Early in March, the members of Grace & Glory Baptist Church unanimously and joyously promoted Bro. Adewale Adesina to be their senior pastor. Since the middle of 2015, I’ve been co-pastoring two churches simultaneously, so it is a big change; I do continue to work with Pastor Adewale in the college, preach regularly at GGBC, and wear gladly the honor of “founder” of a strong and growing work in Nigeria’s capital city. In our first church plant, Truth Baptist Church, great growth has endured over the last 11 months. We are averaging over 350 on Sunday mornings, unprecedented in the church’s 18-year history. On the second Sunday morning of March, TBC members invited the parents of children from our 24 weekly Bible Clubs, resulting in a record-setting attendance of 778 (over 100 visitors)!
Truth Baptist’s Soul-Winning & Leadership Conference (SWLC) was held on the first 4 days of April. We were thankful to once again host Pastor Ken Shinn from Columbia, Mississippi. Bro. Curtis Hall of BEST Missions brought Bro. James Abbey with him; Tim Currington, the director of Prison Alliance International (PAI), also made his first visit to Nigeria for the meeting. By successfully combining the conference with a training session of prison ministry workers from around the country, our 15th Annual SWLC recorded 54 churches represented, the highest number ever! PAI has helped us expand a 5-year-old prison ministry here to over 40 correctional facilities in 16 states. The next week, Bro. Hall and Bro. Abbey joined me in Cross River State for a great SWLC at Independent Baptist Church of Calabar.
June 1 will be 19 years since Sabrina and I first came to West Africa, and the Lord has graciously allowed us to host more than 90 American visitors, several on multiple occasions. However, Nigeria’s procedure for a 2-year (sometimes less) multiple reentry visa is one of the most difficult in its application process, hindering more people from scheduling trips to see our ministry. Conversely, in April, 4 of our guests took advantage of a new visa-on-arrival; all I needed from them was their flight itinerary, passport data page, address, signature, and a photo for a 30-day visa that costs $260. Additionally, we just hosted 3 preachers from Rock of Ages Ministries, and they received from the Consulate of Atlanta (others have received from New York City and Washington, D.C.) multiple reentry visas for 5 years! I’m writing all of this to encourage more of our supporters to prayerfully consider taking a missions journey to Nigeria.
Believing God,
Mark Holmes, written 1 May 2024; WhatsApp +1.228.209.4625
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