July 2015 Sullivans in South Africa

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We are so thankful. Thankful to God for allowing us to serve him and Thankful to our supporters. We understand our reasonable service and we are amazed that God allows us to serve him. This past month has gone by so fast, and we are trying to soak up every minute!

Pastor Sipho and I have started a youth department at New Life Baptist Church which is in the KwaDwesi Township. I teach Sunday school every Sunday morning as well as a youth night every Friday night. We have had a high of 25 in our first month of youth night. We have seen many different faces over the last month and not many of the same people. Pastor Sipho and I have made it our goal to keep in touch with the many that have come and continue to build relationships with them.

As well as a Sunday school class, my wife and I have started language school. Learning any new language is a difficult task. You have to be humble, and keep a childlike attitude. Our language teacher, Lubabalo, is very encouraging and supportive. We can say our greetings and invite people to church as well as construct some very simple sentences. My daughter has even learned some simple words as well.
Mallorie has been able to begin preschool here. She is very excited and seems to be adjusting to the new culture faster than her parents are. Our son Avett, will turn 1 this month, we are so excited to be able to celebrate it with the team of missionaries here in Port Elizabeth.

Mark Coffey, Kevin Hall, Jeremy Hall and their wives have been a tremendous blessing to us and so valuable in our training this last month. They have taken us in as if we are their own family. Hannah Peabody, who travelled here with us, was able to stay a whole month and we saw her off this week as she went back home.
After one month here my wife and I are confident that God wants us to continue our mission in South Africa after our internship. I am starting to book meetings already for January 2016 and we hope to be back in SA by January 2018. We also have a new website that is different from our prayer card. It is now www.sullivansinsouthafrica.com. Please help us continue to pray for:

• Growth in our language ability
• Steady growth in the youth Sunday school
• Our visas to be extended so we can stay all six months without exiting the country
• A few young men that I can begin to disciple
• My family as we continue to assimilate to the culture
• Wells Baptist in Wells. Madiba Bay Baptist in Kwazakhele and New Life Baptist in Kwazakele
• Churches to partner with us.

Coffey Family July 2015 Prayer Letter

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Prayer Request

  • The start of Bay Baptist College
  • More laborers
  • VBS this coming week
  • Language learning
  • Plans for ministry expansion in the next few months

God has blessed New Life Baptist Church.  Our best Sunday this past month we saw three people (one older lady and two teens) come forward and put their faith in Christ.  The following service all three of those people were back in church.  The week before that Sunday we had a high attendance in our Friday youth meeting with 25 teens.  Josh and Meagan Sullivan, our six month interns, have been a big help in the teen meetings since they arrived at the first of June.  We are already looking forward to them being here as full time missionaries.   

Wells Youth Meeting - 1

With best weeks also comes the not so best as far as church attendance.  Usually here in South Africa the not so best weeks are during Holiday time, the time students are out of school for winter break.  Although this is a usually a low time for attendance in all our churches, it’s a great time for extra evangelistic events and mentoring time with our young preachers in training.  This past week our pastors held a week long Youth Meeting (pictured above) at Wells Estate Baptist Church were they saw 5 people make professions of faith.  Also this coming week we will have a children’s VBS type program from Tuesday through Friday.  One of young guys, Yanga Gentzu, will be to gain some good ministry experience as he is preaching every day. 

More Highlights

  • Hannah Peabody will be leaving this week after finishing up her 1-month internship.
  • Amy and I celebrated our 15 year anniversary on June 24.  We’re actually doing more of the celebrating part next week hopefully.
  • Emilee, my oldest daughter, turned 13

Needs 

  • We praise the Lord that all the financing has come in to finish phase 1 at New Life Baptist Church and for the Pastor’s apartment at Madiba Bay Baptist Church.  We are so grateful for those that helped with both of these projects. 
  • Please pray that the Lord would direct us in the right area to buy property for our future training center.
  • Baptistry for New Life- $350

Update June 22-29

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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

Update June 14-21 New Website

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We have a new website!

We will no longer be using www.sullivansinsouthafrica.weebly.com. We can now be found at projectsouthafrica.com.

Please forgive me for not posting in a while. With the new update to the website it took us awhile to get ready to post. Much thanks goes to Trent Cornell for setting up our new site!

Pastor Sipho and I have started a youth night which occurs every Friday night. It is an hour-long and we will play games and fellowship for half an hour and then I will preach for half an hour. The kids really seemed to enjoy it the first week and we had about 10. This past Friday the Lord blessed and we had 25 kids from the township come! I am preaching on “The Whats of Christianity” This past week I taught on “What is a Christian?” and I preached the gospel. There were 3 teens who had questions about salvation and three people made professions this past Sunday.   Pastor Sipho will preach this week.

This past Sunday I had the opportunity to preach at New Life Baptist Church. This is the church we will be attending and serving in for this internship period and I am the youth pastor. Please also pray for Wells Baptist Church , which is in the Wells township and Madiba Bay Baptist Church, which is in the Kwazakheli Township.

There is nothing better in this World than to serve God. It is our reasonable service and i cant think of anything else I would rather do with my life.

Please help us pray for:

– That we can get our visas extended

– We can continue to progress in language school.

– Salvation in our youth class

Update from the Sullivans

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Busy, busy, busy!

In our two short weeks here, we have had a lot going on! First and foremost, we know for us to have any successful ministry here, we must speak to people’s hearts. In order to speak to their hearts, we MUST learn their language.  With that being said, the majority of our time goes into language school.

On an exciting note, We have been given the opportunity to  start a youth class at New Life Baptist Church. We had our fist service this past Sunday, and were thrilled with  10 in attendance! We look to grow this class through “youth nights,” every Friday, and Sunday school.

We have finally got moved all the way into our home and its nice to finally have our own vehicle to drive around. Driving here is difficult,  we are getting accustomed to driving on the opposite side of the road.

I got the privilege  to preach at New Life this past week. God has allowed us many opportunities to serve him and we are undeserving but thankful for the chance to serve our Saviour. It is our reasonable service.

Please help us pray for:
– Salvation for the lost in SA
– A young man to train
– Our new Youth class
– Language Learning
– Preparation for deputation.

June 2015 Prayer Letter

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First Pastor’s Retreat
Our first pastor’s retreat was hosted last month in a little town outside of PE, called Addo. It was a great success. Bekah and I were encouraged, as was I’m sure everyone who attended. Over the two days, Kevin, Mark and I (along with our wives) taught several classes to the young pastors and their wives, who attended; definitely something that will be repeated annually.

Trip to Cape Town:
Also last month, the whole family had to make a trip to Cape Town to renew our passports. Surprisingly, the kids handled the 17 hour drive exceptionally well. While we were there we had the opportunity to preach and teach at Lighthouse Baptist Church started by Missionary Larry Nelson. The believers there were very welcoming. During our stay they took our family in like their own.

Visitor in PE:
At present, we have veteran Missionary Randy Stirewalt visiting with us. He is here to help us organize and plan for future expansion of our ministry here in South Africa. His 37 years of experience church planting in Africa, along with the 260+ churches started from his ministry, gives him a wealth of knowledge to share. We are extremely blessed to have him.

Language Studies:
Though we have had to take a couple of weeks off from our language studies, we are still managing to progress some. We have continued assisting with teaching Sunday School and offering devotions at Madiba Bay BC as we have been available. Our classes will continue to be sporadic until the middle of next month due to visitors.

More Highlights and Prayer Requests:

  • There have been several people saved over the past few weeks at Madiba Bay Baptist Chruch. Two new guys you can begin to pray with us for are Songeza (14) and Mfundo (17). These are two very bright young men that we are expecting God to use.
  • Tomorrow we have a new intern family arriving, the Josh Sullivan family. They will be staying here with us for 6 months. Please pray for them as they adjust.
  • Rebekah and I celebrated our 7th anniversary on the 30th of May. You’ll have to go to my Facebook page to see what an awesome woman does for her husband on their anniversary.
  • Thank you to “The Baptist Men” of West Corinth Baptist Church for their generous donation to our building project. The flat is almost complete; we are only lacking $1300 to finish.

Thanks again for all you do!

Sincerely,

Jeremy and Rebekah Hall

Coffey Family May 2015 Prayer Letter

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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. 

Prayer Request

  • The start of Bay Baptist College
  • More laborers
  • Pastor Sipho and his family as we work together at New Life Baptist Church.
  • Language learning
  • Plans for ministry expansion in the next few months

More Highlights

  • Akeme Ubom, pre-med student from North Ga University, visited this month and was a great blessing to all our families and churches. 
  • 4 teems came to church and made professions after Akeme preached at Tamsanqa High School
  • Hannah Peabody from Fellowship Baptist in Maryville, Ga arrives June 2nd for a one month internship

Needs 

  • $1300 to finish the electric work for the pastor house at Madiba Bay Baptist Church
  • $1000 to finish the plumbing at Madiba as well

Pray for Lungisa High School

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Sipho and I had the privilege to speak to the students at Lungisa High School this past week.  Lungisa High School is a public high school very close to our church.  We now have an open door to come and spend time with the students during their lunch break each week.  This is a great opportunity for us to be able to impact many young people with the truth of the Gospel.

 

The Church Building Open and Ready for Use

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On January 22nd, the construction began for New Life Baptist Church Kwadwesi.  Other than lacking a few doors, electricity, and water, the building is ready for use.  Well, we’re going to use it anyway:)  We will be having our first service in the main auditorium this morning, April 19th at 10am.  I want to thank everyone for their prayers and support during this building project.  The money for building came in just in time, even when I underestimated the cost or had surprise expenses.  I praise the Lord, there is a lighthouse in the Kwadwesi area of Port Elizabeth, South Africa to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Continue to pray as we seek to reach the lost and train young men for the ministry.