Photos from Dale Downing:

Dead to self                   Buried with Christ          Raised to a new life

May 2000

Dear Jan,

WE are back, but worn out and excited. We had a great trip. I do not know what kind of report that you want, but here goes.

WEI Team Goes To Romania.

It was an exciting time with 327 total Bible Studies. Going with me were four other workers: Elvis and Kay Istre of Abilene; Naoma Guinn of Livingston, and Yvonne Davis from Little Rock, ARK. All five of us taught from the WEI booklets with 64 students. Many of these students came two or three times per week. Two of the teachers had students who were willing to be taught every day. All of these students were invited to the Assembly of the Church on Sunday and a few of them came and enjoyed the Worship Services. Although there were no baptisms while we were in Cluj, many Seeds were planted and God will give the increase at His appointed time.

The Romanian Easter Holiday came on May 5th, but some students began to take time off from their WEI studies as early as 7 days before that date. It was disappointing that the number of studies drop each week. Had it not been for the holiday, there would have been more than 400 Bible studies for the month long adventure.

It is amazing to watch these students, whose ages vary from 18 - 65, become so interested in the Bible stories. In the beginning, they are only interested in improving their English , then they are hooked on the joy of knowing the Bible. Many begin to see very early that their infant baptism did not save their soul. However, they are slow to change from their old religion. Also, parental influence or objections play a big part in their hesitation to become a true Christian.

Jan Towell sent me ETR Bibles and WEI Lessons to deliver to a few students that she has been teaching. I delivered them to her young university student, but was unable to schedule any time with him. By the time that I met with him, my schedule was already full.

It was a great joy to serve the Master by teaching His message using the WEI material, which is perfect for one-on-one studies as well as email use. Find a non-Christian in your neighborhood and try using the WEI material with them.

For the Master,

Will Odom

The Langley's

The first weekend in May we rented a van and drove my car 9 hours over the mountains to the city of Pitesti in southern Romania. The Pitesti church of Christ hosted their second national youth seminar for ages 14 -30. A total of eleven of us from Oradea made the trip and enjoyed a wonderful weekend of bible study and fellowship with approximately 300 other church of Christ youth from many different cities in the country. Vasile Iuhos and I taught break out classes, and our Alin led the entire auditorium seminar in most of the singing. The theme of the seminar was "Serving the Master". Everyone enjoyed a very spiritually uplifting time together.

We just concluded a three month teaching and sermon series centered on the theme of commitment, dedication, and devotion. Vasile taught the Sunday morning class from Old Testament texts, while Romeo and I rotated the sermon presentations from New Testament texts. Adinel presided over the Lord's supper. They all did an impressive job of preparation and teaching. For the next three months Vasile, Romeo, and Adinel will rotate the Bible class and Lord's supper on the theme of, "The Nature of God". I will present a sermon series entitled "Invitations in the Bible". We are so blessed to have these three capable men willing to assume and serve in leadership roles with our church family, and in the Kingdom at large.

Vasile continues to lead us in a study of "The Key to Knowledge" series at our Wednesday bible study, and our once a week prayer group in different homes was again well attended. We have registered all the students necessary (60), for our summer WEI bible teaching campaign which begins on July 7th, and have begun a waiting list. We enjoyed our monthly fellowship meal together last Sunday, and for the month averaged 27 in attendance.

INSPIRATIONAL HIGHLIGHT

Recently it has become evident to Angie and I how blessed by God we are here in Oradea. A great challenge for many of the young churches of Christ in Romania, has been the lack of mature male leadership. We are so grateful to have several men and a few boys who are developing into ready and willing participants, teachers, and leaders within our spiritual family. Vasile who graduated from Sunset Bible Institute in Athens is a very capable preacher, teacher, and even song leader when necessary. Romeo and Adinel are also developing into excellent teachers and seizing every opportunity to study and present lessons. Alin Ardelean at the age of 18 takes his song leading ministry very seriously and has developed into one of the finest song leaders for his age that I have witnessed. Sorin Stafie at the age of 15 is always willing to lead public prayer and even volunteers to prepare and present devotional thoughts at every opportunity. Romeo and Sorin have both told me that they have a desire to one day serve as a preacher and teacher of God's word. There is nothing sweeter to a missionaries ears than to hear those words. Their enthusiasm inspires us all.

PRAYER REQUESTS AND MANY THANKS

Many thanks to Harvey and Vernon Starling and the churches of Christ in Pitesti and Craiova who hosted the National Youth Bible Seminar. As usual it was very well organized and a spiritually uplifting experience for all. They organized great bible classes, fed us, housed us, and put up with us. Thank you! Thank you!

Again we owe great thanks in advance to this years WEI teachers who are scheduled to come at their own expense and spend 2 to 4 weeks teaching Bible using the WEI material. Your sacrifices toward the expansion of God's kingdom will not go unnoticed. (Heb. 6:10)

Please keep this campaign in your prayers as teachers will be traveling long distances. Many precious souls will soon be meeting with them to learn about the one, true, loving, and gracious God in heaven. Is there anything more exciting than that?

REPORTING ON THE SYKTYVKAR BIBLE SCHOOL IN SYKTYVKAR, RUSSIA

AND WEI EVANGELISM IN ARAD, ROMANIA

Dear friends & supporters,
As I sit in our office at home drafting this newsletter, I am looking out the window at a beautiful fall morning in North Alabama. How blessed we are. How blessed and thankful we are also to have you on our team making possible the mission work that we are involved in. May God bless your part in this ministry.

SYKTYVKAR BIBLE SCHOOL – UPDATE
The 2010/2011 school year at SBS got off to a good start in September. Dr. Ken Yearwood and his wife Ann were there, and Ken taught the morning course. I taught the afternoon course on-line and it went very smoothly. It was just like being there, except that I couldn’t have tea with them! Dub Hill was there for the second session, Tom Wacaster for the third and Ronald Coleman is there now teaching the fourth session. Charles Begnaud, one of West Main’s elders, will teach the morning course in December, and I will again teach the afternoon course on-line. We are ever grateful to those who go and teach; we couldn’t do it without you.

I am reporting to supporting congregations during this time. Already we have visited with some of you and anticipate being with all of you over the next several weeks. We are now trying to report everywhere every year, the Lord willing. Woven into reports to supporters is also efforts to raise funds for the school. We still have a long way to go in funding the new distance learning program. If you know of individuals or congregations that you think might be interested in becoming part of this work, please let me know.
Development of the Distance Learning program continues. Tanya Pannell will now be helping with translation of the courses. She was one of our translators in the school from the very beginning and now lives in Tupelo, MS with her husband and son. We are still shooting for a launch date in January if at all possible. The more we consider the current state of the Lord’s church in Russia, the more we feel the burden the Lord has placed on our shoulders for the program to succeed. Please pray for all of our efforts through the school and for the revival of the Russian church.

WEI EVANGELISM / ARAD CHURCH – UPDATE
Recent reports from the Arad church indicate that things are going well. Our newest brother, Nicolae Pernavan, is a welcome addition to the Lord’s body there and promises to be a good leader in time. He is well educated and a retired economist.
After eleven years in the work, the Grant Street elders are in the process of transferring the Foundation over to the Arad Church of Christ. As the Church of Christ is not recognized by the Romanian government, the foundation is the legal entity that gives permission to the church to meet openly and carry on its work. This move is the logical progression of turning the work over to the local church and is a good thing. Of course Grant Street continues to assist the work financially and with campaign activity.
Kay continues studying the Bible with students via World English Institute on-line. I’ll let her share her experiences with you in her own words… “It rather blows my mind to think of being able to communicate with people in countries I know little or nothing about. These are people that I would never have otherwise come in contact with except through WEI’s internet course. Most students drop out for one reason or another, but even they can have been touched by the Word in some way. The importance of what the course is doing came to me when I received this message from one of my students: ‘Now please Kay let me know why there is so differences between both books [Quran and Bible] as both come from God. Kindly sort me out of it. I shall be very thankful to you.’ Please join me in prayer for the thousands who are looking at the WEI course website.”

There continues to be a great need for more Christians to become WEI internet teachers. Every time the ad is run on Google, the response is great. It is as Jesus described, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. In our reporting, I always challenge members of the church to consider becoming WEI internet teachers and some have already taken the challenge. What about you? If you would like to learn more about WEI internet teaching, please contact us and Kay will be glad to send you information and help you get started. For the latest news about WEI, go to www.weiady.org.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
One thing that I have come to realize over the past year and a half is the extent to which the down economy has affected the Lord’s church. Part of my work is raising funds for the school, in particular, funding the development of the distance learning program. In speaking of this with elders, mission committees and individuals, I hear a lot about slow business, lost jobs, reduced salaries, contributions down, church budgets not being met and programs and missions having to be cut or reduced. It is a difficult time for raising funds for the Lord’s work, yet the Lord’s work goes on none the less. We consider ourselves very blessed in that none of our supporters have had to drop support during this time. God is good. Thank you again for your loyal support, and we pray that God may continue to bless our fellowship in the gospel.
Yours in Christ,
Larry & Kay


 

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