Did you notice that there was one person painting without a ladder? A little African guy had to get on the ladder. I just stood there and faded. It has been a great year, guys.
It's been a great year. God has blessed in so many different ways. And I stand in front of you saying that your involvement in South Africa is your investment in South Africa, is reaping rewards. Amen?
Everything that we do, every kid that gets saved in South Africa, every adult that comes to the Lord, or is delivered from a habit every person that is reached is attributed to this congregation, is attributed to you who have partnered with us, and we who have partnered with you to make a difference in South Africa. Calvary Church in Springfield, Illinois is leaving fingerprints all over South Africa. Amen? Let's talk about it.
When we left Calvary, before we left Calvary in the United States, we asked God, give us a verse. Give us something that we can take with us. And of course, we took this verse. You've never seen this one before, have you?
We felt like God gave this verse to us as well. I have come that you would have life and life to the social. No, life to the full. Jesus was like, you can have life, and that would have been great, but no, he went one step further and said, I want you to have life to the full.
And we took that to me, not necessarily that God was going to bless our ministry, even though we knew that he was faithful and he was going to do that. But we took that to mean that each person that we were brought in contact with, every person that would cross our paths, it was our job to share that life to the full with them. To give them an opportunity to know Jesus, to give them an opportunity to have that life to the full. And one of the areas that God led us to very quickly in our years in South Africa was Freedom Park.
Many of you have seen the pictures of Freedom Park. You've heard about Freedom Park. Freedom Park is a squatter camp. No running water, no electricity.
One of the poorest areas in our community. In fact, you see the little boy in the picture with a can that he was playing with that day. That was his toy. He was kicking around chasing around.
He was actually having a good time. No running water, no electricity. How many here do not have any running water electricity in your house? You all do, don't you?
This place, no. How many of you are concerned about when you're going to get your next meal? You can see I'm not. I'm not concerned.
I say that not to make you feel bad, but to say we are blessed. I've heard some people talking about the election and Trump this and Hillary that and things are going to fall apart. If Hillary is elected, guess what? Jesus is still going to be here.
If Hillary is elected. Jesus is going to be here if Trump is elected. And we are blessed. God blesses this country.
God blesses the people who serve him. Amen? So we took life to the full with us and brought it to Freedom Park. And as we began going out into the community, we began doing house visits with caregivers from a program that was working with HIV-AIDS patients.
So we would walk through the community, walk through the shack community and go into the homes. And I would sit there and wait for the lady who was the caregiver to get done. And I knew what she was done because she said my name. I could understand her.
So when she said Jeff, I knew, it was my time. It was my opportunity to share the gospel with them. And people began to get saved. Person after person after person were getting saved.
And about three weeks later as we were doing this, Abby and I were praying, we were like, God, this is so great. This is awesome. You're doing such a great job. And we kind of got the, yeah, it's okay.
From God. And I was like, whoa, wait a minute. What do you mean it's okay? Jesus said, I leave you to go and make disciples.
That doesn't mean you just get everybody saved. We kind of felt like he said, you know, either you get involved in discipling them or you stop because you're just causing more confusion. So we began to pray that God would send somebody to Freedom Park to start a church and we would get involved with them and help them. Because when we left the United States, our plan was not to start a church.
We didn't want to be church planners. But God turned and said, I put you there for that place for this time. And we started Hope Church six years ago, Easter. And it has been an amazing experience.
If any of you ever had God call you to do something and he really didn't want to do it, and then all of a sudden you find yourself in a place where you are enjoying it. You are loving it. You are passionate for it. There's nothing else that you want to do.
The scripture that talks about, I will give you the desires of your heart. I believe. God doesn't necessarily give you what you want. But God gives you that desire.
It's like he says, I called you to do this. And now, just because I called you to do it and you bring your faithful, I'm going to let you love it too. We love Hope Church of Freedom Park. We love working with the people.
And as we started the church, God began to bless children's ministry right off the bat. Our first service, we had 16 kids. I mean, I looked at each other and we were like, kids church. We were all excited.
And we began teaching. We began walking this journey of Christianity with the people of Freedom Park. Currently, not that numbers mean anything, but numbers do give us a qualifier for how well things are going. In our adult service, we have 40 to 45 people coming on a Sunday afternoon.
In our kids church, we're still averaging around 80 to 100 kids. Our numbers, last year we were at the same numbers, but the cool thing this year, God is really taking some people and taking them deeper in him. And they're growing in their Christianity. So things are moving.
Things are growing. In the past year, I'm going to talk about several different things that have happened in the past year. Next slide, please. In the top part, you'll see Pastor Walter Habé two years ago, God brought this man and his family to our church.
And they had been churched. They're solid Christians. And within six to eight months, we had appointed him to our board of directors. And he came to me, the first time he met me, he said, Pastor, I want to come to your church and I want to serve the people of Hope Church.
And I want to submit to your ministry. I was like, all right, let's go. He's called to the ministry. And for the past two years, he's been operating as a pastor.
Do you know you could do that? You could operate as a pastor and not really be a pastor. You don't need the title to be a leader, huh? You don't need the title to be a leader.
And he was doing that. So two weeks before we left, we had a dedication service where we appointed him as a associate pastor in our church. So now I have a staff, pastor. I have a staff.
I never thought I would ever say that. I have a staff. So he is back in South Africa right now. He's leading things.
He's running things. I have had not had one phone call. That's negative. He's just doing a great job.
We also this year, Sheralee Padayachi is a young lady that we met in South Africa. We had come to our church and she was going to the mission field. I want you to come to our church. We want to pray for you.
We want to bless you. Now, Freedom Park, there's not a lot of money. But we were able to take an offering for her and bless her a little bit. I think we raised about $75, which isn't a lot here, but it's a lot there.
You know what I'm saying? And it was so cool because I thought God brought me here as a missionary. Started a church and guess where she's going? New York City.
We were part of sending her back to the United States to work for what's the gentleman's name in New York City with the sidewalk Sunday school. Bill Wilson. She's going to work with Bill Wilson. That's kind of cool.
We have a missionary at Hope Church in Freedom Park. One of the things we've been doing the last three years is there are many women in our community that either single and have children or they're married and they're just financially struggled with getting formula and diapers and what have you. So the church has taken on a program where we are supplying diapers and formula and cereal for mothers that are in need. They just don't have the finances to do that.
So we have about 25 women that each month we supply. Each month, Calvary helps supply. I want to share a couple testimonies with you. Go to the next slide.
If you see the group on the left here, this is a group. It's a family of five children and the lady in the middle is the mother. But the children, the five children, we're coming to Hope Church, have been coming to Hope Church for about three or four years. And their mom and dad have not attended.
Well, this past year, our youth group kind of caught grass of the push. Have you heard of her push? Pray until something happens? That concept.
And so this family, these five, one of them is missing, but these five children began praying for their mother and their father that they would get saved. And they began praying that their father would get a job. Now unemployment in South Africa is 35%. And in Freedom Park, it's up 75% because of the number of people that come in looking for jobs.
About three months ago, their mom came to church and she gave her heart to the Lord and has continued to come. Their dad still has not come to church, but he got a job. It's just a great thing. So they're still praying for him because they saw what God has done and they're not going to stop until something happens.
The other picture on the right hand side, the gentleman that has his head circled there, his name is Seiko. And Seiko is a gentleman that started coming to the church about two years ago. He came because his daughter came, she got saved, her life changed dramatically. So her mom came to check out what was going on at the church, she got saved.
She saw what was happening in her daughter's life and her wife's life. So he came, he got saved and now they're working on the people that live around them. They've got neighbors come and getting saved. Well, Seiko came to me about three months ago and he said, Pastor, I went to get a job, to apply for a job in the mines.
And to work on the ground, you have to go through physical fitness tests. He says, I took the test and I got done. And the gentleman said, you know, we could pass you, but we're not going to pass you. We are going to let you come back in two weeks.
And if you bring us something, then we will let you pass. In effect, you give us a bribe. You bring us some money. You bring us a thousand rand.
We will let you pass. And he came to me and he said, Pastor, I don't want to do that. I don't want to bribe them to get a job. But at the same time, I really need a job.
He said, I want to trust in the Lord that he can supply for me without having to go this back door road to get a job. So we prayed and he went back and he got the job. See, I don't know that you understand. There's 35% unemployment in our area, 75% unemployment.
There are more people not working than are working. He got a job. It is a miracle for people in our area to get a job. Next slide, please.
Over the past year, we've been really focusing on growing deeper in the Lord. And in April of this past year, I preached a sermon on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now, we've been in, the church has been functioning for six years. We've preached on the baptism of the Holy Spirit before, but we've never had it take.
We have never had a large number of people receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So we had just come through a spiritual warfare series. And my last sermon was on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And I preached, many of you know Ed and Sonny Corbin.
I actually preached when Ed Corbin sermons in our adult service. And we had 31 people in attendance and 29 of them got baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking of tongues. That's cool. That'll mess your church up in a good way.
In our church on Wednesday nights, we preach the same topic as we preached on Sunday to help our people get it into their heads so that they can remember. From week to week, they struggle to remember. It's very much an auditory storytelling type culture. And to remember what somebody preached about, they just don't, they aren't able to do that very well.
So we give them a second opportunity to hear the sermon. So I preached the baptism of the Holy Spirit again, and I had 12 more on the Wednesday night to get baptized with the Holy Spirit. And the ones that were baptized on Sunday, boy, they were just, they were really into it. Let me just say that.
They were really into it. They were experiencing some cool things. Three weeks after that, I had an opportunity to go into the kids church. And I'm like, well, why don't I preach that again?
I would love that to be our culture, part of our culture. And I had the five-year-olds and the six-year-olds and a very young group and preached the baptism of the Holy Spirit's message. And we had one little girl, six-year-old, received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And just so happened that our youth, which we had, well, 16 to 20 youth, they were in the adult service because we were highlighting them for our youth day.
On Wednesday night, they came back in. I made sure that our youth leader brought them, made sure that all of them came back. And we had 16 of them in attendance, and 14 got baptized with the Holy Spirit. We got some good numbers, haven't we?
I would like to say it to me, but I know it's not me. It's the Holy Spirit. God is preparing this church. God is preparing these people to do a big work.
Just like God is preparing you here in Springfield, Illinois, to do a big work, to make an impact in your community. And you need the power to be able to do that, amen? And the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit living in you, gives you that power to be able to speak out in boldness, just as Peter did on the day of Pentecost, amen? A couple of things that have happened, as you saw in the slide show, God has blessed us with a new van.
And Luke, Adrian Howson would be proud of us with a Mercedes. I kind of feel cheapest to say it's a Mercedes, but we got a really good deal on it. Let me just say that. It was like the Ford was going to be $3,000 less.
We're going with Mercedes. So God has blessed us with our vehicle. It's amazing. You guys were influential in that.
You gave towards that. Also, that container right there, that blue, gross looking container has now been all refurbished. Many of you have heard the story that I was trying to get permission to use this. Two years went by trying to go into the police.
The number of people that I went and asked is too great for me to even get into. Finally, I said last year when we were back home, I was talking with my father-in-law, who's the chairman of our board, and I said, I'm going to give him two more chances. And if they don't say yes, or they don't say no, they don't give me any kind of answer, we're going to squat. We're just going to do it.
It's a squatter camp. We're just going to squat like everybody else. We're just going to go in and use it. So I gave them the opportunities.
I got no response back for them. And I went to the community council, and I got some permission from the community. And we just began to refurbishing that. We went in, had a team from California come, a bunch of rich kids from California.
We put masks on and goggles and game sandpaper and said, go in there and scrape that down. They all came out dirty. It was crazy. But they were all excited because that's going to be a church.
So we repainted it. We redid the floor, cemented the floor. The picture, the after pictures that you saw, it looks pretty nice. And it's nice to have a home for freedom, for a home church.
It's nice to have. We were the nation of Israel for a while. We were wandering from place to place. It's nice to have a home.
The one thing that you can be praying for us for this year, we are looking at some of the different areas of freedom park to get a piece of property and build a proper church. We really want to see that happen this year. The problem with that is the unit. Oh, I have this hug.
Too many details. I'm sorry. It's just difficult for it. Just take my word for it.
It's difficult for us to get a piece of property. It will have to be God. But you know what? He can do that.
So we want to build a second preaching point in Freedom Park. Some of the other goals, some of the fundraising goals that we have, we want to put a sound system in the container and a sound system and electricity in there so that we can do evening services if we want to and what have you. We want to say thank you so very much. Thank you for all that you do, Calvary.
Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your support as a group. Thank you for those who individually support us through the church. You are our largest supporting church.
And we are grateful for you. One way that you can help pray for us, many of you have seen this before. Have you ever seen the JB Hunt trucks? We've come up and made this our own.
Jesus bless the hunts. So when you see a JB Hunt truck going on the highway, Jesus bless the hunts. Just say a short little prayer for us. Pray for Jeff and Abby.
Pray for the people of Hope Church, the ministry there, that God will bless it. Amen. Here's something small. I don't know if you guys are doing this with a church or what have you, the school, Amazon.
Go to smileamazon.com. You can designate your nonprofit and a small portion of what you purchase that would go to engage Africa. Amen. I've got four minutes to preach to you.
Ha ha ha ha. It has been an amazing experience. There was a song I believe Stephen Curtis Chapman wrote it. This is the Great Adventure.
And I feel like I'm living the Great Adventure, like I've never lived before. I don't say that because I'm not saying you have to be a missionary to live the Great Adventure. You can live the Great Adventure right here. Amen.
But you've got to be willing to reach out. You've got to be willing to speak out. You've got to be willing to answer the voice of the Holy Spirit when he says, go over and talk to that person and encourage them. You've got to be willing to get outside of ourselves and do what God has called us to do.
And you may say, well, I don't know what God's called me to do. But what did Jesus say? Jesus said, love God and love your neighbors. There's your calling.
Love God and love your neighbors. If we can grab ahold of that and we can truly love God and we can truly love our neighbors, we will change the world. We will change the world. It's our goal for Hope Church in Freedom Park, a community of about 25,000 people.
We have about 150 people in our church. But our goal is to someday be the influencing factor in that community. I've told our people, I want all the community leaders to go to our church. I want all the people of influence to go to our church because we want to impact Freedom Park for Jesus.
We want decisions that are made in the political realms to be based on the Bible. Amen. But in order to do that, we have to love God with all our heart and we have to love our neighbors. Amen.
Thank you. Today, my sister came over to my office and she had some things she wanted me to see. And she's been going through some of my moms stuff with my mom. And she pulled out a little certificate from River Avenue Baptist Church, in Indianapolis, Indiana, from around 1932, maybe before that.
And maybe we were in 1930. I forget what the number said now. I went online and tried to look up River Avenue Baptist Church. I got some head that it couldn't take me anyplace.
I don't know if they changed their name or if they still exist. They showed a picture of the building, but I couldn't get a clear proof we called directory assistants and tried to see if they had a phone number for it and they didn't have anything for River Avenue Baptist Church in Indianapolis. But it was a certificate of a young boy, a six year old boy at that time, in a Sunday school class, that the teacher had given him at some point in that year. It was a certificate that they had given to my dad years and years ago.
And I said that I look at this and I had the teacher's name on, had the superintendent's name on, who are probably all with Jesus today. I tried to find that church for a number of years and make a connection with it. They didn't know the exact name of it until today. I don't know how they exist if they do exist even yet.
Because I think about this. What happened was this. They were on Oliver Avenue, churches in Indianapolis. My dad lived on Oliver Avenue.
Very poor area at that time. And these Sunday school teachers had gone out and walked up and down the street and invited kids to come to church. And my dad and his sister and his brother started going down to River Avenue Baptist Church. Went there for almost a year or so until my grandfather moved them out of Indianapolis, out to a farm where they could muck the cows for rent.
It was during the Depression. Years would go by and they would attend church a little bit. But when my dad went into the Marine Corps, he didn't, they asked me if he was a Catholic or Protestant. He didn't know the difference.
He didn't know how to answer. He didn't know what any of that was. But when he got shot on Terrawa, he didn't know where he was going to live or die, he cried out to God with the only thing he knew. And he remembered a song he learned in Sunday school as a little boy.
The Holy Spirit brought that to his memory. And he cried out to God, told God he would live for him, which he didn't really fully understand. He would be the next couple of years of God to begin to help him understand that. He would go through some rough times as God began to work on his life.
But here's the deal. Think of all the lives whose trajectory was changed. Because that's Sunday school teacher. Walk down that street and invite kids to Sunday school.
His life would be changed. And many, many other people's lives would be changed. You never know. And here's the thing that I've always tried to get to hold that church like, they don't know what happened.
They don't know the rest of the story. And so many times when we go out of our way and we do God's work, we are not privy to the rest of the story. We don't know what happens next. Finally, we're not really responsible for what happens next.
The Holy Spirit's responsible for what happens next. And so I just say, I just want to take all that on to what Jeff said. This is our mission field. And it's great to have a passion for the rest of the world.
And we should have 2020 vision. We should see the world ask God what He'd have us to do to make a difference in it. But it should be 2020 vision. Not just want to pour money or time or prayer around the world.
We should want to do that. But there may be some little kid down the street from you. There may be a neighbor living next to you. There may be a worker working next to you.
And God's puts you there. And the question is, will I follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and do what He tells me to do to change the trajectory of a person's eternity and maybe, many more? Wow. It is an adventure.
And we don't get to see the full outcome of that adventure until we get to heaven. And someday we get to heaven. The fruit of that happens. And I often think about the fact, the fruit of that Sunday school teacher, she's still getting it.
I think about my grandfather and my mom's like, over 100 miniatures when out of their church. And you think, well, how many miniatures when out of their churches? The fruit of that is still happening today. They've been in heaven for 30 some years.
And the fruit's still growing. You know, I want to leave behind some fruit trees that continue to grow, don't you? Amen. Let's stand together.
Father, we thank You for the hunts and what's happening there. And Lord, we're grateful that we're up in the waddage, our waddage by investing in South Africa. And we pray, Father, that the fruit that's born there, we're a small part of it. We're invested in that orchard.
And we pray, Father, that the fruit of that will grow until You come. Until You come. Father, we pray that in our own lives where we live, You would show us where You would have us to step out in boldness. Father, it's great that our young people and some of our people are down in El Salvador assisting and working down there today.
And that's a wonderful thing. Don't let us lose sight that we're missionaries on a mission field right here with a mission from you. And so Lord, let us be on call, on duty, all the time. Father, looking for Your opportunity, paying attention to what's around us.
Father, instead of our faces buried in our phones, that our faces be looking to the harvest. Father, help us in that we pray. And let us win many to You in Jesus' name. Fill us with Your Spirit.
Fill us with Your boldness. Fill us with Your love. Fill us with Your passion. And let us go in Your name in Jesus' name.
And everybody said, amen. God bless you, go in the name of the Lord tonight.