Latvia Revival Begins!
The month of July was filled with many wonderful
experiences! We have begun in earnest our street evangelism efforts to connect with people, each of the teams were able to experience hosting a service in their home, and it culminated with an incredible Sunday!Sunday, July 31 marked the launching of our first "public" services. On Sunday morning we were in the suburb of Pinki where we held service in a Lutheran church. There was such an awesome presence of God in that place. In the evening we met in our first city center "Hall Church" service in the Anglican Church building. Between the two services we had at least 13 first-time guests and two received the Holy Ghost in the PM
service! One of them was an associate minister of the Lutheran church where we held service at that morning. She came to ask us to pray that her church would be able to experience the same spirit that we brought into that place that morning! In addition, there were three Bible Studies scheduled for the week (one of which resulted in two water baptisms, as well as one of them receiving the Holy Ghost)! God is truly doing a miraculous work here in Riga. For the foreseeable future we will be doing two services every Sunday in both of these places.We are gearing up for special Holy Ghost Rallies the second weekend of August. In addition to the two established churches, we are also planning a special service in Balozi (another suburb). We anticipate that these services will result in many new converts that the team will begin to disciple as we open up our weekly house churches.
We have been thrilled to begin making connections with some wonderful people that God has allowed to cross our paths. Nelli is truly just a warm and wonderful lady who brightens our home every time she is here. Olga has also become a dear friend and has helped us to become more familiar with our surroundings. We also have several young people that generally are in attendance at the "English Club" that we host in our home each week.
In this setting we just talk (in English only), play games, and of course enjoy some food! We are working hard to gain the trust and build a relationship with these people in order to help them to find a relationship with Christ!Urgent Needs! Please Read!
Allow us to become very serious for a moment. As our name tells you, this work is a journey of faith for us in so many ways, not the least of which is financially. We are facing having to come home early due to multiple factors that together are causing us to face a major budget shortfall. From the time our initial budget was put together last fall, until we arrived on location in late May, the U.S. dollar has lost about 20% of its value here in Latvia. Our apartment was in need of major outlays in order to be able to set up housekeeping. While most apartments come furnished and ready to occupy, ours needed major cleaning, and suitable linens, kitchen utensils, and other necessities that we had not budgeted. In addition to that, costs of food, housing, and transportation have also risen. Thirdly, a major source of funding that was promised to us has completely fallen through due to unforeseen circumstances that the enemy has capitalized on. All told, we need a major miracle, but we serve a great big God who specializes in miracles!
We know that God has called us to this field of labor! We are beginning to see major victories being won in just the short time that we have been here. The team is causing a major disturbance in the spirit world of Latvia that up until now has been a stronghold of our enemy! Now is the time like never before that we need to push onward and see this city, this country, and this region become a major revival center for all of Eastern Europe! We know that as God has called us here, that He already has plans in place to provide for us. So we ask you to prayerfully consider what God might be able to do through you to help us weather this storm. For as little as $5.00 a month, you can help us to stay here in the region that God has called us to. You can find more details on how you can become a partner by visiting the support page of our website. Several of you on this list have expressed a desire to partner with us in the past...there is NO BETTER TIME than right now to make that desire a reality! Together, we will see a mighty revival!
Specific Financial Needs! This list is some of the major funding areas we need help with. Our health insurance amounts to about $4,500 annually. Our housing expenses are in the neighborhood of about $1,000 per month. Thirdly, the rigors of public transportation every day are not only taking a major toll on our bodies, but they cut major time out of our day. A small, modest vehicle would really be an asset to our work in so many ways. We feel strongly that about $2,500 could help us to secure this, and that fuel costs won't run too far off of what we are paying for public transportation at present. Thank you for considering these needs with us. We know that God has the funds available...we just need them transferred into our account!
Prayer Needs
There are several needs that we would ask you to agree with us for. We pray for open doors as we travel around our district, that we would come into contact with hungry hearts that are willing to allow us to minister to them.
We also ask for you to pray for our physical strength. Travel is very rigorous and it requires much walking and climbing on and off of public transportation. This has already been very demanding at times.
Specific names of contacts that we are personally working with right now are; Nelli, Olga, Maria, Juris, Anses, Alex, Sanja, and Vicktor. We would appreciate it if you would place these names on your prayer list as well! We look forward to being able to share victory reports soon that include these names!
Let's help Bro. and Sis. Elkins get a vehicle and stay on the field in Latvia for their intended stay of one year.
God bless,
Jerry E. Powell/Western District FMD Promotion Director
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