2 Kings 5

Now, if I can get it on my fat belly, all right? So it is so good to be back and we Rejoice that we have the opportunity to share a little bit about our our ministry with you. Now we were here or we were in America in 1999. My son Landry who's our youngest was finishing high school so we are planning to be here for 10 months but there's a very precious friend with the letter c came along. Remember that that friend Yeah. And you say why do you call the friend? Well I am reminded of what? John Wesley the great Christian of many many centuries ago said that anything that brings you closer to God is your friend and you know in some cases it has pushed people away but I'm grateful that in our ministry, covid actually was part of the thing that God used to create an incredible work that we haven't seen in a long time. And we're very excited to report on that cuz when we finally got back it was 19 months. We were going to stay 10 months. We ended up being your 19 months and we got on the plane. As soon as we could, we went back when the covid-19 virus, strong and the government's had very very strict restrictions France. We couldn't, we could go outside of our house in our yard but we couldn't walk on the streets without a mask. So you had to be out in your yard, you had to wear a mask in your yard. All right. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, but it really was difficult to do ministry. Almost almost impossible. It seemed unable to have like a Facebook live or anything like that because our people couldn't afford the data. And so we just did the very best we could with the tools we had. And then finally things were relaxed and we were able to get into the ministry and we determined that we were going to get back to some of the the basic things that started our Ministries. 31 years ago and and God greatly blessed. And our report is just a brief way to describe that. So God has allowed us to start several churches and then we are in the process of starting several others and all of them took a terrible hid under covid. But we have seen one in one Church in particular, really bounced back, which we were very weird. We are more a part of that ministry right now, but the one church at a national Pastor is leading a, it's taking a while because they haven't had a place to meet up until only recently. And so, I just pray for our work. Thank you for what you have done. God, just before about six months, before we left South Africa, we had the opportunity to buy a piece of property. In one of the areas where we are planting a church and we didn't, we had about half of what we needed to buy. The property and so I asked the man or the family I said, will you give us three more months will give you a down payment and we'll see if we can't come up with the three months. You with the three in three months to pay the rest of the money. You keep the, the down payment and he was happy with that. Will God was faithful. God was good, and he provided for those, for those monies. So, half of what we owed came in. And then the next 3 months and it came from all kinds of sources. And then there was a, there was a piece of land, right behind that piece of land that I thought it would be great to have. Nobody was living there. I found out, it was available for sale and didn't have the money for that either, but I gave did the same thing with this lady. I gave her a, a 10% deposit of what she was asking. And I said, if we don't, if we can't pay it in the next couple of months, you keep the Well, just so happen to be at church in hoosic Valley, that sent us, $1,000 that paid for that land. So we thank God for that. Yes. And it's all we thank you. So as we, I share this short video, I pray that it will be a blessing to you. You'll see the challenges we faced and how God overcame those challenges and gave us probably one of the best years of our ministry we've ever had. So may God encourage you. As you see this?

I love different covid regulations had restricted everyone to their own home. Public transport was not running and police held the roadblocks to ensure. People are only leaving their home with a valid reason, places of worship for clothes and paranoia and anxiety. Grew thick. How many people lost their jobs? The majority of our people could not afford the data for services like zoom. And so it was only until about three months later when the government's somewhat eased, its restrictions that we were able to meet fear of the virus and heard many from meeting. And after 9 churchless months are people in May hold Services slowly and very methodically, the government started relaxing, their rules and churches, in a light, could meet at half capacity after undergoing. Heavy restrictions meeting at all, was blessing. Then seemingly without warning and earthquake live in spiral this into a destructive and deadly July.

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Haha. Yep, it is a return on what worked during this past term. We will continue to build the Tim Maney Church property and make efforts to assist our national leader Bugatti with Ministry teams from our churches. We also need to build a new Sunday school building at the omelet on a church. Attendance, has reached full capacity for church and Sunday school. Hope to hold our children's ministry in the new building.

We will continue to explore new opportunities for Mission Outreach has several areas show. Great potential and key. People are already in place.

On a personal note, due to ongoing troubles, we would like to become better prepared for electrical outages and water rationing in the country. If God provides we would greatly desire to purchase a power generator and a water tank, these items are priced around $5,000. We've been amazed by your generosity even during the times of covid and the high inflation that followed God has Faithfully supplied, every need for the building projects at Naval and some baby headed, many special meetings and services. We have held these past two years.

Thank you very much and I want to invite you to, please turn your Bibles for just a few minutes to 2nd Kings chapter 5, Second Kings, chapter 5. And I think this story goes, right, perfectly with what we what we just saw second Kings. Chapter 5, this is a very famous Story. One of my favorite stories and Sunday school, we're only going to read the first three verses, but it talks about the healing of a man who was a leper. And he was also a foreigner. He wasn't a Jew, he is name, is named Anna and beautiful story of the power of God to heal. When there was no hole and when the man was helpless, thank God. There came a time in my life when I was without hope and I was helpless and I found an answer in Jesus Christ for my sins and I I'm so glad that the same God who changed in a man's life, is the same God who has changed my life. And I'm grateful that I have the opportunity of what this little girl we're going to read about today has practiced in her life and what this little girl practice in her life is what God wants you and I like to practice in our lives in 2022. Story happened, many, many hundreds of years ago, but it's still a very practical lesson for us today. Let's look at what it says, the king of Syria was a great man, when his master and honorable, because buy him, the Lord had given Deliverance under Syria. He was also a mighty man, of Valor full of Courage, but he was a leper. So, all the good things going for him all All the accolades that were true about him on Fortune. Those last few words, change the entire story, don't, they doesn't matter if you're a courageous man, doesn't matter if you are famous, if you don't have an answer to your greatest need, What good is it? And that's the problem with naming. He was a leper. He had a terminal disease that there was no answer for. Well, the Bible says, that the syrians had gone out by companies and it brought away captive out of the land, a is of Israel. So they have gone into Israel and taken some captives, and they took a little maid and she waited on Naamans wife. She said unto her mistress would God, my Lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria for he would recover him of his leprosy was a slave in a foreign country. She was far away from her home. Far away from her family for away from everything, good that you know far away from her God, far away from the prophet of God and yet this little girl never forgot God and never forgot. Her her upbringing. This little girl, was a faithful servant to her greatest enemy and it's amazing to me just like Jesus told us that we are to pray for our enemies and do good to those who despitefully use us, here was a little girl who was a slave in the man who was responsible for making her a slave, you understand? I mean, she was in the household of this, man, whose Army had conquered her people and had brought her to Syria to become a slave. And so, you know, it tells us that this little girl when she heard about her Masters terminal problem, the leprosy. She said to her mistress, are the lady that the wife of name and she said, oh, that got all that he would just go to Samaria. Meet the prophet of Jehovah because if he would meet him, he would heal him of his disease now. I don't know about you, but I want to say in my natural self in my natural bit before I became a Christian, it would have been the last thing in my mind if I have been captured by my enemy to do anything to help him, right? I mean, can you imagine if many many years ago? Now if this was Osama bin Laden and you are working as a slave for him and all of a sudden you found that he had a a terminal issue and yet you knew the answer that could help him, we would be tempted to say forget it. We would be tempted to become bitter and angry at what God had done. But this little girl was a great example. She was a witness to Jehovah God and to his prophet and of course the you know, the rest of the story name and heard that witness about God and about Elijah and he went down and he found healing and not only did he find healing but we find that he found when he left. He was a follower of the god of Israel, instead of the Gods of Syria. Got it changed his life. Got it, healed, his body, got to change his life. How did it happen? A little girl was a witness, a little girl was a witness. And I want to say to you, it's been many years ago since the story happened but you and I have been commanded by Jesus to do the very same thing. He commanded the the followers of his in Acts over and over, I could read you 10 or 12 verses where it tells us that we are to be Witnesses of Jesus and his resurrection. Okay? That's our responsibility. We are commanded to be a witness. And, you know, sometimes Christians will say something like, oh, that's way above my pay grade. I mean, I that scares me to death or friends, you know, let's just be honest about this. Jesus did not command us to change a person's life. Jesus did not command us to go and heal people like Naman, Jesus. Commanded us to be a what a witness eyewitness eyewitness. What Jesus did for you, a witness of what Jesus did for me. I got saved when I was a boy of seven years old. I remember the day, it's clearly a today and it was an exciting day. I remember when I got saved, I went home and I called my grandparents. Very first thing to tell him, I've gotten save. Nobody asked me to do that. I just told my mom and dad. I want to tell somebody that Jesus changed my life. Just a little kid. Well, I had wonderful Sunday, school teachers and they mrs. Swanson. And mrs. P. And those two ladies told me that if you become a Christian, the first thing you need to remember is Jesus wants you to be a witness. You know what? Very few days later. So I might too good friends camps and Kevin Homer. They were classmates at school. They live across the road from our church. And you know what? I invited them to come to church with me and you know, the amazing thing they came and they heard about Jesus and they gave their life to Jesus. Wow, that was a long time ago, but still brings joy to my heart. I remember when I was 13 years old, I was out cutting the grass at church and all of a sudden, very busy road out front and a man laying out in the road and I didn't know he was laying out there and I thought maybe he was dead. I never seen a a person like that. I had never seen an accident. Like that is a kid. I've seen a lot of that since I went to Africa, but I've never seen it in America and And so I went and I just ran into the church. I didn't even knock on my uncle who was the pastor's door. I just barged in and said Uncle Rodger. I said, there's a man outside and I think he's dying from the car accident, he had, heard it, he got up. And I remember, I, my uncle kneeling down with that, man, talkin to him about his soul, in about Jesus, I've never forgotten that I realized, then that's what I'm supposed to be too. And when I was in high school, God, God, use me to delete a guy that Christ named Louis. I never will forget this week. Me and a good friend of mine. We were out just doing Lewis and visited our Sunday, school class, our youth group. And and I went with my friend Brad and we went there and knocked on the door and it was my turn to talk and just told Luis. We were glad that that he came to our youth group and and I have the opportunity to share My witness and I was just a teenager. But you know what? Louis got saying that day, and 30 years later, we were in a church in Virginia and all of a sudden this guy comes up Taps, me on the shoulder, I recognize him, but I'm not sure if I know him. He said you probably don't remember me. My name is Luis.

I'm sorry, but I'm here today because you and Brad cared enough to tell me. I think there's just nothing like that. Do you want joy in your Christian experience? There's nothing that's going to replace that. I just want you to know that you can, you can do a lot of other things for Jesus, but God wants you to be a witness. And when you become a witness, you know, put Jesus, first other second and yourself last night. It's right, it's true. Well, I got to move on. I want to just quickly tell you about them. People in Africa that were witnesses that we've had the opportunity to to have a part in their life. There was a girl, her name was see why this happened many years ago in our first Ministry in South Africa. See why? It was a fifteen-year-old girl. She started coming to our church and None of her family were Believers all over the rest of her family, followed the traditional beliefs, which primarily means you believe the and your dead ancestors control your life, okay? And so it anything good or bad that happens to you in life. It's a result of the ancestors, aren't you? Glad we have a faith like our brother sang today about that in the good and the bad. We've got a God that he's worthy of our praise. Okay, cuz he's in control of everything that happens to us and he's going to bring about something good in our spiritual life. Well, anyway, we see why I gave her life to Jesus. I've got to be quick about the story but she kept coming for years, over a couple of years. But she suffered with headaches and we never, really knew what the problem was. And one day, we heard the news that she had died and I was asked to do the funeral and on that day that the church was full. And in the front, her family was was there. And as I said, she was the only believer. But on that day, when I gave my story and I shared my story of how Jesus changed my life and how he had changed and see what is li-fi. I talked about her life 15 of her family gave their lives to Jesus not listen to me, it wasn't because As my message it was because of the fact that Mercy, way had a life change that they took notice of and can I tell you today? That there are five ways that we can be a witness like this little girl in The Book of 2nd Kings. The first way is with a changed life. If you can't talk about Jesus with friends and people who, you know, you unless you back it up with a changed life. Alright? Alright, people are not interested in more of the same. They're, they're Hypocrites enough. They want to see something that has changed our life and see what his life had been changed. Second way that we can be a witness for Jesus in our world, very simply is through our mouths through our lips. We witness with our life and second of all, we live witness with our voice so many times. Think about that, woman from Samaria who Jesus met at the? Well, remember what she told the men of her City, she said, come see, a man who told me everything I've ever done is not this cheap. The Christ is not this, the Messiah. You see? That was her witness. That's all she knew about Jesus, but that's what she told friends. That's exactly what that don't be afraid of that. Is it? That's all he wants. You to do is tell people what, you know about Jesus and what he has done for you. You don't have to know everything about the Bible. You don't have to be a theological scholar. You just need to tell people what Jesus did for you.

Number of years ago, there was a leader of a African cult. One of the largest Cults in South Africa, who asked me to come to his house because he said to me, he said, I hear you are one of those who tells people about being born again. He said, I'd like to know about what that means. He said, I have a Bible but I don't know. I've never I don't know what it means to be born again. Would you come to my house? And tell me and this man was 89 years old. And I said, well, I'd be honored. And so he had a man had a young man with me and he had a man who was taking notes and he said, I'm going to write down every verse you say and I'm going to go back and check on these things. I said that's great. I said I wish everybody did that and we went through a very slowly and for about an hour and a half, I was there talking to him. What his name was Anthony. Anthony's. A collie Anthony, 89 year old high priest of a Colt Found Jesus that day. He said something to me, I didn't really believe him but he said, you know what? I've got a lot of preacher boys that that work under me. He said I'm going to tell everyone of them about how to be born again. Well, I thought okay, that's that's great. Praise God. You know, I thought that'll be the day. Well, I didn't know where Aunt, I mean, Anthony live. The great distance from where I was. I never saw him again and about 15 years later when he was 104 years old. He finally died. All right, and I went to his funeral and they invited me to come up and talk. I didn't know I was on the pot, wasn't on the the the program that day, but they invited me because all I was the only white man. I think some of them recognized that I am lungu, that's what I am and they call our church, the church, the white man shirt. And so they invited me to come up and I went up and I told them how I met Pastors of collie and how I told him the way to be born again and how he wrote everything down and how he told people he was going to tell all of his preacher boys. Well, after the funeral We went to the burial site and I'm not making this up. I probably had 10 of those preacher boys. Come up to me and said, he told me and I'm born again, he told me and I'm born again.

Ho ho, ho. Hey, I'm telling you like the joy. Of being a witness and seeing it change people's lives. Well, we could go on and on but I do want to say there's a third way that we can be a witness through our life, through our lips and through our service, this past year, in South Africa, God used the the terrible things, that happened covid and this terrible Riot we had never seen a riot like that 31 years. I mean, you know, I've been talking to some of the leaders on the missions committee about bringing them a group of work. And you might see that these at all, I'm not going over there. That was, that was the first time we ever saw that kind of violence. But it happened, but as a result of that, many people lost their jobs, many people were suffering and then there were these abnormal floods that we had and once again more suffering and it gave our church and our church people. Opportunity to reach out to our community. That had not been there for a while, or maybe we had just had her eyes closed. You said, it's always people who need help. Sometimes we have our eyes closed, sometimes we don't care. But suddenly got opened our hearts and our people care. And we opened our church and we provided food and used other sponsors to give food to people. And it really, if I can say it, put them lungu Church on the map. And all of a sudden just the, the blessings of God started coming up on that church. And we we saw so many people give their life to Jesus so many people. Baptized and wow. It was because I think because our church was using their lives to touch people and help people in their time of need. There's two last ways to be a witness and I know our time is a very quickly dwindling down. But you see the, the first three ways, being a touching people, with our lives, being a witness with her life and being a witness with our lips and being a witness with our service, we can touch our immediate world, you know what I mean by the are in your you, we all have an immediate world of people that we know, and people we come in contact with. They need the Lord brothers and sisters. They need the Lord, my immediate world needs the Lord, and the way we're going to do it is through those, basically, those three ways, but there are two other ways we can witness that can have an unlimited reach. The fourth way, it'll be a witness for Christ is through our prayers. There's something I started doing. I guess about a year-and-a-half ago, and

I think it's part of the reason why God

started blessing the way he did not only were we given a chance to serve people, but I had to read this verse over and over throughout my Ministry and as a, Christian Matthew 9:38, where Jesus said the Harvest is plenteous. It's at, but the laborers are few. What's the solution, you pray that the lord of the Harvest will send laborers? And do is feel very simple. But how many times do we do it? How much prayer do we pray? Asking? God to send laborers. I decided that I was going to start something and so, every day back, I was, I was walking out of church this morning, the first service, my alarm went off at 9:38 every morning at 9:38, my alarm goes off. It's annoying. Sometimes it's not doesn't like today goes off at the wrong time, but you know what? It reminds me of you pray right now but the lord of the Harvest will send forth laborers. It has revolutionized my prayer life. I mean, I've taken Jesus word to heart. That's what he asked us to do. He said that's the solution. The, the laborers are few, how do we solve it? Pray and ask God to send laborers. And you know what happens sometimes and this may be why a lot of times we don't pray, it's because sometimes the prayers become the doors. yeah, but never the last I guarantee you if you start praying For the lord of the Harvest to send laborers, I want to tell you that it's going to change your life. It's going to cause you to start feeling like God feels about people. All right. Well, that's another way that we can touch her while it has unlimited ability. There was a lady we met last Sunday and one of our church is she was a lady from Honduras. I've known her for many years. Her name is Aida and she drives a school bus. And she told us every morning at 3:30, she gets up and she prays for every one of her churches missionaries. Hey, I don't know what impact that's had but I know it's had an impact and what an impact you could have. If a lot of you folks, I don't know. Maybe you're already doing that, thank God if you are, but if you're not what an impact, what a witness you could have. But tailey going to God and asking him to do a work in this area and around your world. The last way we can witness for God is also has an unlimited ability. It's with our money, okay? Now I won't take long here very short but you know, the Middle Ages, there was a belief called Alchemy. Have you ever heard of alchemy Alchemist where these mostly people who are Wizards? And they made people believe that they had the power to turn worthless things into something valuable, they could turn a piece of a rock into gold or any kind of thing like that. Well, tell you, this is the honest truth. Jesus said in Luke 16 verse 13, use your money. I'm going to just paraphrase it. Use your money to make friends who will meet you and Model home in your Eternal own, use your money. To create friends who will meet you one day in your Eternal home. Matthew are Luke 16:13. And, you know, here's the truth, we can't earn money, which is valuable to some degree. But Jesus said, how can you determine the value of a soul? We can turn our gifts into Souls from all over the world and then we don't, we don't, you don't even know these people that your money has touched in South Africa. He saw them but they're still just faces, but they're going to meet you one day in heaven. American. A, thank you because without you and without it without others. I wouldn't have been there. My wife wouldn't have been there to tell them our witness is. See the praise God for the opportunity we have to witness. I want to close with with this story. you may have heard of a famous evangelist in the 1900s. His name was Jay Wilbur Chapman. He did a lot of ministry with d.l. Moody, who by the way over here in Boston, a couple Out 3 hours away, I was led to lead to Jesus by his Sunday school teacher went into the shoe store, where he was selling shoes and talk to him about Jesus and he got saved. Touched multitudes for Jesus Will. Anyway, Chapman said in the gospels, this is a very amazing story or statement in the gospels. There are 40 examples where people's were healed of some Disease by Jesus. Okay, 40 examples, and he said out of 40

Almost all he said all, but six of the Forty came to Jesus, either by a friend who brought them to Jesus, or they brought Jesus to their friend. Okay. Only six came by themselves to Jesus. 34 came because somebody cared. That's what I'm trying to get us to to see. The world is not going to come to Jesus unless People Like Us witness. We can witness with our life and our lips, and our service, and our prayers. And our gifts, may God help us to use them all for his glory and for his kingdom, let's bound prayer.

Thank you, Father for the chance to share this message with your people. Thank you for this church. Thank you for its pastor and his wife and thank you for their faithfulness over the years at this place and thank you for the lives that have been changed and Lord. So many are here today they reach the time or somebody brought them to Jesus. Somebody Like A J Wilbur Chapman said 85% of all the people who came to Jesus and were healed came because somebody cared I'm a Christian today because somebody cared and almost everyone is here today is a Christian because somebody told them somebody cared enough to bring them to church or somebody cared enough to talk to them. Well now it's our turn Now, it's our turn to do the same. So pray, father that you will please challenge us all to do. The thing that's going to bring the greatest joy in our Christian experience in Jesus name. Amen.