FW: DeVoe update

Dear Prayer Partners,

 

May 28^th is the last official day of school and both Meredith and Sarah are ready for a break.  Sarah’s school play “Little Women” was a lot of fun and all of the students did a great job. The costume changes that Sarah had were dramatic to say the least and thought that you might enjoy seeing what she looked like. Meredith will be helping to train teachers for an orphanage school for part of her break, and hopefully we can keep Sarah connected with her friends in and around Jos, during the school holiday.    

 

We just recently purchased a Kerosene lamp from some other missionaries that were leaving and are really enjoying  good light to read by that does not require a generator. This lamp is as bright as a 60 watt light bulb and is very easy and inexpensive to use, it  has been perfect for our devotions in the morning. Pray for wisdom for us as we are exploring alternative options to what we are currently doing for electricity.

 

 

Our last evangelism trip for the dry season went very well. The Lord answered our prayers and we only had a little sprinkling on Friday night at Rahai Fan. Saturday evening at Gashet Fan was a light show in the clouds with thunder and lightning all around us even watching the rain in the distance as it was getting dark, yet we didn’t have a drop on the village we were in. The Hausa language Christian music videos that we start off with are always a draw, and we had a lot of fun watching these children trying to keep up with the traditional  Nigerian dancers on the screen. Between the 2 villages there were over 500 people that we shared the Gospel with and 241 of them came to trust Jesus Christ.

 

 

The rains have not been as often or the length that we have known in the past, for the month of May. But today it seemed it was catch up time; getting over 4 inches of rain in less than 2 hours. The picture below is of the side yard by our front door turning into a stream that ran through our front porch.   

 

 

You may recall that I was licensed as a ECWA (Evangelical Church of West Africa) pastor about a year and a half ago, and even before we returned to Nigeria back in December the process was begun for me to be ordained. This coming  Sunday May 23, 2010 at 2 pm Peter Verkaik, 3 other Nigerian Pastors and myself will officially become ECWA Reverends. Peter & I will be the first “bature” (that is Hausa for white guy) Reverends in ECWA. It appears that the whole matter is quite significant to everyone here an many, many people have been invited including the Governor. Our Church here has done a lot of planning and we look forward to seeing many friends and enjoying the day.  

 

Thanks for your Prayers and support

The DeVoe Family

 

DeVoe update

Dear Prayer Partners,

 

May 28^th is the last official day of school and both Meredith and Sarah are ready for a break.  Sarah’s school play “Little Women” was a lot of fun and all of the students did a great job. The costume changes that Sarah had were dramatic to say the least and thought that you might enjoy seeing what she looked like. Meredith will be helping to train teachers for an orphanage school for part of her break, and hopefully we can keep Sarah connected with her friends in and around Jos, during the school holiday.    

 

We just recently purchased a Kerosene lamp from some other missionaries that were leaving and are really enjoying  good light to read by that does not require a generator. This lamp is as bright as a 60 watt light bulb and is very easy and inexpensive to use, it  has been perfect for our devotions in the morning. Pray for wisdom for us as we are exploring alternative options to what we are currently doing for electricity.

 

 

Our last evangelism trip for the dry season went very well. The Lord answered our prayers and we only had a little sprinkling on Friday night at Rahai Fan. Saturday evening at Gashet Fan was a light show in the clouds with thunder and lightning all around us even watching the rain in the distance as it was getting dark, yet we didn’t have a drop on the village we were in. The Hausa language Christian music videos that we start off with are always a draw, and we had a lot of fun watching these children trying to keep up with the traditional  Nigerian dancers on the screen. Between the 2 villages there were over 500 people that we shared the Gospel with and 241 of them came to trust Jesus Christ.

 

 

The rains have not been as often or the length that we have known in the past, for the month of May. But today it seemed it was catch up time; getting over 4 inches of rain in less than 2 hours. The picture below is of the side yard by our front door turning into a stream that ran through our front porch.   

 

 

You may recall that I was licensed as a ECWA (Evangelical Church of West Africa) pastor about a year and a half ago, and even before we returned to Nigeria back in December the process was begun for me to be ordained. This coming  Sunday May 23, 2010 at 2 pm Peter Verkaik, 3 other Nigerian Pastors and myself will officially become ECWA Reverends. Peter & I will be the first “bature” (that is Hausa for white guy) Reverends in ECWA. It appears that the whole matter is quite significant to everyone here an many, many people have been invited including the Governor. Our Church here has done a lot of planning and we look forward to seeing many friends and enjoying the day.  

 

Thanks for your Prayers and support

The DeVoe Family

 

FW: DeVoes prayer update

Dear Prayer partners,

With the trouble that continues to make international news concerning Nigeria, I thought you all needed to hear some of the good things that God has been doing that don't tend to make the headlines. We as a family are so thankful for our safety as well as that of the many individuals that are part of the Word of Life Nigeria family.

We have enjoyed sharing the Truth Project from Focus on the Family at our local church in Rayfield as the center of our Thursday night Bible Study, showing half an hour of the DVD and then breaking into small groups for discussions. We are also doing a small group at our home on Sunday evenings with plans already in the works to repeat this small home group with more of our neighbors, many of whom are not born again believers. Pray specifically for a Muslim family, the Tajany's that we had over for dinner on Tuesday, to build a relationship that will provide more opportunities to share Christ.

We are also thankful for the safety that God provides with all the traveling I continue to do. The beginning of the month I was in Minna at the ECWA National Men's conference, which gave me lots of ideas on how to come along side the National Youth Conf. that will be held next year, for the purpose of seeing "every man complete in Christ". The clubs staff and myself have held 3 different training sessions for youth workers and Sunday school teachers, 2 in Kaduna and 1 in Jos. I spoke at a Bible college in Kagoro sharing a bit of my testimony, information about world evangelism and closing with a challenge from God's Word. By far the most fun I had was helping at a 3 day Children's camp, that had over 700 children and 300 teens. I lead the Bible study hour, helped with games and activities and also showed a film one night about Gladys Aylward, a missionary in China that took 100 orphan children over 100 miles through war-torn China to safety, a real walk of faith.

Thursday is opening night of a school play that Sarah is in, "Little Women", and we are very excited about her involvement. Ryan has healed up very quickly from his knee surgery which we are thankful for and is doing very well at WOLBI. He turned 19 on the 24th and we were able to send him a cake and pizza through the WOLBI kitchen. Meredith and Sarah only have one month left of school, pray they will finish well. I am headed out on Friday for an evangelism weekend to two villages, Rahai & Tere. On the way out to these bush villages last week to do the survey, I saw so many destroyed houses and encountered a number of road blocks, even encountering a truck full of military men patrolling; so pray specifically for our safety this weekend, that the equipment would work well, that the rains would not hinder us, open hearts to the gospel and that many would come to know Jesus Christ.

[cid:image002.jpg@01CAE7C7.F9653C70] [cid:image006.jpg@01CAE7C7.F9653C70] [cid:image007.jpg@01CAE7C7.F9653C70]
Some of the many children at camp good old fashion fun Meal time

Thanks for your prayers and encouragement.
Bob DeVoe and family.