The month of September brought about the third multi-week survey trip we hosted this year, the second time with a couple from our mission board. Daniel and Erin Lang, along with their baby boy Ezekiel, spent nineteen days with us after our busy August camp season. Daniel spoke in our college and in both churches in which we are involved, and both of them took part in soul winning, visitation, Bible Clubs, and school ministries. The Langs are already almost a year into deputation; you can see more about this good couple, view their video presentation, and support them directly by going to fbmi.org/missionary/lang.
October for me was non-stop with traveling and preaching. On the first Sunday, I had the opportunity in Calabar to take part in a Missions Sunday at Nigeria’s third-oldest independent Baptist church. The Sunday school, morning service, and evening preaching times were all focused on encouraging the members to give above their tithes and offerings to help works throughout our country and around the world. We also took some time to go through items that came on our container that will be used as an encouragement to churches represented at the six Soul-Winning & Leadership Conferences (SWLC) that we have planned for next year.
Our last two SWLCs for this year were held at Port Harcourt and Ibadan in the middle of October. Dr. and Mrs. Mike Cox and Missionary Evangelist Jim Belisle joined me once again at the Maskeys’ work in the East to conduct a combination Missions Conference and SWLC at Nigeria’s largest independent Baptist church. IBC Port Harcourt had over 800 on Sunday and more than 300 attending each of the three nights of our special meeting. Dr. and Mrs. Cox and Bro. Belisle taught split sessions in the mornings, I taught an afternoon session on missions giving for two days, and the three of us rotated preaching the evening services. Bro. Belisle stayed an extra week to preach with me at Victory Independent Baptist Church in Ibadan, the first church outside of Abuja in which I preached in 2005. We held special Sunday and Monday services, along with a Tuesday Pastors’ and Workers’ Fellowship.
Since 2010, we have been excited to see the graduates of our college and institute start 40 churches. Recently, three village churches have presented to me similar prospects to buy parcels of land so that an auditorium can be built. Though the situations are different based on the size of the parcel and how much the individual church has raised toward the price quoted, each need for the land purchase is around $1,000. Please consider taking an offering for these opportunities and helping to further our church planting.
Believing God,
Mark Holmes
Written 30 November
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