2012 May.pdf - International Baptist Convention

News from the ChurchesOberursel, Germany• Sixty ladies and little girls drank tea,ate pretty food, and enjoyed spendingtime with one another at the Daughters ofthe King Tea Party on Saturday, 24 Marchat the International Christian Fellowship,Oberursel, Germany. The bright springday matched the mood of the party andthe bright smiles on the participants.Each table had a hostess attending tothe guests – filling tea cups or glasses oflemonade and encouraging conversationthat allowed the ladies to relate to and encouragethe little girls.Jan and Fiona Brown shared a positivemessage of what God thinks of eachof his children. Fiona opened up with afunny skit where she gave away two freename changes. In contrast, she talked seriouslyabout how the orphan children sheworked with in Malawi were given tragicnames by their birth mother: names suchas Disappointment and Wish You WereDead. She told about the joy of renamingchildren with names that had positive,hopeful messages of biblical names.Jan unpacked balloons from a backpackand grocery bags she had been carryingaround. The balloons had hateful,negative words written on them – wordsthat any of us could have heard said ofus at one time in our lives. One by one,she asked a little girl to read the negativewords and then helped her to pop the balloon.Inside the balloon was a slip of paper.“Let’s see what God’s word says ...”she said and read a wonderful truth fromthe Scripture that reflected God’s thoughtstoward each of us.Jan and Fiona also led us all in a children’ssong about being a daughter of theKing. They ended the program by singinga beautiful and moving duet.After the program, Adrienne Hannonoffered a craft project: a bookmark thatused colored threads as symbols of importantpeople and events in everyone’s life.The various colored threads were wrappedaround a red cord that represented Jesus’blood. The bookmark is a reminder that Jesusis the center of all of our lives and thatwe are made stronger through our experiences.Our lives are a part of His plan.Beate Hudson, one of the participants,commented that she came to the Ladies’and Little Girls’ Tea Party last year and hadsuch a good time the she looked forwardto this year’s. She said she really enjoyedit.•ICF Special Events TeamPortimão, Portugal• On Easter Sunday, the InternationalChristian Fellowship, Portimão, Portugal,celebrated this special day by baptizingsix people who have made a professionof faith – two from our usual church congregationand four who also come to oursoup kitchen. It was a beautiful service.Baptism is such a great picture of thedeath and resurrection of Jesus, so it wasvery meaningful for us to have this celebrationon Easter Sunday. The most touchingpart was a spontaneous time of prayerafter the baptisms where each person whohad been baptized prayed in their ownlanguage – English, Portuguese, and Slovakian,thanking the Lord for what He haddone for them. Please pray for those baptizedthat God will bless them and continueto work in their lives and work throughthem to reach others.After the baptismal service we servedlunch at the soup kitchen to approximately70-80 people. It is amazing to ushow God has blessed this ministry overthe last two years. We began with 12-14hungry mouths once per week, and nowwe are feeding up to 85 men and womenthree times per week. The economicsituation in Portugal is very bad with manynot only out of work but also sleepingin abandoned or unfinished buildings. Aswell as food, we have a supply of usedICF Portimao serves nearly 80 people at the soup kitchen on Easter Sunday.clothes which we give out to those whoneed them.On Sundays in addition to soup, sandwiches,fruit, cake, and cold drink, weshare our faith with them through Christianvideos, preaching, and Bible studies.During the showing of the Billy Grahambroadcasts in the last few months, severalhave prayed to accept the Lord andnow the first of these have been baptized.Please continue to pray for these new believers,many of whom have never reallyheard the Gospel before. Today after soup,sandwiches, fruit, and chocolate Eastereggs everyone listened intently to an Eastermessage by our friend Don. As he invitedpeople to pray to invite Jesus into theirlives, you could have heard a pin drop.Only the Lord knows how many reachedout to Him in faith, but please would youpray for them that God will work in theirlives and they will grow in their new-foundfaith. Pray for wisdom for us to know howbest to teach them.At this time when the Lord is blessingthe soup kitchen ministry so much, unfortunatelywe have to move premises, andwe would ask you to pray that God willprovide a new place for us – either free ofcharge or at a very low rent. •Joy Borgan15 | Highlights 05/2012