Category Archives: Prayer Request
January 2015 Coffey Family Prayer Letter
The quote for building materials for all the walls on the first floor of New Life Baptist Church comes out to 48,790 rand which is about $4,435. This will be the cost once we have the foundation completed, which will include a single garage-size basement.
For months, I have been mentioning this church, and our desire to start building as soon as possible. The day to start building has come and gone. The footers and most of the foundation wall is complete. The wait is over.
This will be the first church for me to pastor here in South Africa. Pray for me and Pastor Sipho Bonga as we work to start this church in the coming weeks. Originally, Pastor Sipho was going to start this church on his own, but for now he wants to come on as my helper to give his family a little time to adjust. As time goes on, and I’m able to be be involved in more church plants, we plan for Sipho’s role to change quite a bit.
The foundation, unfortunately, is costing more than we originally planned because of the layout of the land. We don’t have the final number for the first floor, but it looks like it will be closer to $15,000 to have everything roughed in. This is close to $7000 more than we had initially planned. More details to come.
Prayer Request
- Amy and I as we continue learning the Xhosa language.
- The building of New Life Baptist- We are hoping to have all the building quotes by next week for the first floor.
- Possible church plant in 2015- East London, South Africa- popultation over 700,000. One of the pastors on our team moved there this past month.
Needs
- $4,435 – Materials for the first floor walls
- Approx. $2500-Finishing the foundation
- Electricity hook-up will be around $600.
More Highlights
- It was great having Amy’s parents here for 2 weeks. My father-in-law, Pastor Wayne Cofield, preached or taught 18 times during his stay. I don’t think you could call this his vacation.
- 6 Saved at the first Soccer outreach day.
- 6 Saved at the last men’s meeting at Wells Estates.
- We had our first pastor’s fellowship where Pastor Cofield focused on the faith of Moses. It was a great start to our monthly meetings.
Coffey Family November Prayer Letter
Our family moved over to Wells Estates Baptist Church about three weeks ago. Since we have been in South Africa, we have been based at Madiba Bay Baptist Church. We made the move to Wells because it’s about a 10 minute drive from where we hope to start the new church. This will enable us to work with Pastor Thami as we are also starting the church.
Our original plan when coming to South Africa involved spending the first two years learning the language with plans to start a church toward the end of those two years. Being a little eager, we hoped to start a church a little after our first year here. Well, we’re still hoping.
Although we don’t have a building yet, we had a promising lead this past week. Starting this week, we plan to go door to door in the new area to share the Gospel and collect as many contacts as we can for when we do start the church.
Pastor Sipho is still waiting to start construction for New Life Baptist Church. We are still waiting for the building plans to be approved. This process has taken a bit longer than we have hoped and planned, but we believe it won’t be much longer. We did get the go ahead to have the water and sewer hook-ups installed.
Prayer Request
- Our first church plant. We are still in need of a building.
- Our language learning. This is of course is a repeated prayer request because it’s the #1 priority in our ministry at the moment.
- More young men to step up.
More Highlights
- 8 Professions of faith at our last men’s meeting.
- Our first college intern, Bethany Staley, is in her last month of her 6 month trip here in South Africa.
- We able to build an addition onto Well Estates to expand the children’s ministry. They still have class outside, but now they don’t have to worry about the sun or rain.
- Missionary Keith Shumaker from Burkina Faso visited. He was a great help to the missionaries and to the pastors.
Needs
- $600 for the water and sewer hook-ups for New Life Baptist.
- Approx. $7000 needed to build the first building for New Life Baptist Church.
Funeral Arrangements for Stephen’s Dad
Viewing for Larry Underwood will be Monday, November 3, from 5-8 at Ponders Funeral Home in Dalton, GA. (Off the by-pass)
The funeral will be Tuesday at 10am at McFarland Hill Baptist Church in Dalton, Ga.
Thank you all again for your prayers!
Please Pray for the Underwood Family
We received news from our team member, Stephen Underwood, that his father unexpectedly passed away in his sleep this past Saturday morning. Please be praying for Stephen and his family. His dad was only 55 years old and this was very unexpected. I believe the funeral will be Tuesday morning at McFarland Hills Baptist Church in Dalton, GA. As we get more information it will be passed along.
Stephen and Ashley are currently on deputation and are doing well raising support to get to South Africa. They had to cut a missions conference short they were a part of in Knoxville.
Rent or Buy & Soccer
As of now, a place to rent hasn’t opened up for the new church plant. It seems that rentable space is very limited. We will continue to search, but it may come to the place where we need to buy property. I’m really hoping we can keep the cost down the first year by just renting a space, but I’m not sure how much longer we can wait. Many people have offered to sell their property, but no one is able to rent.
We are praying for clear direction from the Lord right now. To rent a house with enough land to build a small auditorium would be around $50 to $75 a month. To buy the same property would be between $5000 and $7000 I believe.
At Madiba Bay Baptist we are currently renovating the front parking lot of the church to build a soccer/fubito court. The church plans to use Friday night and Saturday soccer leagues for outreach and evangelistic purposes. With the lack of space in the community for these types of events, we believe it will be a great opportunity to be in contact with a lot more lost young people. It will also be a great venue for the young preachers to gain more experience in preaching and presenting the Gospel.
Please be in prayer for both the new church plant and the soccer leagues.
Surprise!
Yesterday, my wife surprised her sister, and pretty much everyone else from our family and home church by flying in to see our newly born niece, Selah. Thanks to a faithful supporter, my wife was able to be with her sister, Stephanie Cornwell, right after the birth of her new baby girl. We were hoping to get her there before the birth when the tickets were purchased 2 months ago, but she missed it by 15 hours.
She will be in the States for two weeks to spend time with her sister and family. Please pray for her while she travels. More importantly though, please pray for me while I’m attempting to take care of the five kiddos back here at home, while studying the language and looking for a church building 🙂
The New Church Plant Update
We are still in search for a place to start the church. There is a meeting this Saturday with a family who may be willing to rent us their house. Please be in prayer that we will walk through the doors the Lord opens.
The two areas we are wanting to start churches in are fairly young communities. There aren’t many buildings outside of houses, and the houses are over crowded and don’t become available often. We believe these areas would be ideal places to start churches, and we’ll keep you up to date on the progress.
In the meantime, please to continue to pray for our language learning.
Update on Baby Grace Bassham
Many prayers were answered this past week when little Grace Bassham checked out of NICU and the hospital in Bangkok, Thailand on Monday morning. The Bassham family are grateful for all that sent financial support, but they are even more grateful for the many prayers that were prayed for the new little baby.
The infection didn’t get to the blood stream, and the seemingly bad situation has passed.
Below is the latest update from the Bassham’s:
“I want to say a huge thank you to everyone for your prayers and support this past week with the complications of the birth of Grace and her time in the NICU.
Today, after 7 days in the NICU, she was finally released, and we were able to bring her home!
This past week, we were able to see the Lord answer prayers from all of the world for little Grace. There was a whirlwind of change that happened over here in the 24 hours following the update out asking for prayer for her.”
Pray and Give for Baby Grace in Thailand
Yesterday, I wrote about our good missionary friend’s Philip and Lori Bassham new little baby Grace. She was born on Monday and everything looked good for a little while until she started having problems breathing. The Doctors feared she may have the Step B Infection. They moved her to NICU and put in an incubator and told Philip and Lori she would be there from 3 to 7 days.
I found out a few minutes ago that the doctors have confirmed she does have the Step B Infection and will now be in the NICU at least 10-14 days.
With Philip and Lori being really close friends of our, it’s tough being so far away during a time like this. I know it has to be even more tough for their families.
Since we can’t be there with them, we would like to help raise the $7500 in Medical expenses they are facing right now. Amy and I have already given and are willing to give more if the needs aren’t raised.
Would you consider giving a small gift to help with these medical expenses? You can send your gift to: Vision Baptist Missions P.O. Box 442 Alpharetta, GA 30009 or give online at visionbaptistmissions.com.
I would also asking you to please be praying. There are some pretty scary scenarios for babies that get it early on like little Grace. Prayer is needed. Please pray.