Dear Family and Friends
Hope you are enjoying the Spring and all its new beauty!!!!!!! We are enjoying our new little “beauty” Tazi and it’s hard to believe that she is almost 7 weeks old. She has grown so much these past weeks and is catching up for lost time in the womb. She is over 9pounds and looks a lot like Macie as a baby. You can see for yourself in the pics on our blog!!!!!!
We have not been very diligent these past weeks with our weekly updates and hope to be more consistent in the months ahead. Thank you for your patience. We want to share a little more in depth about what we have been up to these past two weeks. We are partnering with a small church called Great Commission Baptist Church and Luke will be helping them with their evangelism and discipleship program. Luke has also met with the pastor Michael Kandella in our neighborhood and evangelized from home to home. They have been able to see many come to Christ and last week four of the new converts came to church at Great Commission! We praise God for his faithfulness. Luke has also been meeting every Tuesday or Thursday with Chiluba and going down town and sharing the gospel on the streets. They have also seen such a hunger for Christ and many come to accept Him as their personal savior. A handful of these new believers also came to church the following Sunday. Luke has been encouraged by this response and the hunger of the Zambian people. These dear Zambian brothers have also taught him how to approach Zambians and what some of the spiritual problems are here in this city.
I am excited to be able to work with the women at this new small church and hopefully helping in the music department too!!!! Luke and I also have the opportunity to encourage and disciple young couples in this very young church and look forward to encouraging couples in their marriages through the scriptures. There is so much potential here at Great Commission and so many opportunities and we can’t wait to see God work!!
We also wanted to update and let all you that have been praying for the orphans at EFH know that the waters have finally subsided and last Friday, April 4th, they return to the orphanage at Kanyama. It was such a blessing to see how happy they were to be back at the place they know as home. Please keep praying as water is still an issue and in the last couple of week there has been some 40 reported cases of Cholera in Kanyama. The concern here is that the reported causes are never a clear picture of the actually population affected and with many of the pit latrines in the area full and overflowing the situation looks to only get worse. We know God is in control and we continue to rest in knowing He has a plan in all of this. It is such a testimony to us when we observe how many of our Zambian friends continue to trust the Lord even in circumstances like we have mentioned above. What a conviction to us when we find ourselves complaining about trivial things like power outages or weird tasting foods. It is so evident that we have much to learn from our Zambian friends in how to rejoice in the Lord always!
Lastly we wanted to again get the word out, quite a bit early, about our upcoming furlough. We have secured tickets and will be arriving back in Chicago around the first of December and remain home until sometime, March-April, in the spring. Our plan is to be in Chicago through Christmas and then make a trek down to Dallas for a month or so. We will then return to Chicago for the remainder of our time home. The reasoning behind sharing so far in advance is that we don’t want to miss any opportunities to meet with you all. We are home to share and fellowship with you our friends and supporters and look forward to meeting with any of you that are interested. More details will follow closer to our departure but please be thinking, yes even now, about opportunities that may exist for us to share about what God has been doing through our partnership here in Zambia.
As always we treasure and appreciate your continued involvement and support of our ministry. God’s Word tells us that we are all a part of the Body of Christ and each of the parts are necessary and important. This truth has become so real to us over the last year and a half and we remind you that your involvement is essential to the survival of His work here in Zambia. God bless all of you and PRESS ON & INTO HIM!!!
(Pictures are as follows: EFH (orphanage)family with Elise and Luke at Easter party / Chiluba (far left) and Luke (taking photo) witnessing to some vendors at Soweto Market / Of course pics of Tazi --Enjoy!)
His Servants
The Whitfields <><
Hope you are enjoying the Spring and all its new beauty!!!!!!! We are enjoying our new little “beauty” Tazi and it’s hard to believe that she is almost 7 weeks old. She has grown so much these past weeks and is catching up for lost time in the womb. She is over 9pounds and looks a lot like Macie as a baby. You can see for yourself in the pics on our blog!!!!!!
We have not been very diligent these past weeks with our weekly updates and hope to be more consistent in the months ahead. Thank you for your patience. We want to share a little more in depth about what we have been up to these past two weeks. We are partnering with a small church called Great Commission Baptist Church and Luke will be helping them with their evangelism and discipleship program. Luke has also met with the pastor Michael Kandella in our neighborhood and evangelized from home to home. They have been able to see many come to Christ and last week four of the new converts came to church at Great Commission! We praise God for his faithfulness. Luke has also been meeting every Tuesday or Thursday with Chiluba and going down town and sharing the gospel on the streets. They have also seen such a hunger for Christ and many come to accept Him as their personal savior. A handful of these new believers also came to church the following Sunday. Luke has been encouraged by this response and the hunger of the Zambian people. These dear Zambian brothers have also taught him how to approach Zambians and what some of the spiritual problems are here in this city.
I am excited to be able to work with the women at this new small church and hopefully helping in the music department too!!!! Luke and I also have the opportunity to encourage and disciple young couples in this very young church and look forward to encouraging couples in their marriages through the scriptures. There is so much potential here at Great Commission and so many opportunities and we can’t wait to see God work!!
We also wanted to update and let all you that have been praying for the orphans at EFH know that the waters have finally subsided and last Friday, April 4th, they return to the orphanage at Kanyama. It was such a blessing to see how happy they were to be back at the place they know as home. Please keep praying as water is still an issue and in the last couple of week there has been some 40 reported cases of Cholera in Kanyama. The concern here is that the reported causes are never a clear picture of the actually population affected and with many of the pit latrines in the area full and overflowing the situation looks to only get worse. We know God is in control and we continue to rest in knowing He has a plan in all of this. It is such a testimony to us when we observe how many of our Zambian friends continue to trust the Lord even in circumstances like we have mentioned above. What a conviction to us when we find ourselves complaining about trivial things like power outages or weird tasting foods. It is so evident that we have much to learn from our Zambian friends in how to rejoice in the Lord always!
Lastly we wanted to again get the word out, quite a bit early, about our upcoming furlough. We have secured tickets and will be arriving back in Chicago around the first of December and remain home until sometime, March-April, in the spring. Our plan is to be in Chicago through Christmas and then make a trek down to Dallas for a month or so. We will then return to Chicago for the remainder of our time home. The reasoning behind sharing so far in advance is that we don’t want to miss any opportunities to meet with you all. We are home to share and fellowship with you our friends and supporters and look forward to meeting with any of you that are interested. More details will follow closer to our departure but please be thinking, yes even now, about opportunities that may exist for us to share about what God has been doing through our partnership here in Zambia.
As always we treasure and appreciate your continued involvement and support of our ministry. God’s Word tells us that we are all a part of the Body of Christ and each of the parts are necessary and important. This truth has become so real to us over the last year and a half and we remind you that your involvement is essential to the survival of His work here in Zambia. God bless all of you and PRESS ON & INTO HIM!!!
(Pictures are as follows: EFH (orphanage)family with Elise and Luke at Easter party / Chiluba (far left) and Luke (taking photo) witnessing to some vendors at Soweto Market / Of course pics of Tazi --Enjoy!)
His ServantsThe Whitfields <><
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