ANCC in South Sudan needs help

Posted by Bill on May 19, 2012

CCI committed some time ago to support our dear friend Pastor Papiti Yowin and his church – All Nations Community Church in Malakal in Southern Sudan in prayer and any other means available to us.

Thanks to courageous leadership and a real vision of Pastor Papiti, this church is GROWING! Praise the Lord! And what is even more amazing is that even in the challenging and often harsh circumstances of Southern Sudan, Pastor Papiti and his congregation are doing whatever they can to develop their church facilities to meet the growing needs of the congregation and, even more importantly, the local community – so that God’s love and mercy can flow out of their church and make a real, positive impact in their town.

ANCC has already managed to construct a large part of the shell for a new school building to accommodate 8 classrooms – but because of the growth of the congregation they are also using it for regular worship for 750-800 people at a time! The ministry has also grown to the point where Pastor Papiti cannot continue in his job (he used to work to support himself as well as being the Pastor) and so he has left his job to minister full time, managing the church and helping to run the school (which is also expanding and cannot yet meet demand because of lack of facilities).

Pastor Papiti recently sent us some new pictures and has been keeping us up-to-date with the situation at ANCC, writing…

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Dear Pastor Bill,

My thanks are to you and all the members and supporters of CCI for your concern with ANCC ministries here in Malakal in the Republic Of South Sudan.

As you know, I have chosen to depend on on God since I received this vision for ANCC and I know He is the one in charge of it, that is why we have this rapid expansion without fear. I will continue to do what He wants me and our team to do, all the time depending on Him completely with whole our hearts. He has already enabled us to have a shelter for worship as well as school classes on other days. At the moment the sides are partially covered with bamboo and we use it for worship services on Sundays. When the structure is complete it will be able to accommodate 750 or 850 people. We are only temporarily using it for worship as it is meant to be 8 school classrooms by next year. Now every Sunday evening we divide it with some local materials into classes and remove them on Saturday evening, that is wisdom to us.

I really wanted to send you the detailed proposal for our needs so that you can put them on your website for people to see – but the only thing that always delays me is the network and power.

We have many problems in our new country and we really have challenges due to expansion of our ministries. I myself am no longer working to support my family now, I’m depending on His grace. Please continue to hold us up in your prayers. We have been so blessed, and feel sure that our God will provide for all our needs.

God bless you.

Pastor Papiti
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Dear friends, please prayerfully consider making a donation to support Pastor Papiti and the All Nations Community Church in Malakal, Southern Sudan.

If just 10 people donated $10 a week for one year, that would raise $5,200 – which by God’s grace would do truly amazing things to help this expanding local church in the heart of Souther Sudan.

If you feel led, just click on the PayPal button below.

Small Groups Momentum growing in Warsaw

Posted by Bill on February 25, 2012

Received from Iza, the Small Groups Director we worked with in Warsaw during our European “Vision of Visions” trip

Bill, the small groups presentation to our church family, last week, was more than amazing!

I couldn’t sleep afterwards, of course . I’m still excited, actually – everyone is. It’s hard to describe how I am feeling. I’m still in Heaven (not Coffee Heaven .

Our presentation included: Adam Dulinski speaking about following Jesus, later we had four people share testimonies. Martin spoke about how the pastors and elders supported God’s work at Ephesus. I then spoke about discipleship, saying …

“We want to follow Jesus, knowing His way of walking with His disciples. Twelve people (one small group) spent 3 years with each other, learning to accept and love each other, grow spiritually, and looked for lost people. This is called discipleship. In the small groups of our church, we are learning to do the same. We take on challenges of mutual love and acceptance, spiritual growth, and to lead people to Jesus. Jesus modeled this, so did the apostles. Then Paul and Timothy continued to do this. Through small group, we want discipleship to be a part of our lives and we want this pattern conveyed to future generations. Through discipleship, we want to follow Jesus.”

The Elders and Pastors of our church then prayed for us.

Bill, many people expressed sensing God’s Power and His Holy Spirit. After the presentation, telephone texts and emails were being circulated, expressing joy and happiness for the presentation! We thank the Lord for this ministry!

Bill, thank you for helping us.

Iza

Can you help our partners in Nigeria?

Posted by Bill on December 31, 2011

Our partners in Ibadan, Nigeria – Dominion Impact Church – have courageously stepped out in faith with an ambitious project to construct a building for their church family.

Our dear friend, Reverend Kola Emiola, says,

“The purpose of this project is to enable us have our own permanent place of worship in Ibadan. Present lease cost of our worship facility is exorbitant. And, our facilities are not adequate to enable the smooth running of our ministry activities. Our facility, for example, does not allow enough space for us to provide quality ministry support for the children in each of our services. Our regular leadership and cells training are most of the times disrupted by rain and excessive heat from the sun. At times, we are forced to rent space from nearby hotels for special leadership conferences/trainings. Using these facilities are very costly. We had to find a solution.

Hence, our faith step in trusting the Lord to buy land, and begin constructing facilities that would support our growth. This building will house our worship centre, children department, cells centre for leadership trainings, library and office for our church staff and pastors.

Please, we invite you to join us in this great building project. Please help us in any way you can (prayer, encouragement, and financial gifts).

We’ve partnered with Kola and his team at Dominion Impact Church since 2004 and have visited them several times. We are delighted to be able to share with you that they are godly people, with a sound leader in Pastor Kola, who are extremely passionate in their faith for the Lord.

Are you in a position to help?

No matter how small, your financial gift will make a difference. Just click on the PayPal button below to make a specific donation to Dominion Impact Church‘s building project.

A vision of visions 4 – on target in Poland!

Posted by Bill on July 25, 2011

When I aim at a target, and give it my best shot, I’m keen to know the result. So, after my recent visit to Poland, I asked Christian Fellowship Warsaw North to give me an impact assessment of my time with them in May. Marcin Gochnio, a member of the church’s cells coordination team, forwarded the following testimony …

Our church grew in number in recent years, but our cell groups did not develop in proportion to the church’s growth. There were a lot of questions in our minds as to how to lead cell groups to maintain growth, joy and fruitfulness. We remembered Bill’s visit five years earlier when there was much enthusiasm when cell groups started in our church, so we asked him for help.

Bill agreed to come and spend two weeks in our country, investing a week in our church and a week with a church at Bialystok, North-East of Poland. A conference for cell group leaders, workshops and several meetings took place. It made us aware of main challenges, such as the lack of a person who would focus exclusively on cell groups’ development (a cell groups’ champion), the need for adequate support for our group leaders and for deeper understanding of the purpose of cell groups.

After Bill’s visit, many people were encouraged to take action (also our guests from other churches). We learned lots of practical tips and captured fresh ideas for our ministry. The follow-up change program requires time and these changes are just beginning. The important part of the change program will be CCI’s Small Groups Development Manual which was translated into Polish. We look forward to receiving more support from CCI and we have invited Bill to revisit us in September – this time, to invest six weeks with us. We look forward to his assistance, helping us with the change program, to provide small group leader’s training, and to invest time with other churches in our country.

We are very grateful to Bill for his hard work and highly appreciate his insight and experience. Bill is for us a true friend and brother.

Marcin Gochnio
Senior Pastor
Christian Fellowship Warsaw North, Poland

A vision of visions 3 – Ibadan

Posted by Bill on

We arrived late in Ibadan – badly dressed (jeans and t-shirts) with no time to change and knocked about a bit on the 3 hour journey from Lagos…

and Bill was still feeling really crook from congestion and no sleep – Nick began to check out the projector, screens, laptop, etc. ready for the presentation to start. As the last of the participants arrived I took myself off into the corner of the room and simply prayed, asking the Holy Spirit to come and give me the strength to deliver the training, and to open the hearts and minds of the participants – many of whom had made a lot of effort to come into Ibadan.

About 50 attended the training, and we were hugely encouraged by their enthusiasm as the simplicity of the Small Groups Church Plan was unfolded. Bill repeated the strategy that he had used in Lagos, inviting participants to come up to the front and share their questions and opinions and once again this was a great success – encouraging the rest of the audience as each person who came up to speak reinforced one or more of the principles that I had been talking about.

During our time in Ibadan we also had the opportunity to visit the site of the new church building (which has been purchased and construction has been started) and the possible site for the visionary Dominion Campus Project – this was very exciting for us and humbling, as Pastor Kola and his team have placed all their faith in the Lord to provide for their church, such a great encouragement to all of us.

This was also a great reunion for me with Pastor Kola and his beautiful wife, Bola, who also pastors in the church. Please be praying for Kola and Bola Emiola as they lead their church, and for the other members of their leadership team – Kenmi, Emmanuel and Elijah. Their commitment to following Jesus and their faith and determination in their lives and ministry is really a great example tall of us in the comfort of our ‘developed world’ homes and lives.

You can read more about Dominion Impact Church in Nigeria, and some of the other amazing things that God is doing in Africa on a new website, ‘Africa for the Kingdom‘

If you haven’t already subscribed to our blog I encourage you to do so – we will be posting more detailed reports and testimonies about Bill’s May 2011 tour in the coming weeks!

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