Good News from Nigeria

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

 

             

 

FW: Nigerian update

 

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 1^st 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 2^nd 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

FW: Pray for Nigeria

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

FW: Praying for Nigeria

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 3^rd grade.

Part of His Workmanship

Bob DeVoe