Thursday, August 19, 2010

My dad's latest report on his Ministry

Partners In International Ministry, August 2010

Dear friends, this is the continuing saga of the summer ministry.

While at Leuven , Belgium I mentioned to the missionary family I was staying with that I had two extra days in Donetsk , Ukraine with nothing to do. These missionaries live at the Evangelical Seminary. They told me there was a student from Donetsk living just down the hall from us. We talked with him. He contacted someone at the University in Donetsk who set me up to speak with some of the faculty and administration at the U. From that speaking engagement I was asked to speak at an English class, preach at a Sunday service and speak to another church's youth group. These events along with talking and praying with some of the foreign students at the U. filled in the extra time nicely. God has connections everywhere!

With the Chinese Christian Fellowship in Leuven I shared my testimony and then about my year teaching and spreading the gospel in China. After that I had nearly two hours teaching and nurturing the faith of three new Chinese believers.

Pastor Zhenya had gotten a traffic ticket on the way to Donetsk. In Donestk, attempting to find the University, he made an illegal u-turn and was pulled over again. This time I felt led to pray that he would not be fined again and not have any problem. Soon he got out of the police care and rejoined us. He said they were going to revoke his drivers license for two years and then asked what He did. He said that he was a pastor of a Reformation church. Shortly thereafter they decided to let him keep his license and did not fine him. God is so good to us.

At the Apologetics Summit my topic was "Apologetics and World Religions." I focused upon dealing with the human origins of non-Christian Religions. The Bible indicates that the earliest faith and belief of humanity was Monotheism not animism, pantheism or polytheism. I gave them Anthropological and Historical evidence that validates the biblical presentation. The evidence proves that the so-called primitive religious beliefs were not original but rather degenerated from previously known truth. The other major world religions were human attempts to reform and advance religion over the degenerated earlier beliefs. The various theories of the evolution of religion, and some other non-biblical ideas cannot be sustained by the evidence. These other theories are based upon speculation, unjustifiable assumptions and ignoring the evidence. We also discussed how to deal with those from other religions.

Most people had left the Apologetics Summit in Donetsk several days before I was to fly out to the Republic of Georgia . The plan was to call a cab but the offices were closed at the University. I saw two couples talking and walked up to them. One man said, "I recognize you." He was an administrator at the University. I told him of my need to get to the airport after speaking the next evening. He said their driver would take me. It would cost one-third as much as a cab.. The next day I was told the President of the U. was flying out that evening to Kiev and that I might be able to go to the airport with him. Our schedules worked perfectly and the half hour ride ended up not costing me anything. This was another example of God' working out the timing and conserving the funds He had provided.

To contribute to this Partnership with missionaries and pastors in Eastern & Western Europe, make out your check to Partners in International Ministry and mail to:

1218 E. First St. , Tustin , CA 92780 . Thanks for being partners with me.

In the Father's service,