G’day
Praying Partners,
Not sure
where the month of April has gone! We certainly appreciate your prayers for our
Easter Outreach. As we thought, we did have a smaller group of kids this year –
about 35. But we also had about 20 parents stay, which is always a blessing. In
fact, one of the teachers from school brought her kids – this is the first time
we’ve had a staff member attend one of our outreaches. The gospel was clearly
presented – we even had the entire group of parents/kids say John 3:16 a couple
of times! We
continue to know that as we sow the seeds, God will bring the harvest, resting
in the fact that His Word never returns void. Because of the smaller group we
were able to have much more interaction with the parents and kids – we were
very proud of our church family as they made sure to engage all of them on a
personal level. If you’d like to see pictures, travel on over to
ernstfamilydownunder.blogspot.com for a peek!
We had a
lovely Easter service – very small attendance which seems to always happen for
us. It falls during school holidays and so many of our church family travel
away PLUS there is not the emphasis on the holiday for people who don’t
normally attend church to venture out to church just for Easter. Our co-workers
(at a “sister” church) who have been on furlough returned recently, so we had a
lovely lunch with them. They are glad to be back in Australia and back at their
church. This is the only other couple with BMM here in Australia so we are
thankful to have them back as well.
It was a
busy month for our church as well as we had 2 new additions – babies! They were
born to 2 different families but only 1 day apart. We have another one on the
way in August. So thankful for families willing to increase attendees this way😊
Rob also had the privilege of marrying a young couple from our church. The
weather was beautiful and it was such a blessing to see their testimony for
Christ shared through the service to family and friends that don’t know the
Lord.
You can join
us in prayer as we are asking the Lord for 5 new people/families this year. We
have one already – a single man from Sydney that’s relocated to the area for
work who began attending a couple of weeks ago. Trusting God to bring in new
faces that we can minister to/with.
We will
begin planning for our second outreach in September – Malcolm Creek Mini Show –
so we would appreciate prayers for that as well. It is such a blessing to be
able to reach the community through these outreaches and know that the Gospel
is going out to people who wouldn’t come to church. Thankful for the school
where we meet – they are a real blessing to us!
Praying that
you had a wonderful celebration on Resurrection Sunday! May Christ’s
resurrection stir our souls each day to share the Gospel with a lost and dying
world that desperately needs Him!
Shining the
Light Down Under,
Rob and
Jackie
