May 16, 2008
Dear Prayer Partners, By God’s grace His gospel has now been clearly presented in the Inanbimali language for the first time ever!! This is very exciting as we now have brothers and sisters in the Lord. We started teaching Saturday evening at about 5:00 pm and the lesson and questions went until about 7pm. We had over 95% of the village population there and by the grace of God it was incredibly quiet, which is absolutely amazing. Imagine about 300 people gathered with small kids, fighting dogs, chickens and many other distractions I will leave to your imagination. It was the quietest teaching session that we have ever had!! Each of us 6 adults have gotten to spend individual time with a few folks and we have had some very clear testimonies of faith. We have a lot more people to get around to and spend some time getting to know where they are at though. Here are some of the testimonies: Stanley, Tony’s brother: Right at the end of the meeting he turns to me and asks me very seriously if someone had missed a lot of the lessons if they would still be able to understand the gospel and be saved. So I asked him how he thought that he was saved and he told
me, “I know that I am a rotten person and that there is nothing I can do to get to God’s side, I just have to believe that Jesus took my place as the sheep and that he is the last sheep that will ever be needed.” He then went on to say, “I am very worried about my wife because she has not been coming to the meetings and I have to make her understand as quickly as possible.” Also I heard from other people who live in his house say that Stanley told his dad yesterday that, “I am extremely worried about you dad. I know I am on God’s side and
I am really worried that when we die I am not going to see you again.” Jeffrey, Stanley’s dad, only came to a very few of the meetings. He is a quiet man who doesn’t like crowds. Pray that he will see a real difference in some of his family members and also want to understand and know the truth. Anastasia told Nina right after the meeting, “ I have wasted my life. I have been believing lies. I can do nothing on my own to get to God’s side. Jesus did that for me.” She kept having to walk out of the teaching house because she was crying so much. I am looking forward to getting with her soon and hearing more of what she believes now. Margarat….right before the meeting she had asked me about praying to angels and praying to saints. She said, “Tara, I pray to the angels and then they pray to God for me. Is that right and what do you think?” So I told her to really listen to the lesson tonight and to keep her ears open so that she understands clearly. Then she went up to Nina right after the teaching session and said, “ I now know how I can go directly to God. When Jesus hung on the cross the temple curtain split in two and that means that I can go directly to Him. Jesus was my sheep. He is the last sheep.” Kelley...said that when he heard the lesson on the Pharisees that it “courted him”, which means it convicted his heart. He said a lot of us here are Pharisees..
I and others here didn’t think that anything was wrong with us. But now I see very clearly that we are dirty(sinful) on the inside. Jesus was the last offering that ever
needs to be made. And I believe that he was the sheep that took my place. There are still SO many people that we need to get with alone and see how much they understand. Saturday night, after the lesson there were
both men and women up here at our houses till about 3 am just FULL of questions. They have been deceived and in darkness so long that it seems like for
some of them it will be awhile before they sort all of this out in their minds. We know that getting with each person one on one will be the KEY! Even if there is one other person present they begin to be reserved in their talking. Gloria said to us on Saturday night after the lesson…” When I saw Brooks eye water come down (get tears in his eyes) I knew he wasn’t crying for himself, because he is already on God’s side. He was worried for us.” DON”T STOP PRAYING NOW!! This is when your prayers are critical. We have babies in Christ that need discipleship and then we have unbelievers that still
need that one on one time to help them understand clearly. This will also mean a lot of time out in the village during the day & at night. Please continue to pray for our families. Especially for the kids, because during these next couple weeks we will be pulled in so many directions and we probably won’t have a normal schedule for awhile. Pray also for our health as a team.
Pray for these next few days, weeks, months as we transition into a group of believers who will be meeting for teaching. There are folks already asking how it is that God expects us to pray and does He want us to sing and the questions just go on and on. We more than ever need God’s wisdom now! Thank you for partnering with us. Not really with us but with God as He is the one who has enabled all of this to come about. We have just been imperfect, willing vessels. Praise and Glory be to our Almighty God
Tony, Tara, Scarlett and Logan Sutton |
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