In four out of the last five years, we have been privileged to conduct six Pastors’ Conferences in the three main regions of Nigeria. The last two conferences of 2023 were completed successfully at the beginning of November in the cities of Port Harcourt and Ibadan with the help of two great host churches and our guest missionary evangelists, Jim Belisle with FBMI and Denton Bell with International World Wide Evangelism.
Every once in a while, the Lord allows us to have visitors just for our family and to remind us of all the sensations we first experienced when we came to Nigeria nearly 19 years ago. Such was the case hosting the Fitzpatrick family in the middle of November. Kyle was one of my members in a young-adult Sunday school class that Sabrina and I started at our sending church before we began deputation; he and his wife Emily are friends with whom we do not fail to get together during every furlough, and their son Silas became fast friends with our Noah on this trip. We had a wonderful time fellowshipping together and introducing them to fellow missionaries, two churches, seminary students, children’s Bible classes and clubs, and our academy.
Just after Thanksgiving, I was able to make a brief trip to the U.S. to help my brother move my mother into an assisted-living apartment in Gulfport. This was something that had been “in the works” for several months but was hastened by a fall that Mom took at the beginning of November. We’re thankful that she was not wounded, that she has a great long-term care policy, and that we’ve already seen improvements from a few previous injuries through a physical therapy program that is much more convenient from her new apartment. I returned a couple of weeks before Christmas in time to take part in the cantatas at both of our churches, share in two staff fellowship meals, conduct the Christmas Day service at Truth Baptist, have a New Year’s Day barbecue with Grace & Glory Baptist, and enjoy a multi-day hotel stay for a family vacation.
For nearly two years, the co-pastor at Grace & Glory Baptist and faculty at our seminary, Adewale Adesina, has been partnering with Robert Smith, former missionary in Nigeria serving in Barbados, to raise funds for every independent Baptist church in Nigeria to receive a three-year illustrated Sunday school curriculum that we are printing “in house” through Pastor Adewale’s Great Company Multimedia. Miraculously, at $180 per set, 97 churches have joyously received the teaching material. There are at least 20 more churches, who are represented annually in our Pastors’ Conferences and Youth Camps, that we would like to assist with your help and support. View Bro. Smith’s video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YeepDRO1pI (testimony of project begins at 2:15), or get in touch with me for more details.
View a brief video update based on this letter’s events at https://1drv.ms/v/s!AgSzvZu2kq2H20zUAOrJk_OtXG7d.
Believing God,
Mark Holmes
