Coffey Family December 2015 Prayer Letter

December 31, 2015 by The Coffeys

The last day of the year; it’s hard to believe. 2015 has been a great year. We praise the Lord we were able to start New Life Baptist Church. We have a superstar group of supporting churches and individuals that have been with us all along. We truly don’t deserve you.

We finished strong this year with our Christmas day service with 10 first time visitors in attendance. Over the past two weeks we have placed a Gospel tract on every house in Kwadwesi. Several thousand homes were given the Gospel, along with being reminded there’s a lighthouse in their community preaching Jesus. All of this is because of you being used of the Lord.

As we change our focus from more language learning to church planting we are even more excited about what the Lord has in store for New Life Baptist Church this coming year.

Continue to pray for lives to be changed. We are in a routine of going door to door 4 to 5 times a week with our team which is usually between 6 to 10 people. There’s potential to reach a lot of people this coming year with the Gospel.

Prayer Request

New Church Plant in Soweto

More Highlights

Our first teen camp was a great success. I say success because every teen made it back without injury or death, and we had a teen girl from our church trust Christ as her Savior.
Jason and Ashley King came this month for their survey trip. We are looking very forward to having this family back full time towards the end of the year.

Needs

$1550 was given to cover the remaining cost of teen camp. Praise the Lord.
$6,000 has been given to start Soweto Baptist Church. We have $4000 more that needs to be raised in the next few weeks. We hope to see construction begin next week. It’s been a joy seeing the young guys and girls of this church grow in their knowledge of the Bible.
$500 for tracts. Since we are going through a couple of thousand tracts a week now, we have decided to print our own tracts using a nice Ink Jet printer. This amount will help purchase a new printer and supply tracts for 2-3 months

November Prayer Letter

October 27, 2015 by The Sullivans

Our God is worthy to be served and we count it as a privilege and honor to serve him in South Africa.

My family and I only have 3 weeks left here in South Africa. We are sad that we have to leave but we are also excited to get deputation started! We were privileged to take a trip to Cape Town the first week of October. God opened my eyes to the need all over South Africa. Khayelitsha is the biggest township in the Cape Town area. It has over 400,000 people with very few Gospel preaching churches. The need is tremendous!

We are currently in our last week of language school. When we return to South Africa this will be our priority.

My Pastor (Tom Hatley), his daughter (Abby) and another young lady from our home church (Torrie Sutton) will be arriving in South Africa in the first week of November. We are so excited to see them. Please pray for their trip. Pray that God will use it to encourage our visitors.

Pastor Austin Gardner and a few of his colleagues will also be arriving in the 2nd week of November please pray for them as well.

Prayer Requests

– Pray for laborers to South Africa.

– The young men who Pastor Sipho and I have in our discipleship.

– Our return to The States on November 20.

– Youth Camp will be Dec 6-12. We still need nearly $3,000 to take 120 teens to camp. The young people have been fundraising on their own but if you would be interested in helping please send money to P.O. Box 519 Braselton, GA 30517 (Att. Jeremy Hall/Youth Camp).

– New church plant coming in November. Jeremy Hall will be planting a church in the Soweto Township.

September Prayer Letter

September 30, 2015 by The Sullivans

God’s grace is undeniable in our life. He has proved to us he will take care of us. We owe him our life. He deserves praise and glory. I pray that my life will be glorifying to him.

We can now count down the days until we return to the states to begin our deputation. We are so thankful to those we have partnered with us for our short-term trip. Please continue to pray for:

– Young men to train and grow in the church
– To book meetings
– To be skilled in our pronunciation in Xhosa
– Church Growth
– New church in Soweto in November.

We have less than 2 months until our internship is over. We are sad that we only have a short time left, but we are thankful for the opportunity. We pray that we can make much of the time we have left and leave a help to the ministry here in Port Elizabeth.

I have been learning and observing how to train young men and we hope to leave a few men for Pastor Sipho to continue to train and invest in when we leave. The Lord has worked and we have seen more young people make professions of faith recently. Pray that they will get baptized and discipled.

Our Pastor (Tom Hatley), his daughter (Abby Hatley), and another young lady from our church (Torrie Sutton) will be coming on a trip to visit us in the first week on November. Please pray for them to raise all the needed funds. This will be the first trip for the ladies. Please pray that God will use them and show them what ministry is like in another country.

We celebrated my and my daughters birthday this past month. Mallorie turned 4 and was very spoiled by her family and friends. My wife and I are thankful that our children have acclimated so well to the country and culture. Our 1 year old son can understand Xhosa as well as he understands English.

Thanks to everyone for their prayer and support. We can be reached at any time thru Facebook messenger, whatsapp, and voxer.

August Prayer Letter

September 1, 2015 by The Sullivans

Three Months have flown by and we only have 3 months left!

God is abounding in grace and he has showered us with blessings.

Prayer Requests
1. Visa Extension
2. Discipleship
3. Language
4. Teen Camp

Please continue to pray for the young men in Kwadwesi who are coming to church and discipleship. Pictured is (from left to right) Miso, Stephen, Themabani, and Vuyani. The boys have been overall faithful to most of church as well as visitation. We have also been doing a soccer program led by Jeremy Hall. The boys love this and they also hear a gospel message presented by one of the local pastors.

Our language is still very lacking but we are steadily learning new phrases. We have been working hard on our commands and this is a language focus. We can understand simple commands but it is much harder to repeat what we hear. Another focus is our pronunciation. We must be able to pronounce the words in the right way and not get in bad habits.

We are still waiting for our visas to be extended so please keep this in your prayers.

We are now booking meetings for 2015. Our goal is to have January, February and March of 2016 booked before we get back to the states.

Youth Camp:

Our youth camp is December 6-12. The cost to take 160 teens to camp is going to be $4650; $1500 for food, $2700 for camp, and $450 for transport. We are planning to charge each camper R300 ($25) for the week. That doesn’t sound like much, but considering most of the teens who will attend are probably being raised by an unemployed single parent or a grandmother, it’s almost impossible. We will be having several fundraisers and work days planned for the teens to help with their expenses. If you would be interested in helping us finance this camp please send any donation to Fellowship Baptist Church, 1102 Big Springs Road, Maryville, Tn 37801.

Update 8/19

August 19, 2015 by The Sullivans

Prayer request’s

– Our Sunday School class
– Our young men in discipleship
– to book meetings
– Cultural adaptation
– Language learning
– Youth on Fridays

My family and I are so blessed to be here in South Africa with amazing families to help train us. My wife and I continually see the benefits of our internship and are so amazed that God would allow us to have this opportunity. We are so thankful for the ones who pray for and support us in our mission.

Pastor Sipho and I are still meeting with out young men. These boys have been faithful and we are now meeting on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Pastor Sipho has been one of my main ministry partners. He has been a great help with me learning the language as well as the culture.

A new ministry opportunity has come up. Pastor Mark and Pastor Sipho are working on a plan for a possible church plant in Kwadwesi-extension. Please pray for them to have God’s wisdom. The area shows much promise as we already have people from that area wanting a church to go to.

We only have 13 weeks left here in South Africa. Less than 100 days. Please pray for us to use every bit of time we have left wisely. Our desire is to soak up all the experience and information possible while we are here. We already feel so much more prepared to live in SA.

Thank you!

July Prayer Letter

August 4, 2015 by The Sullivans

Praise God for his joy he brings to those that serve him. There are many obstacles we may face here in SA but the joy that God brings is greater than anything we face.

Pastor Sipho and I have been continually discipling about 5 young boys. They age from 13-15 and all profess Christ. They have been coming to most of our services and even came to visitation last Saturday and helped us pass out nearly 500 gospel tracts. Since they are younger the language barrier is still there because they are still learning English in school. Please pray that they will continue to make themselves available to the Lords service. Also, our youth class is growing but we are still trying to get all those who come to youth on Fridays to come to church on Sunday.

Our language learning is going well. Last week we practiced inviting people to church in Xhosa and we are adding more and more sentences each week. This language continues to prove challenging but we know that we cannot be fully successful without being fluent in the language. We must gain the trust of those we plan to work with and this comes with language and culture.

My wife and I celebrated our 5^th anniversary at the beginning of this month. God has blessed me with a wonderful wife that willing to sacrifice for the Lords work. I am thankful for her and her family. We also were able to celebrate our son, Avett, first birthday. We are so thankful of the team that is here and to have a family away from our family.

We are starting to book meetings this month. God has continued to burden my hearth that our future is in South Africa. Our goal is to be booked from January to March of 2016 before we return to America in November.

It’s amazing to think we only have 4 months left!! There is so much more we would like to accomplish in the upcoming months ahead. We don’t know want out time to go to waste.

Please pray for:

1. Language
2. Our health (our whole family has battled stomach virus)
3. Our youth class
4. The 5 young men
5. Mettings to be booked.

update July 1-11

July 14, 2015 by The Sullivans

God has done a great work at New Life Baptist Church. The Builders are finishing up with a few things on the church. The church now has a sidewalk, the basement is being worked on and the Sunday school rooms are closed off.

Pastor Sipho and I are working with the teens in Kwadewsi. We had a high of 30 in our Youth Night last Friday and 12 professions of faith were made. God knows more than we do how much of a need is here in Port Elizabeth. Please pray for us as we go and try to disciple these young people who have made professions. It was exciting to see an increase in our Sunday School class where We had 13 young people.

We have had nearly 2 weeks off from language school because of working to get our visas as well as a VBS at Wells Baptist Church. Meagan was the team captain for the iingusha (lambs) and I was the team captain of the iingoyama (lions). God blessed and we had an average of 90 Tuesday-Thursday. The kids received points thru-ought the week for memorizing scripture and well as good behavior. Sadly, at the end of the week team iingusha defeated iingoyama by only 15 points. Consequently as the captain of the losing team I had to be pied in the face. You can see this on our Facebook page.

Meagan and I are excited about our sons first birthday this month. Our children have acclimated very well here and we are excited about them experiencing a new culture, language, and way of life here in SA.

Prayer Request:
– We get out visas excepted.
– Young men to disciple.
– Growth of New Life Baptist Church.
– More Laborers to be sent to South Africa.

Missions from a Kid’s Perspective

July 10, 2015 by The Coffeys

One of our supporting churches, Believer’s Baptist Church in Griffin, Ga, asked me if I would would record a message to share with the kids during their VBS to highlight missions in South Africa. After thinking about it for a while, I thought a video from my son’s perspective would be more fitting for the VBS crowd. Here’s the video I made with my son Luke. We pray this video helps excite and encourage children and even adults in missions. Let me know what you think. Also, if you’re interested in visiting South Africa, I would love to know.

Update June 22-29

June 30, 2015 by The Sullivans

It’s Holiday

It is now holiday here in Port Elizabeth. All students (including my daughter) now have a 3-week break from school.
With that said we only had 5 people at or youth night this Friday but we are not going to let that hold us back. Our Sunday School class was low as well but we will continue to visit and make contacts during the holiday.

Our language vocabulary is steadily growing and we are constructing very simple sentences. Our language teacher, Lubabalo, and his family came over to our house for dinner this past week. It was a good lesson in culture and customs for us as we try to assimilate to the culture here.

We have our visa extension appointment tomorrow. As of now we only have 90 days here in SA and we need 90 more. Please pray that everything goes smoothly. We have had our eyes opened to how other countries deal with foreigners and we hope we have all we need to get the extension.

Thank you to all of you for the prayers and support. We can be reached by Facebook and email at any time, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Our website is NO longer www.sullivansinsouthafrica.weebly.com. We can now be seen at www.sullivansinsouthafrica.com or www.projectsouthafrica.com.

God has been so good to us and all the glory is His.

Josh Sullivan

Coffey Family May 2015 Prayer Letter

May 30, 2015 by The Coffeys

Our first pastors retreat in the little town of Addo was a great success. We had a wonderful time with our team of missionaries and pastors. The classes were a big help in encouraging everyone to keep their eye on the mark. It’s amazing how easily distracted one can get when doing the Lord’s work.

This week, Missionary Randy Stirewalt from Kenya was able to visit and teach several classes for our Bible institute. Brother Stirewalt has served in Kenya for over 38 years and has been involved in starting over 260 churches in Kenya, Uganda, and South Sudan. We have been blessed to glean from his vast experience in ministry. He has been a tremendous help in the plans of our Bible college, and will be helping as we setup the struture and curriculum.

Please pray for the Josh Sullivan Family who arrives this week for a 6 month internship. As they train for the field on the field, we pray God uses them in a mighty way during their time here in South Africa.

We pray God brings more young people just like the Sullivan’s here to South Africa for training. I’m thankful to be a part of a team who has a burden to help young people to find their place in world evangelism.