Malta, China March 2009
We're pleased to announce that the Riga ecclesia in Latvia has long outgrown Duncan & Cindy's apartment and is moving into larger premises. In the first two weeks of May, God willing, we're having a working group of British brothers coming over to install a kitchen and bath tub for baptisms. If you're interested in coming and helping out, please contact us or the British brothers leading the work, Graham Mitchell [Walton], Mark Leadbetter [Maidenhead] or Peter Eichorn [Nantwich].
We'd also like to invite anyone interested to attend our Bible Study weekend in Ukraine, 14-16 May God willing. The theme will be "The Hope of Israel", with series of studies by 3 local brethren under the headings "Foundations in Genesis", "Developments in Moses" and "Culmination in Christ". Email us for more detailed information.
We'd like to report yet more baptisms, performed by our co-workers. Here are the reports they sent us:
A Happy Event In Malta
Bro. Marcus Heaster
Solomon Oyinlade is a refugee from Africa who made his way to Malta. For some time he has been studying Bible Basics with Duncan, and then he attended the small ecclesia in Malta. Solomon first came to us from the www.carelinks.net websites. He met Brother Mike Tanner from the UK who was very impressed with his knowledge of the Truth. After some further correspondence with me concerning his answers to Bible Basics, Solomon requested we baptize him. As Duncan was away doing baptisms in Egypt, I went to Malta to do this baptism and was very happy to be able to work together with the CBM Linkman for Malta, brother Derek Davies.
After Derek and I briefly interviewed Solomon, I gave a baptismal address based around the word ‘baptism’ and then baptized him in the Mediterranean Sea. Afterwards Brother Derek gave a confidence building exhortation about Christ as the door, and received Brother Solomon into fellowship. All the local Maltese brothers and sister were present and helped in the service in various ways.
Photos: Derek & Marcus interviewing Solomon
The baptism
Together in the ecclesia
Solomon lives in the Hal Far refugee centre, a collection of canvas tents which houses 5000 refugees. There are 350 canvas tents with 14 refugees each in them. There are seven double tiered bunks, spaced about 1 metre apart. Brother Solomon has a top bunk and sleeps with his face very near the canvas above him. It’s very cold in Winter at night, and probably will be very hot in Summer. Each refugee has a small personal locker for their few possessions- in Solomon’s case, this includes his Bible Basics. Each of the tent blocks have a dusty chalk roadway between them, the dust from which is easily blown by the wind making the site rather dusty and dry. However the refugee camp seemed well managed and organised.
Our brother has a job in a hotel, he travels 90 minutes each way to the hotel from the camp and has little free time. I was very impressed by the local Maltese brothers and sisters and the work done on the island by Brother Derek and his team. There are 145,000 units of accommodation on Malta, and so far leaflets have been distributed to 80,000 of them. The leaflets feature the phone numbers of the local brothers and sister, and offer several of our publications about doctrinal matters. They receive about 1 reply every 500 leaflets distributed. The leaflets are relevant and full colour- the latest one is about ‘saints’, in commentary upon the Roman Catholic canonization of the first Maltese ‘saint’.
I left Malta feeling the apostle Paul would be proud that on this island where he spent some months, there is now a small but zealous ecclesia awaiting the coming of the Lord. I was very touched on returning home to receive an email from Brother Solomon: "l would like to say thank you for my baptism,l could not have done it without you.you were there each step of the way.your Christian love means so much more to me.than mere word can ever say.Although this is nothing fancy,the sentiment is true,from the very bottom of my heart l will just say.....thank you .Thanks so much and God bless".
May God bless our brother
Marcus Heaster
In China we continue to have many excellent contacts, and we're pleased to report that brother Ai recently travelled to baptize one of them, whilst baptisms were going on in Malta and Egypt. He reports as follows:
"I am very glad to report the baptism of Wei at the hotel I stayed ,at first he suggested the baptism should be performed at a lake about 40km from the hotel,I told him it would be easier to do it at the hotel,more time to discuss bible together,finally he agreed and was baptized at the tub.
We Pray,read Roman chapter 6 and Wei Jie's favourite Psalms 148:1-14 in chinese . Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights .It's really a wonderful and an unforgettable moment to share our beliefs with someone else.we Chinese brothers and sisters are quite scattered.usually,I pray and read bible at dorm alone.Meanwhile.Our zealous new bro Wei told his christian friends about his baptism and one in Shandong (A coastal province )seems quite interested .and they talked about the possibility of being baptized at sea.but the temperature seems so low in northern China. God bless!"
We'd also like to mention that our brother John from New Zealand was recently in China and was able to again make use of time out from his business there to visit contacts, although the one he was hoping to baptize backed out. We appreciate our brother's efforts, done as service "as unto the Lord" in any case.
With love from your brothers and sisters of Carelinks