Around the World
BRAZIL
RIO DE JANEIRO
The Victory church launches its “90 days of Victory” campaign this month, missionary Gordon Dabbs said. The evangelistic campaign lasts through July and coincides with the church’s third anniversary in June. An average of 180 people attend the church, Dabbs said. The Richland Hills church, Fort Worth, Texas; Alameda church, Norman, Okla.; and the church in Rochester Hills, Mich., support the Victory church.
CHINA
SHI ZONG, YUNNAN
Doctors and volunteers with China Mission will visit Shi Zong, Yunnan, May 22-June 4. The group will administer general medicine, dental care and ophthalmology care for about 300 orphans supported by the mission in the region, missionary Ron Brown said. The ministry also helped pay for two open-heart surgeries on Chinese Christians in Wuhan, Hubei, in early April, Brown said. The Hillsboro church, Nashville, Tenn., sponsors China Mission.
CZECH REPUBLIC
BRNO
Missionaries Galen Harrill and Allen Diles and two workers from the Prague church presented a seminar on how to study the Bible in Brno, in eastern Czech Republic, in mid-March. About 15 people attended, including three non-Christians, Diles said. “We appreciated the invitation and the hospitality of the Brno brethren and look forward to future times of study with them,” Diles said. The Sylvan Hills church, Sherwood, Ark., sponsors Diles.
INDIA
MUMBAI
Acharya Daya Prakash, author of “The Fulfillment of the Vedic Quest in Jesus Christ,” spent the first two weeks of March with missionaries, “helping us to build bridges with the Hindu community,” a worker said.
“We had dialogues with leaders, priests and pundits from a number of Hindu groups in Mumbai,” the worker said, including the Hari Krishna movement and a group that claims to “get their power from divine snakes.”
“The dialogues were valuable for understanding, relation-building and sharing the Gospel of Christ,” the worker said. The Wilkesboro, N.C., church sponsors the work.
MYLAVARAM
The Mylavaram church hosted preacher training classes in late March, attended by 50 students, said missionary Babu Pothan. The students plan to preach in surrounding villages. About 1,000 people attended the church’s annual lectureship Feb. 14-16. “Bear Ye Fruit” was the theme, and Pothan’s wife, Latha, and sister, Jhansi, taught ladies’ classes, Pothan said. The Sonoma Avenue church, Santa Rosa, Calif., sponsors the work.
KAZAKHSTAN
ALMATY
Randy and Sandra Green are embroiled in a court battle to keep the rented facility they use to house 10 teenage orphans, the missionaries said April 6.
The landlord of the facility, The Light House, has ordered multiple inspections, possibly in an attempt to evict them, the Greens said. But “each of the government agencies that has come to inspect us, after seeing the work that we are doing for the kids, immediately comes over to our side and begins to tell us what to do to pass the inspections,” they said. All 10 of the Light House residents have become Christians in the past year, the Greens said.
The church in Kaufman, Texas, supports the Greens. The North Atlanta church supplies the working fund for the Almaty church.
PHILIPPINES
The Yucaipa, Calif., church shipped a 40-foot container of materials for mission work to the Philippines March 31, said missionary Salvador Cariaga. The shipment contained Bibles, song books, pews, chairs and materials for churches, preaching schools and local mission teams. Forest Ridell, elder at Yucaipa, coordinated the shipment.
Forest Ridell loads supplies for the Philippines.
SOUTH AFRICA
VEREENIGING
The “A-Team,” a group of volunteers with Gospel Chariot Missions, reported 32 baptisms and the beginning of a new congregation in the Vereeniging area, south of Johannesburg, missionary George Funk said April 7. The A-Team follows up with students studying under the ministry’s “One Nation Under God” campaign. Team members also will “get the existing churches of Christ to help visit and mature the young house church,” Funk said. The Lamar, Colo., church sponsors Funk’s work.
UNITED KINGDOM
WIGAN
The church in Longshoot, Wigan, a town east of Liverpool, hosted a group of students from Lipscomb University, Nashville, Tenn., from March 15-22. The students spent the week distributing leaflets, hosting workshops with the congregation’s youths and working in the community, said church member Robert Marsden. Lipscomb Bible professor George Goldman spoke at the church’s worship service and led a Bible study.
“The whole church benefitted richly from the presence of these young people …,” Marsden said.
