Dear Prayer Partners,
Attached is our most recent prayer letter, there is much to rejoice over but also much to pray about. We are headed out for the first of 4 weekends in a row for evangelism so pray for safety and souls.
God Bless each of you as you bless us
Bob & Meredith
Dear Prayer Partners,
With the rainy season coming to a close our evangelism efforts to the rural areas of Nigeria are starting up again. This weekend there will be 3 teams headed out to villages in Southern Kaduna. Our traditional efforts are headed to Kurmin Ruwa & Katung Dashi. The third team is headed to Kabene and the Surubru People, we have some community health workers going with us to add a medical dimension to this outreach. The third team which I am with was the vision of a fellow church member, Sarah Mavaria and it is her village we are going to. Although these trips are one of my favorite parts of the ministry here in Nigeria there is much to pray about, and can be physically draining.
· Travel mercies in dealing with bad roads, indiscriminate checkpoints and reckless drivers.
· Vehicles and equipment to function as we hope and expect them to.
· Openness & interest to the Gospel in the communities we are headed to.
· The Holy Spirits work in the hearts of those we minister to.
· Follow up of the new believers through local missionaries & pastors along with our efforts.
· Family members we all leave behind, and personal safety for everyone.
· Specifically pray for Meredith to enjoy the quite weekend home alone.
· A true ending to the Boko Haram crisis that has turned Nigeria into a very different place
When I get home Sunday I am headed right into a week of camp training for over 50 nationals, with the hope of them running camps in their various States.
Thank you so much for you prayers and support , Bob & Meredith DeVoe
Dear Prayer Partners,
Just a quick note to let everyone know the 3 of us, Meredith, myself & Stephen are home in Nigeria. We arrived at the Liberian airport by 3pm Friday, had to spend the night in the airport At Ghana having a number of problems with immigration and our original airline. We left Ghana over 2 hours late, landed in Abuja and drove to Jos reaching home around 5pm. It was a difficult experience but we are thankful for your prayers and for the Lord allowing us to finally reach home.
Bob
Dear Prayer Partners,
We want to thank the many of you who have been praying for us and ask that you continue to pray. Lord willing we leave Liberia this evening at 6:30 pm for Accra Ghana & tomorrow morning we leave Accra at 6:30 am for Abuja Nigeria, from there it’s about four hours drive to our home in Jos.
I would also ask that you pray for the two Americans who continue their battle to fight off the deadly Ebola virus in Monrovia, Liberia. Dr. Kent Brantly and Mrs. Nancy Writebol, who serve on a joint team of people with Samaritan’s Purse and SIM. Each is receiving around-the-clock medical care. Pray for peace of mind and strength of spirit for these two individuals and their families. Pray that their treatment will be effective in arresting the disease and protection for all staff continuing to treat those suffering from Ebola. Pray for the many other patients that are also fighting for their lives in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Pray that all of West Africa takes the necessary and proper precautions to prevent the spread of Ebola.
We will be sure to let you all know once we reach home.
Meredith, Bob & Stephen Bahago.
We thank God and the many of you that have been praying for us, along with the outpouring of encouragement and concern for us. The Lord allowed us to get funds first thing this morning from a bank near the airport and we headed straight into the city of Monrovia. Although it took us all day we were able to get tickets for the 3 of us to travel together. The earliest it could be worked out is for us to leave on Friday evening on Kenya Air to Accra, Ghana; From there our original airline, Arik, was able to reroute our original tickets getting us back to Abuja, Nigeria, on Saturday. (Arik staff thought it would be at least 2 weeks before they resumed operations.)
Although there were many people moving about in the city, there were some noticeable changes. Outside of almost every shop or business place there was a large container of a mild solution of chlorine water with a spigot and everyone was expected to wash their hands before entering. There was also an effort by most people to not touch one another.
Please continue to pray for the many people that are already infected with Ebola and those that are providing them care (especially for two missionary health workers from the US, in Liberia that are currently ill). Pray also that all the necessary measures are put in place and carried through to contain this deadly epidemic. Keep Nigeria in your prayers as well as there have been a number of Boko Haram attacks in the last several days.
Thank you again to the many of you that have prayed for us and to the Lord for bringing us this far.
Bob & Meredith DeVoe
Dear Prayer Partners
As I had mentioned in our last Prayer letter we were headed to Liberia to help get Bible Clubs established there. 4 days of intense training for leaders, visits to 8 different churches to get the Clubs going and hundreds of Liberian kids that we had a chance to have fun with and hopefully have an impact on their lives through the Word of God and their leaders. The first photo is Peter, who said the training was so good he was going to “make it part of his DNA”. The second is Esther who has been working with kids for a number of years and has found nothing like what we offer in training and materials. She said Liberia desperately needs Word of Life. The last is of Meredith leading the kids in some fun music at one of the churches we were in. With such a successful trip; having 8 Bible Clubs on ground and a Liberian clubs coordinator in place it is easy to say the Lord has answered prayer.
However I need to ask for more. This morning as Stephen Bahago, Meredith and I went to the airport to return to Nigeria, we learned that the airline we used to get here has canceled all of their flights in and out of Liberia until further notice because of the Ebola outbreak. Word of Life has made funds available to use to try and get other tickets and to make sure our physical needs are met as well as mobilizing prayer warriors. The specific things we would ask from you is to PRAY:
· The funds sent by WOL would be available in the morning
· We can get tickets on another airline
· We make careful and wise decisions in whatever we do
· We have been careful to avoid the areas where the outbreak is prevalent & need to continue using great care in everyone we come in contact with at this point.
· Try to learn what we may encounter upon arrival in Lagos Nigeria, concerning testing and quarantine before we leave Liberia, hoping to avoid a worse situation.
· Most of all pray for the people of Liberia to accept the reality of Ebola and take all the necessary precautions to stop its spread.
Greetings from Nigeria,
We hope this finds you well and that our Lord brings encouragement to your hearts by all that He is doing.
Part of His Workmanship
Bob
Dear Prayer Partners
With the escalating attacks of Boko Haram, the 200 plus school girls still missing, and the twin blasts that hit the city of Jos yesterday; many are concerned about our safety and that of our staff. We all are doing well and have once again redoubled our efforts toward security.
However, we are not letting this bring things to a halt. We have been incredibly busy with evangelism and follow up as well as club trainings and producing needed materials along with the numerous details that are involved with camps. Just today we delivered 334 Quiet Times to the national missionary school here in Jos. The kids were delighted to receive a new book of their own and were eager to dig into the spiritual activities inside. Tomorrow I am headed to the village of Ngras (near Shendam in Plateau State) that we did evangelism in and are following up with the physical need of a water well, alongside the spiritual needs of the community. Then on Friday through Sunday I will be in Saminaka, Eastern Kaduna, working with a chaplain on the Police barracks to start Bible Clubs for the children. I will also be able to visit the bush church in Mabango that we have been involved with to see of their spiritual growth and learn if they have been able to finish the church building that we helped with.
Meredith will begin summer break starting this Friday and is considering the possibilities of helping some of the local schools with workshops for the teachers.
Please continue to pray that we make wise decisions with all of our movement and that we remain focused on things of eternal value not the temporal troubles and trials of this world.
Part of His workmanship Rev. Bob
The picture below is some of the kids receiving Quiet times
Dear Prayer Partners,
As always, way more going on than I can even begin to tell about, but hope to get a good summary done next week of our first 3 months back home in Nigeria. Next week in addition to my normal activities I will be kicking off new Bible Clubs for the children of indigenous missionaries, they now have 4 boarding schools around the country (since many of the remote villages where they serve do not have schools). We have been working with the one here in Jos over the last few years, providing daily devotional materials; but they have asked if we had more that would help the children grow spiritually, for which Word of Life Bible Clubs is the perfect tool.
We are headed out to southern Plateau today for Evangelism in two villages, Kopdashe & Ngras. This is very close to where we were in the beginning of the month and have to return to this area as the place we had hoped to go is experiencing problems. The 1st picture attached is just one of the groups of children that came for counseling last month (notice the roof is covered with drying ginger), the 2nd is at night during the salvation message with many accepting Christ. It is always an incredible blessing to spend time in these villages.
Meredith was on break this last week and was able to travel with me to Kaduna for some speaking engagements. It was very hot, but Meredith & I enjoyed the ministry opportunities. She will be staying home this weekend as she will be traveling with me again next weekend. I am so blessed to have such a wife that that endures so much for the sake of the ministry.
Pray for the vans and equipment to not disappoint us, safety and trouble free travel and that many will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Pray for Meredith as well as she will remain behind.
Part of His Workmanship
Bob
Dear Prayer Partners,
It has been an incredible busy first month back in Nigeria, but full of blessings. Today we are headed to Southern Kaduna for an evangelism weekend. The villages are Kanam & Kurdam and both have issues caused by tribalism and alcohol. As always please pray for safety and wisdom for the teams as we move about, that the buses and equipment do not disappoint and that the Holy Spirit will remove the blindness in the minds of the many that we will minister to.
No doubt some of you have heard of the recent Boko Haram troubles in the North and yesterday it came closer to home. Wasa local government (about 2 hours from where we live) an area that we did evangelism in last year was attacked with a number of individuals killed and 10 homes burnt. Please pray for tension and retaliation between tribal groups to end, the efforts of the police and military to bring an end to Boko Haram and that all Nigerians would learn to love one another as God has loved us.
Part of His Workmanship
Bob DeVoe
Dear Prayer Partners
For the past 3 days Stephen Bahago, Sam Dodo and myself have been working on goals, plans, budgeting, job description and performance standards for the Bible Clubs here in Nigeria. Our desire is to see this aspect of Word of Life Nigeria glorify God through growth that is not just numbers but truly changed lives that will have lasting impact. It has always been easy to share the incredible numbers that hear the Gospel through our drama team and evangelism weekends and the almost inconceivable numbers that trust Christ on a yearly basis. However it has always been much more difficult to convey the discipleship aspects of the work here, which we hope to change.
I mentioned that we did some teaching about evangelism and spent time in prayer last week with our volunteers, and Stephen continued that direction during our outing, bringing the volunteers together on Saturday to discuss the topic of responsibility. We enjoyed immediate results from this when it came to meal preparation, clean up and packing up on Sunday.
We were actually in 3 villages over the weekend, Lufom, Nyemdung and Yilpia with almost 1200 hearing the Gospel and 230 making decisions to trust Christ. Prayers for the Holy Spirit to work in lives and for the vehicles and equipment to not disappoint us were definitely answered. However, one team had to leave before they were really finished because the Maiangwa (chief) created a problem. Although the chief claimed to be a Christian, most of our team agreed that he wanted to go back to traditional beliefs and make the community follow.
The Drama team went out on Monday and have had some small difficulties with vehicles and sickness so please pray for them. Please also pray for wisdom for me as I work on my calendar for the next 6 months and as I finish preparing to speak this coming Sunday. To close on a positive note, Meredith is felling much better and enjoying teaching 3rd grade.
Part of His Workmanship
Bob DeVoe
Dear Prayer Partners,
We arrived back in Nigeria a little over a week ago with all of our luggage and an uneventful trip up to Jos the next day. We have been very busy with many of our friend’s and neighbors visiting, repairs and trying to get our home back into full operation after 6 months of absence. Meredith started teaching 3rd grade on Wednesday and I was privileged to provide some evangelism training for over 30 volunteers that will be going on Evangelism this very weekend. We are headed to the villages of Lufom & Nyemdung today by 2pm and will return on Sunday afternoon.
Please pray for the following: Meredith is struggling with stomach problems, equipment and vehicles to not disappoint us this weekend and that the Holy Spirit will work in the lives of many of the people that we have the opportunity to share with this weekend.
Part of His Workmanship
Bob
