Covenant Life Church

March 7 2011 at 1:55 pm

The Kimyal Tribe Receives the Word

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Yesterday, Joshua Harris closed his sermon (part 6 of “Nehemiah: When God Revives His People”) by showing a video of the Kimyal Tribe of West Papua, Indonesia, receiving an airplane load of New Testaments—for the first time, translated into their own language. We post the video here courtesy of World Team, the mission organization that produced it. World Team exists to establish reproducing churches focusing on the unreached peoples of the world.

The Kimyals are sustenance farmers who were untouched by the outside world until World Team missionaries Phil and Phyliss Masters brought the gospel to their area in 1963. Phil Masters and fellow missionary Stan Dale were killed by the Yale tribe in 1968. Read more about the Kimyals at WorldTeam.org and kimyaltribe.com.

February 21 2011 at 3:33 pm

Mark Mitchell Describes Haiti Exploratory Trip

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On Thursday, February 10, Claude Allen, Grant Layman, Andy Tvardzik, Dr. Phil Perdue, Chris Jesse (of Metro Life Church in Orlando) and I took off from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., to travel to Haiti. The purpose of this brief trip was to deepen our relationship with a specific local pastor and explore ways Covenant Life Church (and other Sovereign Grace churches) could partner with and serve him in his vision to reach the Haitian people with the gospel.

(In order to protect and best support the important ministry being done in Haiti, we won’t be referring by name to any of the folks who serve there.)

We were warmly greeted by the pastor and key leaders of his church shortly after 9 a.m. on Friday morning. The first thing I noticed was the heat. (Honestly, the 70-90 degree temperatures were a welcome sensation after leaving behind 20 degrees or so in D.C.!) The most lasting impression of the trip, however, was the stark and seemingly unabated poverty. We encountered it in various forms:

• In the children at the airport coming up to the window of the car to beg for money…
• In the marketplace where items virtually anyone here would consider “junk” are being sold to make a subsistence living…
• In the long stretches of garbage and plastic bottles that litter the shoreline…
• In the ubiquitous display of unfinished and often broken down buildings around the city…
• In the faces of so many people whose everyday lives are harder than we can imagine.

During our first day, the pastor introduced us to six area pastors he knows, some of whom traveled great distances to meet with us. They told us of their families, their ministries and the impoverished conditions of their churches. A consistent refrain was their cry for help, both spiritually and materially. Their hearts ached for their congregations and they acutely felt the constant lack of ability to help them with their needs. All of these pastors have other means of work to support themselves and their families, and out of whatever overflow they may have, seek to meet the needs of the people. It was sobering to hear their stories and an honor to have spent time with them.

Later in the day we visited the orphanage our host pastor sponsors. There are 14 children who live there, ranging from around two into the late teens. Not all of them are orphans. Some have families that can’t care for them. They are fed, cared for, and educated at the orphanage. There is some structural damage to the building due to the January 2010 earthquake. We also took some time in the afternoon to evaluate several potential construction projects that could be done in various locations.

That evening we visited a youth meeting at one of the churches. What a joy to hear the young people worship the Lord in Creole!

We spent much of Saturday traveling to visit another church that meets a little more than two hours away from where we were staying. Once we left the main city, the condition of the road was so bad that for most of the journey we could barely travel 5-10 miles per hour. Several things caught our attention along the way: women washing their clothes in little streams (that could easily be a source of cholera), a residence lined with colored flags (the telltale sign of a witch doctor), the occasional goat or cow tied to a tree, rusty and abandoned vehicles on the side of the road, dilapidated structures used to provide shelter from the heat, all against the backdrop of a countryside that is full of beauty. Once we arrived at the church, we were greeted by a room full of children and adults in a structure where one whole side of the building was gone because of earthquake damage. The children were absolutely precious! They welcomed us with a greeting in English, and we had the privilege of briefly greeting them (through an interpreter!), expressing Christ’s and our love for them, then handing out candy to the kids.

Our final full day in Haiti began with attending our host pastor’s church at six in the morning! Initially we had no power in the building because the generator wasn’t working. But the Lord was gracious, and after only about a 15-minute delay, the service began with power. There was congregational worship, a selection of songs by the choir, a brief greeting by our team to the church, and listening to the pastor as he preached in Creole and periodically translated for us into English. There were over 400 people packed into a building that probably was meant to hold half that much. It was a joyful time of fellowship and singing. Later in the day we traveled to visit another church (via much better road conditions). This church had no structure in which to meet; they met under a large mango tree. Others from a nearby church, through funds generously donated by Sovereign Grace Ministries, have been helping this church by providing food for the kids, practical help against cholera, teaching school two days a week, and digging a latrine. They are currently in the process of helping to dig a well. We spent the final part of the day discussing many things over dinner late into the night.

As I mentioned Sunday morning (February 20) at Covenant Life, thank you for praying for us! The Lord was merciful with our travels, and the only bout with sickness (affecting, of all people, our doctor!), was thankfully not serious.

There are many, many needs to be addressed in Haiti. It’s going to require wisdom and a lot of planning to determine what is most important and how best to help. Please pray for the team that traveled to Haiti, the pastoral team of Covenant Life, and the leadership team of Sovereign Grace as we together seek the Lord on how to serve and support this dear pastor and those that relate to him in Haiti. Thank you for partnering with us through your prayers!

—Mark Mitchell

February 7 2011 at 5:11 pm

Team Travels to Haiti for Exploratory Trip

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On Thursday, Covenant Life members Claude Allen, Mark Mitchell, Grant Layman, Dr. Phil Perdue, and Andy Tvardzik (along with Chris Jesse from Metro Life Church in Casselberry, Fla.) will be traveling to Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, for an exploratory trip. They will meet with local pastors for the purpose of determining how Covenant Life may be able to serve the people of Haiti via short-term medical, construction, and mission trips. The team will depart this Thursday and return on Monday, February 14.

Please pray for the team:

• That they will have fruitful meetings with local pastors and others from Haiti and the Dominican Republic
• That the Lord would strengthen their relationships with pastors from the region
• That the Lord would grant his favor on all their travels throughout Haiti
• For the ability to effectively assess needs and wisdom for how to serve the Haitian people with resources and mission trips
• That God would protect the team from harm and sickness and grant a safe return back to the U.S.

January 24 2011 at 6:42 pm

A Fruitful Uganda Mission Trip

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Above: Photos from the Uganda Mission Trip earlier this month. Below: The contents of an e-mail from Isaac Hydoski to his fellow pastors upon returning from Uganda. (Robin Boisvert was also part of this year’s team; he expressed gratefulness for his first ‘missionary journey’ in a separate blog post.)

First off thank you for sending us with your support and prayers to Uganda this year. It’s difficult to put into words how meaningful it is to know we have a church that is sending and supporting us throughout in prayer. We reflected on this fact together many times and were strengthened each time.

I’m happy to report that the gospel is continuing to make great inroads into the community and culture of western Uganda where we are working. Moses’ [Pastor Moses Nkwatsibwe] church [Kiburara Gospel Centre Church] is lively and producing many new leaders and young men who are zealous for the gospel. His church is characterized by passion for Christ and a zeal for spreading the gospel. There is much work of discipling and equipping these new believers to be done. Moses has his hands full!

The four village church plants seem to be thriving as well. Each currently has between 25-75 members who are mostly new believers in the last 1-2 years. This is significant because it is in the villages (small farming communities) that witchcraft and syncretism are still widely practiced and embraced. It is truly heartbreaking to see children of all ages carrying multiple scars from the blades of local witch doctors who slice them open in rituals intended to bring “blessing” to these children and their families. It is not uncommon that children are also sacrificed in the worship of satan and demons in these wicked rituals.

God is having mercy on these villages though. As these church plants are established, it brings the light and power of the gospel into these communities. The believers there are exposing the wicked nature of the witch doctors, and as people are saved they are looking only to Jesus and turning away from the practice of the villages. God is demonstrating once again that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation and is bringing much good to these communities.

I’m also happy to report that this team was highly effective. Each man was one that I could lean on and ask to serve at a moment’s notice. Every man was privileged to preach the Word and did so effectively in various public contexts (including the leading of six different church services on Sunday). Each team member served Jesus Christ with joy and passion throughout a very exhausting and grinding schedule. What a joy it was to watch them in action everyday serving the Lord with gladness, encouraging and discipling the believers and compassionately and urgently preaching the gospel to the lost.

God used them to encourage literally hundreds of people, and we saw many people turn to Christ. By grace, it became a common experience that each day we had the joy of seeing people trust Christ for the first
time. On our last day in Kiburara we baptized 39 new converts to Christ!

Last, I need to give major props to our Robin Boisvert. Man, what a kick it was to watch this guy in action. You never would have known that he hasn’t made this kind of trip before. The guy is a gamer and worked hard along with the team everyday. Watching him teaching the crowd of pastors with such skill and with a pastors heart literally brought tears to my eyes. God really gave a deep, personal connection with the men there, and they were so eager for his teaching from the Word.

His training of these men is so needed. These are men pastoring local churches with zero theological training and no help from other churches; they often don’t own a Bible. What Robin gave them over those three days is priceless, and the fruit of his investment will carry on into eternity in the lives of countless believers across Uganda. God be praised!

Thanks for praying. We’re happy to be home and grateful to be back in the fellowship of Covenant Life.

—Hydro

January 11 2011 at 7:37 pm

Michael Oh: Why We Should Pray for Japan

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Dr. Michael Oh was with us last Sunday in connection with our monthly “Prayer for the Nations.” He spoke briefly about how the gospel of Christ broke through significant cultural prejudice and gave him not only a heart for the Japanese people, but the desire to start a ministry in Japan. Joshua Harris introduced Dr. Oh, sharing his own “Japan connection” and his desire to see the gospel advance in that largely unreached nation.

For more on Michael Oh, see our earlier post.

January 2 2011 at 2:01 pm

Prayer for Japan

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Missionary, Michael Oh, will be with us on Sunday, January 9, to give a brief update on his work in Japan and lead us in prayer for the nation’s 125 million people.

Bio
Dr. Michael Oh is president and founder of Christ Bible Seminary in Nagoya, Japan, and father of four daughters, Hannah, Mikaela, Eowyn, and Elliot and a son, Michael Jr.

In 1998-99 Michael and his wife Pearl served as short-term missionaries with Mission to the World during which time they planted Chita Zion Presbyterian Church. After that term Michael completed a Master’s degree in East Asian Studies on a Regional Studies scholarship at Harvard University with a concentration in Japanese anthropology and sociology. Michael and his family moved back to Japan in January of 2004 before founding Christ Bible Seminary in April 2005.

Christ Bible Seminary is the fastest growing seminary in Japan making an impact among young Christians seeking a renewed vision for the next generation of Christianity in Japan. The ministry of Christ Bible Seminary also includes a sizable new church plant, All Nations Fellowship, lay training, and a contemporary worship event for young people called Heart and Soul which is the largest regular meeting of young Christians in Nagoya. Michael is a PCA Teaching Elder in the Philadelphia Presbytery and the youngest member of the executive leadership of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization.

Japan Overview
To inform your prayers for Japan, check out the helpful links below from the Nagoya Theological Seminary website:

• Introduction
• National Overview
• Historical Overview
• People, Culture and Society
• Religion
• History of Christianity in Japan

Pray…

• That God would take one of the most secular nations in the world and turn it into a nation that loves and fears God.
• That economic shocks and fear of the future will cause many to look to Christ.
• That the Lord would raise up pastors who are more passionate about Christ than material success.
• That God would richly bless Michael Oh and his ministry in Japan.

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