Reasonable Service

I read a biography of a certain man recently that did amazing things for God and he talked about how he came about accomplishing his dreams. He said he prayed and asked God to give Him great dreams then he wrote them down. Then he took it one step further and told others about his dreams. This morning 1-1-08 at 12:35am I would like to take a moment to do just that. I want to write down and share some of the dreams God has given me for 2008.

1. I want to have three THRIVING Sunday School Classes Started in our church.
2. I want the church to average 120 (not for sake of number’s but because each one represents an eternal soul) people by the year’s end.
3. I want to be fully fluent in the Xhosa language.
4. I want to have a powerful radio program that reaches out all over Port Elizabeth.
5. I want to read my Xhosa Bible all the way through (with notes from my everyday reading).
6. I want to finish the book I was suppose to write last year about Southern Africa to help other missionaries or prospective missionaries.
7. I want to see the church have a permanent location.
8. I want to make a strong effort at being a better husband and dad.
9. I want to see a family environment developed within our church.
10. I want to build a library of good Christian books written in Xhosa.

These are just a few of the dreams that I have that the Lord has given me but I am sure the Lord will add to this list throughout the year. I know that God wants to do this and more if I will just be the obedient servant I need to be. I will check back with you December to let you know how God accomplished all of this!!!

R260 was the final amount of the Christmas offering taken up by Madiba Bay Baptist Church. Our goal from the beginning was to take up enough money to buy a hamper (a grocery package) containing; rice, sugar, mealie, oil, flour, and other various basic food items. Well, in the end we took up enough for two of these packages. What a blessing! We took up R260. We bought two grocery packages for two needy families that have never been to our church. The truth of the matter is that many of our own church families needed those hampers just as bad as the families we gave them to but we have get our eyes off of our own needs and see the needs of others. It was a real victory and our people really got an opportunity to feel like Santa Claus. lol.

Take Care and Have a Happy New Year,

Kevin Hall

Ramblings in North Africa
This book is 160 pages of straight talk about ministry to Muslims. It comes straight from our teams daily ministry to and life with Muslims. It is a great read for anyone interested in moving beyond the head knowledge of Islam to the heart of Christ: reaching Muslims for Christ!

You can be one of the first to order this book at this website: www.projectna.com

or just email to: info@projectna.com

The birds may fly south for the winter but the Xhosa people go to East London. This time of year is crazy in Umzantsi Afrika. Yho, people throw morals out the window and it is time to have “fun!”

Our church attendance has really sunk this month as I was told it would but I am a rookie next year we will be better prepared for what we have experienced thus far during December. We did have a good service in spite of the low numbers. God sent a school teacher from the Transkei to our service and she trusted Christ as her personal Saviour. We praise the Lord for that as she will be leaving to go back home in just a few short days. She will be taking Christ with her to her 8 hour away homeland!!!

Tonight I preached on Mark chapter 2 as we continue through the book of Mark. It has been awesome preaching through this book as I have been fed so many practical truths from God’s Word and in turn given them to our people. Tonight I preached out of verses 6-13 in chapter 2 and we saw how the scribes were aggravated with Christ and would not believe in Him but on the other side how Christ was continually aggravated by them because they had no faith. These were the so called spiritual leaders in Israel but they had no faith in the real Messiah. Wow, what a tradgedy!!! I then challenged the people by showing them books written about great men of God of years gone by and told them that there were no books written about Xhosa people who lived by faith and did a great work for God. I told them that my heart’s desire is to write books one day about the lives of believer’s in Madiba Bay Baptist Church that did amazing things for God living their lives by faith.

What a privilege it is to serve the King of Kings and living with the hope of seeing Him one day face to face!!!

These audio Bibles have been a great help for me with my reading of the Xhosa Bible so I figured I would pass it along to any of you who may want some help with reading in another language.

faithcomethbyhearing.com

I cannot remember who said it but this quote has stuck with me since high school and it really rings true in my current situation. I constantly have this feeling that I am in over my head, but to be honest with you I don’t think God would have it any other way. It is called living by faith!

“Sometimes our best isn’t good enough we have to meet what is required.”

Wow, we just have a few days left and 2007 will be finished. In football, baseball and everyother sport or competition this is the time to really push through and get every last bit of “getting.” possible. Don’t stop short, push it out and get a few more goals accomplished in these last few days. Start the new year right by finishing the last one with a bang.

I have been out of touch for the past week or so and I apologize. We are in the process of moving and it has definately been a process and we still have boxes everywhere. But the great thing is that we now own our own home…well we and the bank own our own home and somewhere in the next twenty years it will be completely ours Lord willing. Anyhow it will be great to get completely settled in and be able to better focus on more important things again.

Alot of things are going on and have gone on since I last blogged. For instance, we have started construction on two new Sunday School rooms. No, they are not ours permanently but until we decide to move on they will be ours for use. We have a good deal going with our landlord, we build and take the money out of the rent we pay each month. We are excited about getting our Sunday School rolling as a couple of teachers are chomping at the bit to get started.

We just finished our Children’s Christmas play and the kids and my wife did a tremendous job!!! We learned alot of things that I believe were just mistakes that had to be made seeing that there is no one at the moment that can give us extra insight in this culture from a ministry standpoint. Otherwise it was a great day and a great point to move forward from.

We are excited about the upcoming year as we have already made plans for several preachers to come over and minister in the ministry here. We will be setting goals prior to the year’s end and gearing up for all that is already planned for 2008. Take Care.

Well, after getting a little advice, some real helpful, and some hurtful but still very helpful I have changed my game plan for preaching. Our people are really ignorant about God’s Word. That is not an insult to them it is more of an insult to Christians. (1Co 15:34) “Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.” Our people need to learn all of the Bible stories that many Americans know by heart. It is difficult to preach on simple, well known stories of the Bible because it requires you to explain everything. It is an enormous task but it is impossible to move forward here without pouring the Word of God into the hearts of the Xhosa people.

Right now we are starting with the book of Mark and will will go through the entire book. We want to make book studies, commentaries and many other helpful things available to the Xhosa people in their heart language. Right now if a xhosa speaking Christian wanted to read in his own language the pickings are slim to none so the task is gigantic. I suppose this would be the time to put in a plug for laborours. Multitudes are going to hell as I write this blog. The potential to do something great for God on this continent is out of this world. Will you give your life to build God’s Kingdom with people of another color? God wants more black Africans in His Kingdom.

We had a great time the past couple of days with Austin Gardner and his wife Betty along with my brother Jeremy Hall. They were all a huge asset to the ministry and our family during their stay. Our people throroughly enjoyed Austin Garnder’s preaching. He also sat and taught some of the young men of the church for a few hours on Wednesday afternoon. Our high during the conference was 68. We had six professions of faith and one young man got his life back on track with the Lord!

On top of all that we squeezed in several hours each day getting our church calender planned out and 2008 is looking like it is going to be an incredible year. I got some great insight on some things that need to be done in the church to take it to the next level. God is building an awesome church here but it is obvious He wants more workers. There are multiple ways you can get involved in the ministry here in Port Elizabeth. On top of that there are over 100 cities with over 100,000 people in them and most do not have even one independent Baptist church.