcher@aol.com
Present USA phone 1-812-416-1033
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
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Ministering to Children at URBC
November 10, 2021
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,
I am super excited about what I will report to you this month. That is because it is all about the ministry at the Chapel and because unlike most of my monthly newsletters it will be entirely positive in nature.
Last month I reported that after a hiatus from worshiping at the Upper Room Baptist Chapel because of Covid restrictions, and because of a short visit I made to the US, we would resume our worshiping and serving at the Chapel. Rebooting, or re-kickstarting might be a better word to describe it though, considering the drop-off we had with the hiatus. But, reboot we have. And things are going well. We obviously still have many challenges facing us as I mentioned in last month’s newsletter. Those challenges will probably never go away. For example, I am still throwing around the idea of implementing an “offering” box so that people can make offerings if the Spirit so leads them. These offerings would entirely be used for charity and goodwill for the impoverished and needy in our community. Offerings are something the people at the Chapel have suggested they need to be doing, but offerings in this culture are so fraught with problems and difficulties that I am really, really torn over implementing it at all. But this is not a newsletter about problems.
One of the things we have implemented with the rebooting of the Chapel is the beginning of a children’s worship / Bible hour. I use the term “we” loosely because although it has been something I have been thinking about and planning for, it has really been started, implemented, and gotten working almost entirely through Julie’s efforts. This was obviously something I could not accomplish on my own as the class meets at the same time as my preaching/teaching time with the adults. So, seeing the great need for a children’s worship hour and seeing the benefits of such a ministry, Julie has made the herculean efforts to get it going. She found a great curriculum that focuses on the truth of the Bible and how that truth points us to God and His Son, to loving God and His Son, and following that truth. After we sing together as a congregation, Julie takes the children to our spare room at the Chapel and teaches them the Bible, teaches them Bible songs, reinforces the lessons with activities, and basically tries to bring these beloved Kenyan children to the feet of our beloved Jesus. And it is working. The children are responding well, and from what I can see love their time in the children’s worship / Bible hour.
You already know the benefits of this ministry, but I would still like to point out just two:
1. Our beloved Kenyan children need to know Jesus, to love Jesus, and to follow Jesus as their Savior and King. This teaching is hard for them to get during the regular worship time / preaching time. Their own worship / Bible time is much more suited to helping them know how the Bible points them to Jesus.
2. Having this children’s ministry will tremendously help the overall ministry of the Chapel. It gives the possibility to families with small children to attend and will help everybody to be active listeners and to actively participate in our worship services. I say this because the culture here is such that children can wander freely and unsupervised during the services (I still remember so vividly one of the first church services I ever attended in Kenya when one little guy was wandering around unattended, walked in circles around the pastor while he was preaching and finally ended up in a corner at the front of the church auditorium where he dropped his trousers and relieved himself on the floor. Nobody did a thing or moved a muscle the whole time to stop him or to clean up after him.)
Want to know how you can pray for this new part of our ministry? You can pray for the beloved children who have been attending: Faith, Esther, Isaiah, Chloe, Una and Emma.
Blessings to you all,
Roger, Julie, and Chloe
CONTACT INFO
Roger & Julie Tate
P.O. Box 96
Kitale, Kenya 30200
rojuta@gmail.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
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