Sabbath 14/03/32/120

Dear Friends.

Last week was the feast of Pentecost. The Pentecost message was written and posted to the web before we departed for the feast.

In the period from Friday to the morning of Pentecost we had requests to join us from a significant number of churches over four nations: from Kenya to Uganda, Rwanda and the Congo DR.

Our people in Nairobi are now so many and scattered that we have had to split Nairobi into three churches: East, South and West, under three different coordinators. There is also an ex- SDA church there that is joining us.

Our visit to Isiola this week saw the creation of a second church there in spite of the amalgamation of two groups. Sadly, we did lose people in the cholera outbreak there and we are now taking further steps to create safe drinking water by means of wells and tanks, and increasing the sanitation available there. We are establishing a school there, with our Turkana-speaking officers as teachers. Our program for the provision of nets to the children has been a marked success but we are expanding so fast we need at least as many nets again as when we started the program. We will need much more as the churches are inducted.

One of the encouraging things was the fact that a large number of the churches that came to us were from the Seventh Day Baptist churches in Uganda, Congo DR and the Rwanda area is still being invested. They are being inducted now. These are the groups that keep the Sabbath and the Feasts as well. It will be a great boon to us to have long standing members of the Churches of God to help with the new inductions of people new to the faith, and to help act as area coordinators.

We also had discussions with a church that was from one of the lines of the offshoots of WCG that had morphed into various identities over the last 15 years. The basic premise was that they would join us if we built them a church. That was a wrong approach. There is a basic and fundamental issue of doctrine between us and the denomination from which they propose to leave. You cannot be in one or another of the denominations opposed to CCG because they hold basic beliefs that cannot be reconciled, either with ours or with each other.

The real issue is to first decide what you believe and then make your decision as to what church you belong and where you must keep the Passover, then join that body. Christ will assist you, but remember the greatest loved of the churches of Revelation is the weakest and the poorest of the major eras. That is the church of brotherly love; the Church of the Philadelphians. It is they that carry the name of Christ and have not denied his name. It is they that do the work in the last days.

We have to send coordinators everywhere in order to induct these churches and to organise them. Often they have to delegate duties to get it done. The coordinators have to travel vast distances and go to very hazardous areas. Pray for their well-being.

We are still consolidating the last group that came in from Uganda and especially in the North of Uganda, and now we have another seven churches to induct there as well.

Our friends in the SDB churches were pleased to find us there and said they only just located us from the Internet. The network is growing rapidly. To expand by so many churches in one day (or at the most two days) is incredible.

From 1 Abib we have expanded to over 200 officers in over a dozen nations in Africa with perhaps as many as 170 or more churches, and who knows how many people. The extraordinary thing is that it is expanding all the time. We expanded last Friday, at the start of the Feast of Weeks, by 51 officers in Northern Uganda alone. Who knows how many more there are elsewhere. There are over 40 churches now in Uganda. Kenya has much more than that.

We have no firm idea as to how many are with us, or joining us, in Tanzania at present. Walter has joined Joash on Friday for Sabbath there to go to various areas. Joash and the officers have to travel extensively to deal with them all.

After 15 years, our work is now showing profound results and it is the doctrinal papers that are moving people to action. Please pray that God continues to bless us and have us grow.

This week we made the decision to produce a monthly magazine. We had explored it a number of times previously. However, we did not wish to divert resources from more important tasks. We have now taken the decision to commence. Please pray that we are able to get on with the project. Our web masters are now working on the project with input from all national and area coordinators and the staff.

We propose to have an international section with other than English content. We will have French, Kiswahili, Arabic and other languages. There will be area specific news and an African section.

We hope we have more news about our other proposed operations in the not too distant future. We are now getting to critical mass where we can harness abilities and resources far and away more competent than the Churches of God have seemingly been able to do or demonstrate to date, despite, in some cases, vast resources.

Please try to assist where you can and remember the prayers of a righteous person are of great effect.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General