Great News from the Field

This morning I received and email update from a dear friend serving in a militantly Muslim region of the world. I would like to share this with you to encourage you about what is going on around the world with our IMB missionaries and also ask you to remember them in your prayers. It is so easy to localize our prayers and requests with the world which we know, but there are incredible realities and requests that exist outside our zip code that we would be negligent to dismiss. I hope you are as encouraged by this report as I am. :) Friends, We can report to you some wonderful things that happened over the last month. For some time we have had you praying for the wife an electrician who had accepted Christ at the beginning of this year. He was baptized in Febuary. We had shared several times with his wife, without much progress. He also had been talking with her. Last week we took several members of a volunteer team to their house, and were able to lead his wife to Christ. There were three other ladies there who also believed, and say they are ready for baptism. This electrican is really on fire. As of yesterday he had led two other men in his neighborhood to faith, and I helped him baptize those two in the morning. That is the picture you see attached. Last night he came to my house and told me that he had led another man to Christ. In the book of Timothy, Paul urged his son in the faith to "lay hold of eternal life," ie, make it your own. That is exactly what has happened in the electrician's life. We basically have a church in the little area in which he lives. I just need to help them understand what a church is about, and what a body does. We have often reported to you of people coming to faith, but it has been more scattered and less organized. It is so rewarding to see people own the gospel for themselves, and run with it. So pray for us in our training them now. We need lots of wisdom. Don't think as you read this report that these people were accidentally saved. You all have been praying for this situation for some time. Thank you so much for your prayers. Shifting gears to another area we work in - Probably lots of you have, at some time in your life, either cut some wood, or seen someone do it. Sometimes, when you have a really large or strong piece of log you cannot cut it with only your axe. You have to take a wedge and use a sledge hammer to start the split in the wood. Last week we hosted a group of folks from the US. We went to a remote area that God has placed upon my heart, and shared with lots of the village leaders. We had three men and women believe in Jesus, and several more who seemed to be close. We will hopefully begin baptizing these within a week or two. One of the exciting things is that the majority of these people are influential in their villages. Pray for the gospel take root and spread in this area. Please rejoice with us for this wedge that has been driven in the community. Ask God to make the believers faithful witnesses in their homes, and areas. Ask him to form churches in these places so that the new believers will have the friends and support they need. It is an exciting time. Pray for us as we follow up on these things. May the Lord Jesus be famous in this place. Until He Comes, M (name removed) Let us lift our brothers and sisters up before the Lord in our prayers. Indeed, the Lord of the Harvest is drawing many to himself and using such prayers to accomplish His purposes throughout the earth!