On the 4th day of October, my family returned to Nigeria to begin our 10th year of service in West Africa. Our furlough consisted of over 60 meetings in a 6-month span of traveling. One of the high points before departing was my thrill of baptizing our 3rd child, Brian Michael, at our sending church.
As soon as we came back, I only had one Sunday at Truth Baptist Church before setting out to fulfill a couple of promises made before our trip to the U.S. On October 12, the honor was given me to preach the 10th anniversary of Lighthouse Independent Bible Baptist Church in Ibadan; the following Sunday saw my whole family at Independent Baptist Church in Port Harcourt for the start of their first-ever Missions and Leadership Conference. This was to be a regional version of the pastors’ conference that we have conducted in Abuja over the past 6 years, but, due to an emergency cancellation from the other scheduled guest preacher, Missionary David Maskey gave me the singular privilege of teaching leadership for three mornings and speaking on missions each evening after preaching both services on Sunday. Several national pastors attended, and there was a great percentage of the members who were faithful to the whole meeting. As we were rejoicing over the results of the conference on the last day, late that night we had to admit Joseph and Victoria into a hospital near the Maskey home. Our two oldest suffered with a bacterial infection from food poisoning for almost four full days until Joseph was discharged on Saturday, with Victoria following on Sunday. The missionary family and their members were so gracious to us, as we had to delay our flight back to Abuja; and, thanks to some extremely kind friends, we had no hospital bills.
Just one week before departing Nigeria in mid-March, I made the decision to sell our SUV that had served our family for almost eight years. One of the goals we had before resuming our work in October was to be able to purchase vehicles for both our family and the seminary, which now numbers 25 students. We were able to save enough funds for a 15-passenger van that we would like to donate to our Bible college, but right now my family needs to use it until we can accumulate about $22,000 to also buy a quality 8-seater van that can safely carry the family and be adequate for my often travels. Would you consider donating towards this need? Please pray that God will lead to the best automobile for the money we are able to raise.
Believing God,
Mark Holmes
