October 2022 Coffey Family Prayer Letter

October 6, 2022 by The Coffeys

Prayer Requests & Praise

10 Young People made professions of faith during a Soccer tournament this past week held at Camp Rhino. This event was organized by 3 of our Bible college students. They promoted the event and also did all the preaching. It was neat to see them in action.
Close to 300 people made professions of faith during our medical clinic with Medical Missions Outreach. We saw over 2,000 patients during the 5-day clinic with most of them hearing a presentation of the Gospel. MMO has been a great blessing to our churches.
A new teenager is entering the Africa Youth Home this week. Pray for us during the transition. He’s the first new teen we’ve added since buying the new property for the youth home. Also, pray as we are still in search of house parents for the boy’s and the girl’s homes.

Quick Updates

We have decided to hold off on starting a new church until after our short furlough in 2023. We’ll be back in the States to help our oldest son get settled and also for the VBM Annual Orientation. We will continue our focus on helping Lighthouse Baptist Church until then.
My cousin Jeremy started Bay Baptist Academy Primary School last year. The Lord has opened doors for us to purchase property right across the street from the primary school to start the High School. Pray we can raise the $68,000 in less than 60 days. It’s been exciting seeing the school in action this past year and I know it’s going to be even better with the addition of the high school. Jeremy and his wife Bekah have done a tremendous job with this ministry.

This past month I started 3 new Bible studies with people in different parts of our city. Pray the Lord works and we can see many come to Christ through these efforts. I’m hoping that maybe God would open doors for future church plants from these meetings.

One of our supporting churches, Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryville, TN with Pastor Tom Hatley is visiting this week. During any visiting group, my hope and prayesr are that God moves on the hearts of at least one person to give their life to foreign missions. Would you help pray that more laborers would be raised up?

Last month a high school principal asked me about using Camp Rhino for a full month to host all of his 12th-grade students (90-100 students) for 30 straight days. They would use that time to prepare for their graduation exams, but during that time we would also be able to preach to them each morning and hold Sunday and Midweek services. Pray as we make this decision for the 2023 school year.

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Coffey Family August 2022 Prayer Letter

August 22, 2022 by The Coffeys

Prayer Requests & Praise

I am currently discipling three new families that I don’t believe are saved. Would you pray for their salvation? They have been very open, but still need to realize that adding anything to Jesus is another gospel.
Please pray for our son Chase and his wife Ashely. Chase was recently in the hospital for 6 days with Mono. He is doing much better but is still experiencing pain. They continue traveling raising their support to return to South Africa.
Pray for us as we are considering starting a new church. There’s such a great need and we’re still unsure of our next step in this area.

May be an image of 1 person, standing, tree and outdoors — Chase & Ashley

Quick Updates

Our oldest daughter Emilee will arrive next week for a 3-week visit. I can’t tell you how excited we are to have her back with us. She has definitely been missed since starting Bible College in the States. Adri Bush, my son Luke’s girlfriend will also be coming with her. Having them both here will be a great time.
The South Africa Youth Home is up and running now. We moved the three boys into the new house and property. They no longer have to live in the boy’s dorms at the camp. We still need a lot to furnish the house but at least they have hot water:)
We just completed a 900 sq ft workshop that we will use to help with projects around the camp and in our churches. It will also be used to teach trades to our teenagers in the youth home. Any carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc are welcome to come to help build and/or teach.

New Work Shop for Camp Rhino and South Africa Youth Home

Medical Missions Outreach and their team of 21 people arrive this week to put on a health and vision clinic at one of our churches. We are hoping 2000 or more people come in for treatment and have the opportunity to hear a clear presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The last clinic we did a few years ago had over 200 people make professions of faith.

Lighthouse Baptist Church and Pastor Mvume Johnson are hosting the clinic this year. This is one of the churches we restarted a few weeks before Covid and had to close again during Covid. Please pray this will be a great help to the growth of this church.

In other African news, Graham and Olivia Young just arrived in Abuja, Nigeria. We’re very excited for this young couple as they begin their ministry in this needy country of over 200 million people. Please pray for them and pray that God would raise up more laborers for Nigeria and for Africa. Our time is short but the need is great. Maybe God is calling you.

Coffey Family July 2022 Prayer Letter

July 13, 2022 by The Coffeys

Prayer Requests/ Praises

My wife’s ear surgery seems to have been a complete success. We won’t know for sure how much hearing she regained until next month, but things are sounding good, figuratively and literally:) Thanks so much for your prayers.
Please pray for Missionary Katie Dilfer’s South African Visa. She’s ready to come as soon as she has her visa.
Pray for the 30+ Juniors and Teens that have accepted Christ as their personal Savior these past few weeks during our Winter Camp Days.
Pray for us as we are considering starting a new church. We are currently working out of Lighthouse Baptist Church with Pastor Mvume but are leaning toward starting a new church soon.

Quick Updates

Since May, we’ve hosted 4 different mission teams with 75 people in total. God used them here in a great way and really worked in many of their lives. Our hope is that God calls many Gospel laborers from these teams.
This week we are having separate Junior Camps for boys and girls. So far over a dozen boys trusted Christ. The girls will arrive this evening.
2 Weeks ago we hosted Teen Camp days for the boys and girls separately as well. We had 13 young people trust Christ during those days.
Vision Baptist Missions will be hosting the World Evangelism Fellowship on November 8th. You can click here for more info. It’s going to be a great time.

Now that all our mission teams have departed we’re going to be working a lot more on the Youth Home this month. We have 3 teens ready to move in and possibly a fourth. Pray that we find the right house parents for the Home. We have some that can help temporarily but are praying for a long-term solution.

I would like to ask you to pray for Pastor Khona Nohamba and his church Nkandla Baptist Church. Khona recently graduated from our Bible College and is looking forward to devoting more time to building the church.

We helped Khona right before the start of Covid and unfortunately had to close a few weeks later. He and his wife Iminathi have been working hard to restart the church and have been making good progress. In our city of over a million people, there is much work that needs to be done. Pray that we can build a foundation that will last and aid in church planting for years to come.

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Mission Teams and South Africa Youth Home

June 19, 2022 by The Coffeys

We have had a great and full month here in South Africa.

Mission Teams have visited from Ohio, Michigan, South Caroline, and now Georgie. A group from Tennessee will be here at the end of this week. “Group Season” is one of my favorite times of the year. God changed my life on a mission trip when I was 19 years old and I’m excited about people being able to visit the mission field and have the same type of opportunity. Please pray for these groups and for the Lord to call more to the foreign field.

We are getting the new house ready for the South Africa Youth Home. We had the floors tiled and with the help of one of our groups, the landscape looks much better. We still have a way to go, but the young people should be able to move into the house this week.

Hope Baptist Church in Fairfield, OH and Immanuel Baptist Church in Corruna, MI

The groups have done a terrific job ministering in all the churches here in Port Elizabeth. The preaching, singing, and testimonies have been encouraging and I believe they have really helped the people.

The groups have been an extra blessing to Camp Rhino with the safari hunts and fishing trips. Needless to say, our freezers are full, and they’ve supplied enough meat to stock our freezers for at least the next 6-8 months. A lot of kids will enjoy great meals from their gifts to the Camp.