April 2023 Australia, Colombia
AUSTRALIA This Saturday Lord willing we'll hold the
Carelinks Conference in Adelaide as previously advertised:
SATURDAY 15th APRIL: CARELINKS CONFERENCE The theatre at Riverbanks College, 1 Harvest Bvd, Angle Vale SA 5117 Coffee from 10:30 for an 11 AM start.
For more details please contact brother Mark Hawkins mark.ppah@gmail.com Tel. 0400 772 190
There continues to be wonderful response to the Gospel in Australia with 7 baptisms this week alone- another in WA, 3 in VIC and 3 in QLD.
And the fresh preaching of the Gospel continues. There's a video of Mark putting up advertising for the
Bible Companion app in a very remote part of rural Western Australia at
https://youtu.be/19PWcqmanvc contact him if you want those stickers and fliers he's using.
And soon brother Peter and sister Hilary Osborn are departing on a long drive around eastern Australia advertising the
Bible Companion app, let us know if you'd like them to visit any friends or contacts you have who'd like to have the Gospel explained:
PERTH In Perth we were able to baptize MICHAEL in Mark & Lisa's swimming pool at their place. The video of the baptism service is at
https://youtu.be/0FtomhcNyEY But we do have an urgent prayer request: The pub we used for last Sunday's amazing meeting, with nearly 50 present and all wanting the meetings to continue and others expressing interest in attending, are now unwilling for us to continue using it and there are no other pubs around with a separate secluded bar in the area. Mark's already checked them all out. The pub says they had complaints about our usage of it... . So... we're very much not wanting to lose momentum but Mark now has it so hard trying to find somewhere to meet by this coming Sunday. Please do pray for him to find somewhere. UPDATE: The group are going to meet at Mark's home, so "Church in a pub" is now "Church on a patio"- for now.
TOOWOOMBA
No fewer than 22 local brothers and sisters gathered together at the home of John & Melissa in Toowoomba to witness the baptisms of their children JASMINE, MIKAYLA and NOAH. We had discussed ahead of time the issue of pre-adolescent baptism. We went through the scriptures about this and concluded that if a child has been raised knowing the Truth and themselves wants baptism, then "suffer the children to come unto Me" and we must be careful not to be of those who turn them away. The lengthy baptism service is at
https://youtu.be/F7ycP69aOhU
and you can hear the Biblical discussion of the issue. It was a truly lovely and spiritual time together and brother Jonathan Johansen summed everything up in his lovely prayer at the end:
It was lovely to see the children come out of the water and naturally look towards their father. Well done John & Mel.
Elsewhere we baptized a mother and her two adult children. They're in an extremely difficult domestic situation so we won't mention their names and location. They all had a wonderful grasp of the Truth and although baptized previously in a trinitarian church, they felt they had lacked personal relationship with the Lord Jesus and now they know the truth about the Lord's nature they wanted to be baptized into Him in spirit and truth. They are great Bible readers and students. The pictures below are only for the email version and not to be online:
COLOMBIA
Since 2011 , VLADIMIR and DIANA have been reading and re-reading Bible Basics and more recently The Real Devil and The Real Christ. They have an amazing grasp of our doctrines and have displayed that in much correspondence. Despite having been together many years and having three children together including a teenager, they have some impediments to getting a marriage certificate and so were denied baptism by the CBM. A group of us gathered online to hear a wonderful confession of faith and to witness them baptizing each other in a tank of water. Their teenager daughter is also interested and they hope to baptize her in due course. If you know any other such cases where folks would like to be baptized but have such obstacles, do let us know and we'll do all we can to help. You can see the video, in Spanish and English, and some related discussion at
https://youtu.be/HcS0CjHSkuc
Our sister Danmui in Melbourne, Australia is in the same position, just that she and her partner have been together over 30 years and have 6 children and many grandchildren. But this situation is what brought our sister to the Lord Jesus in spirit and truth, and you can hear her powerful testimony filmed this week outside a McDonald's in Port Melbourne at
https://youtu.be/2z7DHhPYPRc
PRAYER REQUESTS
- For those recently baptized
- For Mark & Lisa as they start a house church for those who attended pub church in Perth
- For those who would like to be baptized but are searching for someone to baptize them
- For those in humanly impossible domestic situations
With love from your brothers and sisters of Carelinks