The Recovering Patient, The Widow Woman & Baptism Permit???

Thank you Lord, for your healing power and for all of our Brothers and Sisters in Christ who united in prayer for my dear sick wife. For those that have experienced severe food poisoning you know that not only does it make you extremely sick to your stomach but it also makes you extremely weak. We spent much of this past week allowing Terry adequate time to recover and I am happy to report that after almost five days she had enough strength to travel to Western with me again.

James 5:15 says, "And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up."
Saturday we traveled to a village called Namarambi to do evangelism with Pastor Daniel.
This is one of the four new churches that God has allowed us to work together with in order to plant a New Testament Church. We praise the Lord for the team that God has formed in order to accomplish His will of evangelism and church planting.
Each week there are as many as eighteen members of our team that come together to carry out the great commission on Mt. Elgon and Western.
It does not matter whether it is on top of Mt. Elgon, on the side or at the base, there are more than a dozen people who feel led to share the Love of Christ through the preaching of the Gospel.

And in case you are wondering, these folks are so surrendered, so burdened and so committed to being a witness for the Lord that they go even when Terry and I are not able to accompany them!

We thank God for allowing us to work together and we love them dearly.
There were a couple of visits we made in the village that were absolutely phenomenal in the sense that we knew that God sent us and God gave us a great blessing for going.

It is a given that our primary goal in weekly village evangelism is the proclaiming of the good news but there are so many other great blessings that come from caring about the souls of men and the sharing God’s Love. As with almost all of our village evangelism efforts, we were led by a local resident.
This week our guide was a young man named, George, whom I led to Christ several months ago in this same village and also baptized. This is one of the great benefits and blessing of forming strong relationships with our new converts as they want to share this great salvation with their friends, neighbors and family.
It is so reminiscent of John 1 and it is both encouraging and comforting to see faith in Christ before our very eyes just like in the days when Jesus was walking on the shores of Galilee, a faith that has been repeated throughout the centuries of time by millions of believers.
John 1:41 says "He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ."  John 1:42 "And he brought him to Jesus."

Yesterday the first house we visited was George’s older brother Ben and his wife Mary.
Neither of them had ever heard the wonderful story about the Life, the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus but both of them gladly received the word and trusted Christ as Lord and Savior.
Each opportunity to share the Word of God is special but so much more when a burdened and praying family member has brought them to Jesus.
Can someone say, Amen!
The very next visit we made was equally as precious as seeing the young couple come to Christ and form a Christian home.
We approached a rundown home with what seemed like dozens of children running around which is nothing unusual. There was an old momma wearing a ragged dress outside with a hoe in her hands weeding a small garden. After the normal cultural greetings and a small bible study with her she told us that she was a born again believer and began to pour out her heart to us with tears running down her face. She also said that she was a widow and was taking care of her grandchildren and many orphans all alone because of the death of the children’s parents.
While she was in somewhat dire straits with caring for so many without any means I could not help but to think of the widow woman in 1 Kings 17.
With all of our hearts broken we pleaded with the Lord to provide and bless this widow lady with a great blessing and measure of grace. Before we departed the widow woman said that our visit was of God and that her faith had been greatly strengthened and encouraged by our time together. She made a statement of true faith when she said that God had given her something more valuable than money this day and that is hope in the Lord.
What a great demonstration of faith.
Now before you get critical and say, why didn’t you help her, it is important that to know that we are absolute inundated and surrounded with hundreds of these types of situations on a daily basis and while our hearts go out to these folks it is impossible for us to provide assistance for all we meet. It is also important to remember that God gave her something that will last longer than a day, a week or a month of food. That being Faith, Hope and Love. As with Elijah and the widow woman, we believe that God is able to provide and bless this woman’s great faith in a way that she will know it is of God.
1Ki 17:16 says " And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Eli."

In closing, this Lord’s day we delivered children’s teaching materials for the Church at Mawe Tatu which were sent by Temple Missionary Baptist in Bald Knob, Arkansas.

These folks have been a great blessing to us and the people of Kenya. Thank you ,Pastor Clayton Hall and your dear members, for you have been a blessing to children that are so in need of teaching material.
We concluded the Lords day with a baptism service down by the river. As we prepared to leave two men who were forestry officers rode up on a motorcycle with handcuffs and automatic machine guns. I listened and prayed intently as they questioned Pastor Shadrach.

They threatened to arrest him for not having a permit to baptize in the river (no such law) but in the end they simply wanted a bribe which we did not pay.
Pastor Shadrach took the opportunity to witness to them and I explained that we were doing the Work of God. They got a little frustrated and let us go without incident.
It is just another sad example of the rampant corruption here in Kenya and also a reminder that there are forces that oppose the work of God. We ask you to please continue to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Chuck & Terry Fernandez                     Nelson Mandela

Mt. Elgon and Western Kenya