Gary and Esther Smith

tribal church planting

«
»

How are things going in Dinangat with the new believers. One word - change.

Posted by on Jul 16th, 2008 in Uncategorized | Discuss This Post Share

Lots of changing going on in Dinangat mostly in the hearts of<br /> these new believers.” width=”290″ /></a><!--EndImportPhoto--> <p>“We are now new people so let’s celebrate!”</p> </p> <p>This is what Nonjong told me today as he recounted his story to me. Nonjong is one of the more advanced members of this tribe. He is one of the literacy teachers and has always been one of the more Pharisaical people here. In fact the day before we taught the purpose of God’s law he went around telling everyone that we needed to keep all of God’s laws to be accepted by God. Today he told me how God changed him.</p> </p> <p>He said that at the beginning of the teaching back in January he planted two of his favorite trees to commemorate the fact that they were hearing God’s word in the language for the first time. He was genuinely excited. But what he expected was for us to tell him how they needed to change their ways in order to be accepted by God.</p> </p> <p>He told me that he used to think that it was his good works that would get him to heaven, but now he understands that since he was born in sin nothing he can do can satisfy God. Now he believes that only Jesus can save him, not his works. Before he boasted about his efforts but now he boasts about only Jesus. And when the evangelistic teaching was finished in early May and he clearly understood the gospel of grace he and his family went and got a special kind of food that is really good to them. (Sorry I don’t know what it is called in English.) And they had a feast celebrating the fact that they are new people now, because of what God has done in Christ. (The above picture of Nonjong is just him being silly after a drama we did during the teaching. The clothe on his head was part of the burning bush.)</p> </p> <p>In our last update we asked for you all to pray for us concerning discipleship. Well the Lord has abundantly answered! He has provided many opportunities for discipleship. One recent huge one was to help two families work through a major problem. A young man evidently took advantage of a young girl without her consent and the young girl is now pregnant. This occurred many months ago. So we helped them walk through this problem pointing them to God and praying with them through it. We continue to have many one on one opportunities to lead these new believers into a walk with the heavenly Father. What a joy and privilege this is!</p> </p> <p>Another change the Lord has done has led us to have more meetings. The believers were expressing a desire to be taught more of God’s word. So we now meet on Sunday and Tuesday mornings and then have small groups on Thursday evenings around a fire reviewing the week’s lesson. It’s been a couple weeks now and they are so thrilled. Also we have added a chance for them to practice reading on Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Friday’s. Continue to pray for us that we do not become to program oriented and miss the one on one discipleship. We westerners love programs! However, these times together are providing many new opportunities.</p> </p> <p>One other change starts tomorrow and concerns the Smith family. School is back in session! Esther and the kids start another home schooling year tomorrow. Charis starts 6th grade. Caleb starts 3rd. Nathan begins kindergarten, and Zachary starts pre-school. Having 4 children at all such varying levels will prove quite the challenge but if anyone can handle it, it’s my amazing wife! However, she knows that she cannot handle it without strength and wisdom from the Lord. So we would appreciate your prayers in that.</p> </p> <p>Thank you dear friends for so faithfully supporting us through all this. God uses your prayers and notes of encouragement to sustain us. We pray that your summer is going well and that you too are seeing God change things!</p> <div class=Print Friendly

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Network-wide options by YD - Freelance Wordpress Developer