Ministry Update from 12/29/06

Dear Friends and Ministry Partners,

As the year 2006 closes, we pause to magnify the Lord and thank you for partnering in the work here in Cote d’Ivoire. Because you prayed and gave, lives have been touched. Some received Christ, some grew in their faith, some heard the gospel for the first time, and others received training or counsel in spiritual, financial, and medical areas. Come with us on a whirlwind tour of a few people whose lives were individually changed, and some jobs accomplished for HIS glory.

Ministry
1. Romeo met Jesus Christ as his personal Savior while completing the Bible study “Experiencing God” and tutoring Corbin in French. The Lord continues to work in his life, as he faces problems brought by past sins and as he challenges friends and family to know Christ as more than a religious icon.

2. Mai, a teen girl, received witness from our family and many others, and over the summer made the enormous step of faith to abandon Islam and follow Jesus. She is being encouraged to stand firm and given help with food and clothes, as she withstands persecution from her furious mother and grandmother. 3. Thirteen prisoners in the Bondoukou jail have been touched in several ways, as they meet for Bible study and worship.

4. Miriam, a girl about 12, can now walk, run, and play without pain because Verlin gave her desperate parents medical advice and helped them buy medicine. For over two years, doctors and blood exams failed to expose her problem, filaria. After a one-day treatment, her life was revolutionized, and her Muslim father was very amazed that a missionary would take time to help his daughter.

5. On several occasions Debbie counseled a desperate teen boy, who was preparing to help his ex-girlfriend get an abortion. She confronted him with his sins of premarital sex and planning to take a human life, and pleaded with him to be reconciled to God. He later decided not to give money for the abortion, and acknowledged that he needed to change friends and return to the Lord and church.

6. The Goumere CHE team grew in their faith as they continue down the path to establish a Community Health Evangelism ministry in the village of Krako. The people of Krako are eager, despite the death of their chief and the long funeral process, and now hope to start the regular town meetings in January.

7. Over 1,000 hours were spent this fall translating CHE lessons (spiritual, medical, and Muslim Bible study) into French, inputting, formatting, and editing them in the computer. These will later become part of a database of lessons available for any CHE project ministering in French-speaking countries.

8. Time lacks to speak of sermons preached, lessons taught, hospitality offered, neighbors met, services rendered to the national FWB Church, NGOs, or Bibles and tracts distributed. Every FWB missionary account in Cote d’Ivoire also invests yearly in training pastors and lay workers, evangelistic outreaches, and putting roofs on new church buildings or parsonages, among other things.

Family
1. Debbie resolved a long-standing health problem by having surgery in October and working through a complicated recovery. 2. Cason has led a Bible study through school this semester, served as secretary of the student council, completed our webpage design, and helped train Romeo to use the computer in more ways than data entry. 3. Cara had the privilege to serve on E-Team France this summer, and she and Debbie look forward to beginning an English/Bible study for teen girls in January. 4. For the first time since 2001, our family has lived in the same house for almost a year. Frequent moves for evacuations and relocation in Cote d’Ivoire have been stressful, but we have finally sorted through most of the debris. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and we don’t think it is a train!

Please pray with us that 2007 will be a year of increased peace and harvest in Cote d’Ivoire. We do not just want to be busy with activity and so-called ministry, but to draw closer to Jesus individually and to produce “fruit that will last” for eternity.

Learning to abide in Him for a fruitful life,
Verlin, Debbie, Cason, Cara, and Corbin Anderson