A Turn for the Worse, The Value of a Soul & Another Milestone

As I write this journal entry, my heart and prayers are continually going up Terry who has been in bed for three days now, unable to eat and in a significant amount of pain.  I ask you to join me in prayer for this faithful servant of God who has sacrificed greatly for the cause of Christ.   Our Churches here are praying for her as well.   We celebrated her birthday on Monday of this last week and after visiting a new village she took a turn for the worse during the later part of the week.
 
We have followed our normal routine of self evaluation and self medicating when we regularly experience bacterial infections of various types, she had not responded well to the meds so we will head to a clinic in the morning for testing and treatment.  Since our attempts have not produced results she could possible have something else like Malaria from sleeping out in the interior, we just don’t know at this point.  Remember there is no emergency room here but we do have a Western trained Doctor in Eldoret and we do know and work for the great Physician.   This brings me to my next thought, and that is the value of a soul.    As Terry lies suffering from whatever she has contracted while doing evangelism,
                                        Landmark Baptist Mayanja Evangelism Team
                                                                                             Prayers at the new village of Chenjeni

 God continually reminds me of the value of a soul.   In Terry’s case, she and her group of servants led ten people to Christ this week before she fell sick.    The Bible says that God would have spared an entire city if Abraham would have been able to find ten righteous souls and of course we know that there is great joy in heaven over one sinner that comes to repentance.  Luke 15:7  I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.   God help us to remain conscious of the fact that we will give an account for every idle word, deed and thought and help us to continue to set our affections on the things above.    To that end, this week we had the blessed opportunity to meet with the Landmark Baptist Church of Mayanja which is located at the base of Mt. Elgon for village evangelism.
The Church invited Terry and I to participate in what is now the third neighboring village they have reached for Christ.   They have been sending their Associate Pastor Moses to the village of Chenjeni over the last year and have now established a weekly preaching point for these new converts.   We had a great day going hut to hut (Acts 20:20) evangelism and saw forty people bow their heads and receive Christ by faith.

The Testament pattern for Church planting being repeated again and again here in Kenya and Uganda.   Our cups are overflowing to see people that love God enough to obey his commandments and love their neighbors enough to teach them the Word of God.    The book of Hebrews says that the world is not worthy of such, but praise be to God he is raising up servants and sending them out.   For our part, we remember the struggles, the barriers and challenges starting in 2009 searching and seeking God’s will to find the village of Mayanja, a village ripe and ready with people who would received Christ.   It is hard to convey the joy of seeing our early converts follow Jesus in scriptural baptism, unite and assemble themselves to keep the Lord’s commandments and then see Men of God called and sent out is more than we deserve.   In addition to village evangelism we delivered and assembled the pews for the newly completed sanctuary.   The entire Church family pitched in for assembly and they were very excited to receive this new blessing.

As we reach the milestone of the new pews, which signifies the completion of our joint building efforts, many of the Churches are giving their old pews to the new outreaches.    These are the growth lessons they have learned for they know where much is given, much is required and that it is better to give than to receive.  The unity and continuity of the work the Lord has allowed Terry and I to be a part of is a beautiful thing. Thank you for allowing us to share our journey of faith and please remember my dear wife this week in prayer.

God Bless,

Chuck & Terry Fernandez
Kenya