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What a fruitful year 2022 was and we want to touch some highlights and rejoice in all God has done.
We’ll start in November 2021: Our first outreach in the country of Armenia: Ten events serving multiple churches and reaching 884 in attendance with 469 believers bringing 415 non-believing friends and family. Praise God for 258 first time professions of faith recorded. Glory to Jesus!
December 2021: Costa Rica: We trained 57 total pastors and leaders in evangelism and leadership. There were 23 participants in the first session and 34 in the second. The pastors were encouraged and refreshed with the prospect of the Good News reviving their churches and starting to reach out again after the Covid recovery.
April 2022: Armenia: We had the honor of training 150 evangelists in an “Advance Conference” with the goal to see “Advance Groups” form. The purpose of “Advance Groups” is to promote and develop the calling of evangelists by supporting them in their commitment to proclaim the Gospel.
June 2022: Mombasa, Kenya: We collaborated with multiple strategic partners from various parts of the world, including America, UK, Romania, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, and of course Kenya. Some of our partners were: Global Network of Evangelists - Palau Association, African Evangelistic Enterprise, New Fire Ministries, Mission Trust, Stunt Dudes, Ripe 4 Life, Broken Wings South Africa, Holy Keane Amooti and more.
We held leadership meetings and police officer meetings. We were also in schools and jails. We were on the radio and digital media campaigns. We did mobile street outreaches, and a four-day large scale festival (think crusade). The area we ministered in is 70% Muslim. Over the four days of the festival, we had an estimated 22,600 in attendance (stats from GNE and AE), 1056 cards filled out indicating a decision to follow Jesus Christ, over 200 churches mobilized, and over 2000 volunteers trained and serving.
October 2022: Romania & Ukraine: On this mission, we started our time off in the city of Cluj Napoca in Romania. We had the great honor to provide hundreds of food boxes, clothes, etc. for Ukrainian refugees who are staying in that city. We partnered with Ecclesia Church, and I shared a message of hope in Jesus Christ.
Then we went to Ukraine. The Ukrainian people are strong and beautiful. My heart goes out to them. We were blessed to host an evening of entertainment and fun, a nice dinner in a restaurant, and hundreds of food boxes for the future. We also made sure they had clothes and Bibles. I shared a message about “Why God allows pain and suffering”. The refugees are mostly women and children as the men are in the military fighting a war. Of course, as always, I pointed them to Jesus as the cure and answer for our lives now and for eternity.
We also held the first ever “Advance” evangelism training conference in the country of Romania where we trained about 100 evangelists and leaders.
In all we held eight outreaches totaling 929 in attendance. Approximately half the attendees were Christians bringing the other half of attendees who were their non-believing friends to hear the gospel and get loved on. We had 90 people who indicated a first-time decision for Christ and 20 more to follow up with.
We were privileged to collect and give almost $24,000.00 to our partner ministry led by Daniel Rus in Romania. They served and provided much needed resources to Ukrainian refugees this past year. What a blessing to be an avenue of blessing others. Ripe 4 Life sent 100% of designated funds. We did not keep one penny for ourselves.
But as always, we are forward looking: What’s in the work for 2023?
1. A potential outreach in Athens, TX with a group of churches that have been meeting, praying, and planning to impact their town with the Good News of Jesus. They have reached out to me about a possible collaboration next year - I am very excited about this possibly in the USA.
2. Nairobi, Kenya, a large collaborative effort and festival with Global Network of Evangelist and African Enterprise and hundreds of churches. This one will be likened to the Mombasa Festival last year, but probably even bigger and more impact.
3. New Country: Georgia, in Eastern Europe, south of Russia. This one will be likened to the Armenia missions we have done over the past couple of years. --- Also, Lord willing and the circumstance permits (Lord willing and the creek don't rise - LOL) I will try to tag on a trip to Ukraine with this one also. This will be a multiple trip mission, one for first contact, vision casting, and strategic planning. The second trip will be the full-on training, community projects, and festival and/or affinity preaching events - preaching tour.
4. There is a possibility to go to the country of Moldova and minister there. - Georgia in the first part of the year and possibly Moldova the last.
5. We have invites from South Africa, Pakistan, and other parts of the world to come help churches and ministries in evangelism.
6. Digital Media, I am still working on this one, and it should be ongoing, social media, radio, etc.
7. We are seeking the Lord about expanding our Board of Directors with qualified members. I am hoping we can add three or four by this summer. We must be prayerful in allowing God to reveal to us the correct people.