Missions News
International Missions Society Month of Prayer
Each year, the Boston Church of Christ organizes a month of prayer for missions, during which we encourage disciples to pray for countries throughout Europe and states throughout New England that either have IMS-affiliated churches, or are targets for future plantings. This year, excitingly we have added the Midwest.The month of prayer will go from April 1 and will continue through to May 6. Each day we will be posting our daily prayer focus on the IMS website and on our Facebook page.
More Baptisms in the Middle East
Here are some pictures of our latest baptisms in the Middle East! We've seen three baptisms in Egypt, one baptism in a new church planting in Syria, and two baptisms here in Beirut.European Churches Turn 20!
Several of our churches in Europe celebrated their 20th anniversaries in 2013. In this part of the world, where most people are either uninterested in the archaic views of the bible or are steeped in religious traditions, the disciples in these churches truly shine like stars in the universe (Phil 2:15)!After 33 Years, 4 Sons Baptize Parents
After 33 years of prayer, God opened our mother’s and father’s hearts to respond to the gospel and be baptized into Christ. We want to give God the glory (Psalm 115:1) and give all of you hope for your family and loved ones by telling you the story…Good News from Veliky Novgorod, Russia ICOC
The church in Veliky Novgorod, Russia recently sent in a newsletter bursting with good news including mission work, baptisms, and prayer requests. They are also seeking missionaries for a summer mission team in 2014!
John Oakes Reports on Philippines Mission Trip
Philippines Missionary Teaching Trip, January, 2014
Bacolod, Philippines, January 11-12
I was met at the airport by Darryl Villa and Paul. Bacolod is a city of about 700,000 on the island of Negros in the Visayas. The Visays are the many islands in the central region of the Philippines. The main crop here is sugar. The sugar plantations are very large and appear to dominate the entire area. Bacolod is near to the path of typhoon Haiyan from the fall, but because it is on the Western side of the island, behind some mountains the damage here was only slight, unlike Tacloban, which was almost annihilated by the storm surge from the massive Typhoon. The people here speak a dialect very different from the Tagalog spoken on the Northern island of Luzon. Everyone speaks the local dialect, Ilongo, but also English. There are many Catholics here, of course, but it appears that the most powerful church is Iglesia Ng Cristo (Tagolog for the Church of Christ). This is a Jehovah Witness type church who do not accept the deity of Jesus Christ and who have a modern day “prophet” who supposedly speaks for God to the church.