August 24, 2006 Update

Dear Friends,

I have an exciting update for you. There have been several people that we have been praying for concerning their need for salvation. Back in February we had a family, the Malans, join our church. The Malans have two boys, Jacques 14 and Danie 20. Jacques has professed to be born again and Scripturally baptized. Danie on the other hand simply made no profession at all. His parents asked the church to pray for Danie. Danie would come to church occasionally on Sunday mornings, and when he was in church he was always quite attentive. In July we had special meetings with Evangelist Ken Lynch. Danie was there for most of the services if not all of them. It was during these special meetings that Danie raised his hand for the first time in church acknowledging his need for salvation. As a church we continued to pray for Danie. In our home as a family we were all calling out Danie's name before the Lord. Well, last night at church after the first song Brother Malan said I have an announcement to make, "Danie trusted Christ as his Savior on this week." Needless to say we had an exciting time at church. There were tears of joy as people were expressing thanks to the Lord. What an answer to prayer! Danie has already expressed his desire to be baptized.Do be in prayer concerning the baptism. It would be a good opportunity for Eamon MacDonnel to follow the Lord in this area as well. I am going to ask Eamon about it on Sunday. It will be a major step for him to take as his wife is really against this "silly phase" in his life.

This past Sunday was a busy but exciting day for me. I preached in the morning service. My co-worker Bro. Zemeski asked me to handle the Lord's Supper in the evening. I t was a great opportunity for me since it was the first time that I was completely in charge of the Lord's Supper. I was able to interweave several songs with Scripture reading from Isaiah 53 as well as testimonies from the church. Then I gave challenge to the church concerning the Lord's crucifixion in Matthew and the detail of the supper as recorded in I Corinthians. We had a great time of fellowship around the Lord's table.

Some in the church have asked me about getting a group together to sing on occasion in the services. Well, last Sunday I started a church choir with about nine of our folks. This will be an exciting venture as folks desire to serve the Lord in this way. There are not too many that have any experience in choral singing at all, but as I shared with the folks our aim is to simply do our best to convey a message in song to the church, and in doing so, our ultimate goal is in Psalm 100 "serve the Lord with gladness, come before his presence with singing." If anyone has any choir music that is not overly difficult that you may not need or want any more we would be glad to get a hold of it since there is very little available here. You could simply e-mail if you could be a help in this way, and we could then make some sort of arrangement.

Well, until next time....
May the Lord find us faithful,

Don Thatcher