News from the Americas

A recent group of immigrants from various areas of China have a desire to study the Bible. I met the leader of the group, Henry Wang, and his wife Dorcas. The Wangs call themselves ‘Christians’ but are not members of the church whose facilities they use for their evening gathering once a week. They invited Bro. John and me to attend their group evening and offer our insight into the scriptures. It was at this meeting that we became aware of their desire to study the Bible. The Chinese immigrants have very limited knowledge of the Bible and a paucity of material on the scriptures, but their desire to have further insight is a marvel. They need reading material which will open up the word of the Lord. If you could offer the book Bible Basics in Chinese and/or further small pamphlets on the scriptures it would be greatly appreciated. The group is approximately 10-15 in size. I feel that having some material written in their language and given into their hand for their personal use could impart the Truth to this group. It would give the Christadelphians opportunity to reach out to a body of seekers who badly need direction on the narrow path to the Kingdom.
Sis. Judith Birney

Comment: They were thrilled to receive our Chinese literature and we await developments with interest. We would remind readers that Bible Basics is available in over 50 languages and we are pleased to help where we can. MH

I am one of your readers. I was baptised into Christ in July, 1999. I attend the White Horses church. We are very small in number and meet together every other Sunday morning for the Memorial service. The number of Brethren is three and a Brother from Kingston comes and does the Breaking of Bread and exhortation for us. I am not working at the moment, but I try to do my daily readings in the day. Three of my children are Christadelphians, my daughter and her husband, my son and his wife and another son. Sometimes people just say something that they should not and make me sad. When I read Gospel News then it makes me feel good. I read some interesting words and then look again at them and think about them. I would like more poems in the Magazine. I’ve also been reading the dream revealed to Daniel in Daniel ch. 2. All we must do is pray for the Kingdom.
Sis. Joan Samuels

Photo: Sis Joan Samuels and her family

GUADALAJARA
We are at the end of our seminars here in Guadalajara. We were thrilled to have 30 attendees to the seminars given by Bro. Bill Rawson from Spain and Bro. Erik Alvarado from El Salvador. They are a wonderfully dynamic team who had the audience very attentive and participatory. Bro. Luke Moss's enthusiasm for preaching has been a wonderful asset to our group. He also is a terrific help in leading others into the city to deliver leaflets as well as welcoming the contacts with his bright smile.

God has abundantly blessed us with the hands and the means to do this work. He has blessed our effort with people who really want to search the scriptures and learn of Him and His plan. He has provided more than our hearts could dream of and we are filled to overflowing with gratitude toward Him. May He continue to bless these people in their study of the scriptures.
Sis Cynthia L. Paiva

I felt I truly owed you a letter of thanks for your great support in sending the Bibles to Trinidad so well in advance. Just a little synopsis of what transpired: We spent two very busy weeks with all the ecclesias in Trinidad and the one in Tobago. But the highlight was the special Youth Weekend intended to focus on "Tips and Tools" for Bible study. In addition to the Bibles that you forwarded, we also hauled close to 300 lbs of concordances and additional resources to support the special weekend. Bro. Sam Edwards arranged for us to use a country community centre that was able to house close to 80 Brothers and Sisters and young people for the weekend. On the Saturday we were able to use a spacious upper hall with tables and benches, which was perfect for the kind of Bible study we had planned. The CAT Bibles were distributed to all the youth from 14 up to 25 that did not have one and the concordances were given out on the same basis. We then had four study sessions, learning to use the centre margin references, using Strong's concordance, and doing some simple Bible marking using the wide margins available. I can't tell you how thrilled both students and parents were during the day. We hope and pray it will be a useful catalyst for further follow-up at the CYC and Sunday School levels. So, as I had mentioned many times, many thanks for your distant, but valuable help.

I have nearby on my desk some of the communications that you sent some months back regarding Bro. George Constantine. I wanted to let you know that I requested to visit him during the trip and it was very rewarding. I was accompanied by the same head guard as was with me last summer and he remarked about our previous meeting. He was very complimentary about Bro. George's conduct and affirmed that he was viewed that way by all the other guards that deal with him. When I had my one-to-one with George I asked him whether his spiritual and material needs were being adequately met and he assured me that they were. He is very thankful for the various subscriptions that he has and the kind letters of support. Likely you will know this, but in case not: this spring there is supposed to be a kind of test case run through the courts that will be related to a number of questions that impinge on bro. George's own situation on ‘death row’. If the test case has a positive result, it may result in bro. George's sentence being commuted to ‘life’, or perhaps, something more positive. Bro. Sam Edwards alerted me to the fact that George is concerned about receiving the necessary financial support for an attorney, if he requires one - pending a successful outcome of the test case. So when I visited bro. George I raised this point and gave him complete assurance that such support would be available when and if. He seemed quite relieved and was very appreciative. I did feel that he looked in good spirits and good physical health and he assured me that such was the case. Marcus, I just wanted you to know this, given your commitment to Bro. George. If you get wind of anything pertinent to this and would like to share it, would be very welcome.
Colin Badger