Be careful what you ask for.
I thought of this after what happened two weeks ago. Judy and I had been praying for the Lord to open a door for her to disciple women. Then we talked and prayed with Deborah Dadang about it and she shared her heart for Pastors’wives. The Lord led us to talk to the Jos District Church Council (DCC) Chairman and Secretary. From that talk we were invited to a meeting for about seventy pastors and their wives. Judy and Deborah challenged the wives to take the opportunity to be discipled by getting into a group with them. We all hoped for at least enough ladies that would enable Judy and Deborah to start meeting with a small group. Instead what they got were forty-six wives indicating their interest. So instead of one small group, each of them have three groups with six to nine ladies in each group. I also had another twelve pastors who expressed interest in being discipled. This reminded us of Ephesians 3:20 that says, ´Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.’ New Living Translation.


DOES PRAYER MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
Someone wrote recently something they read from Philip Yancey’s book, “Prayer, Does It Make Any Difference? It was a story of an SIM graveyard here in Nigeria. It has about 70 gravesites in it. Each grave is a testimony of the sacrifices that missionaries have made in coming to Nigeria for over a century. Out of the over 60 graves around half are children. Through prayer each one comes filling the Call of God upon their lives. Did their prayers, commitments and sacrifices make a difference? Over a century later the SIM related church, The Evangelical Church of West Africa, has over five million people worshipping in its churches every Sunday. Do you think they have made a difference?

The week's surprises. What were they? The first was a real answer to prayer. Judy, Deborah Dadang (wife of the ECWA General Secretary) and myself have been praying about how they could start a ministry to pastors’ wives. On Tuesday we went and talked to the Chairman and Secretary of the Jos ECWA District Church Council. They shared with them what they had on their heart and to our surprise there was a meeting on Friday, Jan. 26th with the district pastors and their wives. The district has about 70 pastors. The Chairman invited us to attend the meeting and share with the wives. So on Friday morning we went. We don’t know what the response was yet. We will get a list from the chairman tomorrow.

Yesterday, Sunday, Jan 28th I spoke at a service of the ECWA Student Ministry Chapter at the University of Jos. We were really blessed as there were over 200 students in attendance. Why were we blessed? In 1993 the ECWA Student Ministry was just getting started at the University of Jos. This was the first chapter for the ministry. Judy and I were going over there meeting with students and leading discipleship groups. Then there were only about 15 students involved. Through discipling those students the vision of disciple-making was caught by them and now over the past 13 years they have continued to reach out to students on campus. That is why we were blessed today. Over the years our ministry has traveled to many campuses and discipled students and now there are over 50 chapters throughout Nigeria.
Another surprise was that today was declared a public holiday by the Federal and State Government authorities. The reason was that they wanted to give workers an opportunity to get registered for the elections that are going to be taking place in the next few months. So Judy and I used the time to work at home.

The ECWA Discipleship Ministry Team

Please be in Prayer for each of us and our families

1 Thessalonians 1:11-12

Chuck Sam Akila Randy