Welcome to Jubilee Christian Fellowship
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Missions In 2007 Jubilee joined with Iris Ministries in building an orphanage in Pemba Mozambique.
Bellow we have included several stories and pictures from the goings on in Pemba. We will try to regularly update what's happening and your prayers are greatly appreciated.
Click to enlarge
March 24, 2009
Dear Friends and Partners in Ministry,
Summer in the Southern Hemisphere is drawing
to a close. We've lost more than an hour of
daylight--with the sun now rising about 5:30
am and setting about 5:30 pm. (The
difference between the seasons is much less
than in Canada because we're only about 12
degrees south of the equator here.) The few
seasonal trees--like the giant baobabs that
are all over our Iris property--are losing
their leaves; and the summer rains are
falling noticeably less frequently. Soon the
rain will cease completely for the
eight-month dry season.
In this Report, we want to share a couple of
recent ministry highlights...in addition to
including a few pictures which are worth a
thousand words to describe our daily reality
here.
Boat Outreaches
Some of you played a part in our protracted
efforts to secure an affordable
and sea-worthy boat to carry evangelistic
teams to inaccessible coastal and island
communities near Pemba. This has been on
Heidi's heart for a long time because these
villages are inhabited by thousands of
Africans who have never heard the name of
Jesus. Moreover, the mosque is very strong
on some of the islands which were frequented
by Arab slave traders in the 19th century.
Our good friend Jack Ferguson--a West Coast
boat captain and diesel mechanic and now
resident and ministering in PEI--spent a
great deal of time securing a suitable used
boat for us, arranging for its transit from
South Africa, and assisting with a major
mechanical overhaul of its engines. With
Freedom 1 finally ready for use, Heidi
has recently led three outreaches to the
isolated coastal village of Londo; and she
describes them as among the most anointed
and fruitful of her 30 years of ministry! As
a result of his past week's outreach, Iris
has now planted a church in Londo and
promised to build the first primary
school there for the village children.
This strategic initiative by boat is building
on our medical outreaches to the islands in
the small Iris bush plane over the past year
and on our recent property acquisitions on
Ibo Island. The combined impact is already
touching many lives with the good news of
the Kingdom of God and promising "hope and a
future (Jer. 29:11)" to thousands who have
lived in spiritual darkness for generations.
Mieze
Clube de Bandeira
We are very excited about the Saturday-morning
evangelistic program we're running for
village children at our Mieze children's
centre. Every week, 400-450 kids gather for
the Bandeira Club. (Bandeira
means flag or banner in Portuguese and
reminds the kids that they are a
banner proclaiming Jesus' love to their
community.) For more than two hours, they
sit packed into our refectory singing
Scripture choruses, reciting verses
outlining God's plan of Salvation, and
hearing Bible stories on cassette...all in
their familiar Makua tongue.
Last week we asked Mieze Pastor Juma to give an
invitation to the children to receive Jesus
as their personal Saviour and Lord. He
explicitly asked only those who have never
before asked Jesus into their life and
wanted to make this public commitment today
to raise their hands. The immediate result
was nearly 400 kids throwing both arms in
the air and enthusiastically calling on the
name of Jesus. The pictures below can't
begin to capture the outpouring of spiritual
energy as the children continued to cheer
for Jesus for at least two minutes. It was a
heavenly moment that we'll never
forget...and, more importantly, neither will
those kids!
We look forward to being able to extend the
Bandeira Club invitation throughout the
village when the new church and community
centre building is ready for use later this
year. Meantime, we have just launched this
children's program in a new village another
half hour's drive beyond Mieze. And the
initial response there was as enthusiastic
as it's been in Mieze. Thank you, Jesus!
Children's Day T-Shirts
June 1 is Children's Day in Mozambique and it
is second only to Christmas Day in
importance as a national celebration. Our
Iris Pemba Base will give Children's Day
T-Shirts to all our resident kids here and
organize games and prepare a chicken dinner
for hundreds and hundreds of local village
kids.
Two years ago, we were given a special gift to
buy T-Shirts for the Mieze church kids, as
well. We gave out the shirts in church the
day after the Lord had supernaturally
multiplied food for the third time for these
kids...and we commissioned them to share
what they knew of the goodness of God
among their village friends. We believe what
we're now experiencing in the Bandeira Club
is part of the harvest from what was sown
that day!
As we began to think about Children's Day,
2009 we wondered if there might be churches
or individuals who would like to contribute
to a special fund to buy and print T-Shirts
for the kids for this year. We would like to
imprint the shirts with a banner graphic and
wording identifying the Bandeira Club as
well as the Iris Mieze Church. We'd like to
give the shirts to all the kids who attend
the Bandeira Club on Saturday, May 30 so
they can wear them to the village
celebration on the 1st. There are still
dozens of the T-Shirts from two years ago
being worn around the village, so we know
these new ones will get a lot of use and
serve as an on-going invitation to hundreds
more children to come to the Bandeira Club.
The cost for 500 printed T-Shirts will be about
$3,500. If you are interested in helping
sponsor this project, please let us know by
email because we'll need five or six weeks'
lead-time to place the order. US gifts can
be sent to our CA office (www.irismin.com)
with a note indicating it's for the Kantels'
Mieze T-Shirt Project. Canadian gifts can be
sent to Iris Ministries Canada (www.irismin.ca)
indicating it's for the Northern Mozambique
Orphan-Home Project.
And now for something completely different....
A former Iris missionary colleague has shared
with us some of his favorite African photos.
We are including a few of them below
because--better than a thousand words of
description or explanation--they capture
something of the culture and setting in
which we work here every day. Elizabeth's
comment when she saw them was that they
weren't really funny, just...normal!
Thank you for being such an important part of
releasing the blessing of God into the
people and culture of Northern Mozambique.
Thank you for praying for us and caring for
us. Without your financial support for our
projects and for us personally the otherwise
unimaginable would not be the reality it is
today. And the best is yet to come as the
Kingdom of God is breaking through in
Northern Mozambique!
With much love and appreciation,
Don and Elizabeth
Dr. Don & Elizabeth Kantel
“Mieze Model” for village transformation:
http://web.mac.com/kantels
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Jubilee Christian Fellowship - 707 Downie St.- Stratford, ON, N5A 1S4 - (519) 273-4441 email - jcfellowship@wightman.ca |
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