November/December 2020 Missions Update

Compliments of the season. We thank the Lord for bringing us to the last month of this year, 2020. The year was a very difficult one, but God has been very faithful. How God saw us through and helped us contribute our quota to the Great Commission has been amazing. We know that your selfless fervent prayers cannot be divorced from all that God has helped us achieve this year and the past two months.

Salvation/Discipleship Across the Nations

In almost all our fields and nations where our missionaries work, we have received heartwarming reports of scores of persons that surrendered their lives to Christ. At Furaka, as COVID 19 subsides, we had a three-day outreach, which was well attended. In one of the nights, over 30 persons surrendered their lives to Christ.  In one of the Sahel nations (name withheld), five persons from the the religion of our other cousins surrendered their lives to Christ.

At Bolu mission field, one person surrendered his life to Christ. At Bum, 12 Zullawas surrendered their lives to Christ, and all the converts who did not have bibles were given a free copy of a bible each.  At Majid and Sahidu in Northern Cameroon, the gospel was preached, where some Fulanis were excited to have one of them present the gospel to them so convincingly. At Gommana, Northern Cameroon, our missionary has resumed work fully, and to the glory of God, he met the converts doing well. In all these and other fields with similar breakthroughs, we covet your prayers earnestly that Christ is formed in them.  Discipleship efforts are ongoing. At Sanga, the missionaries reported that they have had an opening to the Technical college to preach and disciple some new believers.

New but Difficult Frontiers

The missionaries at the Oma mission field continue to comb the villages around them with the gospel. According to the missionaries' report, they have been evangelizing Ugbogwu village, and God is granting them a significant result. They feel it is time to start a church, the first church ever for the new believers. This move has been resisted vehemently by the village elders who claim that five denominations had made a series of efforts in the past but were resisted.  They sound friendly and have invited our missionaries over for discussion several times. We covet your prayers for the Lord to touch their hearts so the light of the gospel would dispel the darkness in a greater capacity. We are also penetrating Badiko and Pelu, but we need additional hands to sustain the work there. In the same vein, we are penetrating some other necessary but challenging terrain, which we would not want to disclose here for security reasons, but we covet your prayers for divine protection.

IDP and Widows

Daudu/Makurdi IDP Camp

With the financial help of Tabitha Arise Foundation, we have been able to provide foodstuffs and other necessary assistance to the Internally Displaced Persons at the camp in Daudu, Benue State. We are grateful to the Benue State Representative of Nigeria Evangelical Missions Association, Sister Mimi Edward, for partnering with us to help make the purchases and to Dr. Daniel Abah for assisting with the logistics. We are ever grateful to Tabitha Arise Foundation for their consistency over the years in providing relief to the vulnerable displaced persons at the IDP camps.  God has also used the Furaka Grace Foundation Women to provide palliatives to widows in the community. Rhema For the Native, a Bible Translation group, also provided palliatives to a number of persons in Furaka community through Grace Foundation.

Missions Training

Set 24 of the School of Cross-Cultural Missions are currently on various mission fields for practical field exposures. They will continue with the field trip through Christmas to have a taste of Christmas on the field. They and the new set will resume classes on January 5, 2021. We covet your prayers for divine protection and breakthroughs in their labors on the field. Please pray for financial resources to meet up with the demands of the prevailing inflation. Foodstuffs, in particular, are very expensive now. Many of the students admitted for the January 5, 2021 batch complain of lack of money to pay their school fees. If we must make progress with the work, we need more missionaries, and if we must get more missionaries, prospective missionaries must be well trained. We may have no other option but to go ahead to allow some of them to resume without fees believing that God will provide.

Also, we will begin preparation to open up the training for Portuguese speakers with the response God is granting us in Brazil.  One of our staff will travel to Brazil to learn the Portuguese language, and on return, we will begin to accept students first to learn English in the first two months of stay and then resume missions training afterward. Thank the Lord for our friends and partners in Brazil who are eager to see this come to pass and pray that the Lord will empower them to fulfill these promises.

Home of Grace (HOG)

Almost all the kids we brought into the HOG nearly 20 years ago are grown, one well over 20 years old and another, 36 years. Some have completed their first degrees; others are married have gone while five are currently enrolled in the university. Some of them were vulnerable kids at the time we brought them in but not orphans. The circumstances that led us to bring them have changed. After prayers, we have released some of them to go while others left on their own. We have replaced them with younger orphans and kids of missionaries serving in dangerous mission fields or fields without schools. Some of the orphans are coming from a background with some traumatic experiences. We are glad that they are adjusting very fast. Again, we are grateful to Eternity Ministry that provided N50,000 to pay missionary kids’ school fees, textbooks, cardigans, and other needs that may arise during the session. We are grateful to Tabitha Arise Foundation that is still screening two orphans to provide scholarships for them, they may add two more kids in January.  Just like our School of Cross-Cultural Missions students on training, the cost of feeding the HOG kids has skyrocketed.  Pray along with us for God to open the door of finances to cope with the challenges of inflation.

Conclusion

Thank you so much for your partnership over the years. Together, we have made progress despite COVID 19 and other challenges determined to stop us these past months. For us, we cannot thank God enough. In the face of the growing insecurity, we have traveled day and night, including notorious routes. God kept us. Despite inflation, we have never been stranded. When we are almost running out of foodstuffs, God provides. God has consistently provided resources to meet up with our obligation to our growing number of missionaries. In all cases, we knew it was God’s miraculous intervention.  Please, keep praying for us just as we continue to pray for you. Mission work is much more dangerous than ever, and resources are again more limited. May the Lord continue to build His church in the dark places of the earth through us. May the Lord bless you for all you do for His kingdom.

His bondservant,

 

Andrew Abah



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