Just before my family and I arrived in the U.S. in the middle of March, our ministry in Nigeria was excited to conduct the 6th Annual Soul-Winning and Leadership Conference. It was a high honor to host the founder of our board, Dr. Mike Cox, for the fourth time. Representatives from International World Wide Evangelism, Evangelist Don Wattenbarger and Pastor Ken Shinn, also taught and preached in the conference, were a great blessing to our delegates from 30 churches, and accomplished a school outreach with over 1,200 hearing the Gospel.
During this time of flying back for furlough, our family planned an extended layover in Frankfurt, Germany. For my wife and children, it was their first time to step foot in Europe outside of an airport. We had a wonderful time learning the train system, touring a castle in Heidelberg, and visiting a city on the Rhine River.
In the first six weeks of our time in the States, I’ve already had the privilege of preaching in three missions conferences; two of them were the first multi-day missions meetings at First Baptist Churches (in Hammond, Indiana, and Melbourne, Florida). Near my wife’s hometown, I was gratified to preach a church’s second anniversary on Easter Sunday morning. Sabrina has had good doctor checkups, and we are excited to be expecting another girl, due on July 16.
A great victory last year was to see three churches from our ministry start third-generation churches (Truth Baptist: first generation; those we train or ordain: second generation). It looks like this will take place again with a graduate of our seminary who founded New Hope Baptist Church near his birthplace two years ago and now hopes to begin one in his home village. Much of this has been made possible with the assistance of Global Baptist Church Planters, a local church ministry that coordinates the funding and accountability of these church plants and almost 500 others throughout the world. We have enjoyed teaming with them and would love for each church that receives this letter to consider supporting their ministry, as any help given to GBCP will also be a blessing to us. For more information, visit globalbaptist.net.
Believing God,
Mark Holmes
228.363.5127 (until September 10)