From the email archives
April and May 2012
I had a special invitation from Pastor John and his Church to preach on Good Friday. I celebrated the Good Friday with Hwange Church for three days. There was great joy singing and dancing upon the victory of our risen Lord.` We played musical instruments (keyboard) which attracted and inspired many Christians and non-Christians. We did not have musical instruments in the past years, not because we didn’t want them but we could not afford to buy them. At this Easter, a couple of people surrendered their lives to Christ and were baptized.
From the 14th to17th of April, we had a crusade at Zambezi Church. This is one of the few largest Churches in our mission with 250 members and with the two oldest pastors (Robson and Ticky) who worked with the earliest missionaries in Binga. Its membership mostly consists of elderly people. I expected a lot of inter-generational differences and a statement such as, “We have never done it that way before.” Thanks and glory be to God because He was in control of everything at this crusade. We had to balance our music-singing new choruses and old hymns. What I have noticed is that old generation likes old hymns and new generation likes choruses and dancing. We had more people in the evenings coming from the village because of musical instruments and testimonies from those who were physically healed. 23 people received spiritual healing and 30 people attended counseling. I was so shocked to hear some of the stories experienced by God’s people in their marriages and neighborhood. Counseling helped them a lot than just praying for them. This was the first crusade where I introduced counseling session. The pastors missed one full day of preaching and teaching while they were busy with the counselees. At the end of the crusade, the leadership asked me to come back and teach on church leadership. There is a lot to be done with leadership in this Church.
The Youth conference which was held on the 25th to 29th of April was one of the most inspiring and fruitful conferences. They were very energetic and enthusiastic in their singing, dancing and learning the Word of God. They had so many interesting questions on marriage and salvation. The bible quiz which was boys versus girls was fun and encouraging for them to read more about the Bible. One thing I was so impressed with the youths was their reception to the gospel. 19 youths surrendered their lives to Christ and were baptized.
The Food Deliveries to all 34 hungry Churches went well. Much thanks to God for His provision through IDES organization which kindly and generously assisted us with funds to purchase food for the brothers and sisters in Binga. The food aid had great spiritual and physical impact in our lives. We were able to work very hard in our fields hoping to have a bumper harvest; unfortunately we received very little rainfall. Also we were able to walk several kilometres to our Churches every Sunday. There was great revival in our Sunday services. The food deliveries resulted with a total of 43 baptisms and 183 new members from all the Churches.
Thank you for you continued support. God bless you. Alec.
