 Greetings from the Bible Correspondence Course. You may have heard of the crisis that we are in concerning our premises. A few months ago someone saw cracks at the top of the 4 story building that we share with an international church. Their complaint to the municipality resulted
in an inspection that determined that our building was unsafe and needed to be evacuated.
We have still not received anything in writing with this conclusion. The assistant mayor has intervened on our behalf on several occasions and has allowed us to remain. In the interim we have investigated the possibility of buying or renting a new apartment/building both alone or with the local international church. Because the BCC does not have its own legal status, there are many advantages in remaining under the 'covering' of the church. Ideally we would like to remain in our current venue as it is an ideal location. We have found through our research is extremely cheap compared to similar places in the area. Please pray that if we cannot stay, God would lead us to the place of His choosing and would provide the finance necessary.
Below you will find a report from our annual January outreach. Please continue to pray for this and other similar outreaches...that God would be honored as literally thousands are contacted and have the opportunity to come under the hearing of the gospel message... Stories and quotes from the outreach
"Hi, I'm your answer to prayer; how can I help you?"
On the first day of the outreach, three university students got separated from the rest of their team. For several hours, they tried in vain to find their way back to the church. They asked a dozen or so people, using a map they had been given, but the directions they were given always seemed to be wrong. In desperation, one of them turned to the others and said, "Let's just stop and pray." They hadn't been praying long when a man walked up to them and said (in English!), "Hi, I'm your answer to prayer; how can I help you?" When they explained that they were lost, he led them himself all the way to the church—now that's an answer to prayer! Street bum turned security guard-evangelist  When Okan first came to the church several years ago, his life was a complete mess. Without work and friends, his life was ruined by bad habits and sinful behavior. When he first came to the church, his real interest was in free food, relationships with foreigners and perhaps a job or a visa out of the country. Over the years, God has changed him.
Because of recent sad events in Turkey, many church members felt it would be good to have a security guard. Rather than hiring one, we decided to buy a metal detector and security guard uniform, and let a church member do the work. Okan, who at that time was between jobs, volunteered to help. During the second week of outreach events, he spent about 10 hours per day in front of the church, not only doing his security guard duty, but giving hundreds of church invitations to the people who passed by. In fact, the biggest percentage of church visitors during those days came because of the invitations Okan gave them or his friendly way of inviting them into the church.
One afternoon a man came into the church and sat down to listen to one of the church leaders tell how he came to Christ. Afterward, he took him aside to talk to him privately. "I don't think my coming here was an accident," he explained. "I usually never come along this road, much less stop to use a public phone. Yet today here I was, using the public phone just outside your church, and then this security guard comes up to me and invites me to visit the church. I didn't even know there was a church here, and wouldn't have even noticed if the security guard hadn't invited me. But know I know that there is a God who has heard my prayers and is trying to help me. My life is at its lowest point ever. My wife has left me, and just last week I tried committing suicide by drinking chlorine. Please pray for me." Pray for this man, that God would indeed help him to repent and find Christ, and that he'd begin attending the church regularly.
Uzbek finds Christ through persistent literature distribution
For three days in early January, over 40 short-term volunteers and local church members distributed 40,000 2008 calendars that had an invitation to a series of evangelistic meetings at a local church in Istanbul. One of these calendars made it into the hands of an Uzbek man, who decided to attend the first night's meeting. After he arrived in the neighborhood, he had second thoughts about attending the meeting, and was about to leave when a Korean short-term volunteer came up to him and gave him yet another calendar-invitation. "Then I knew that this must be from God, and turned and went to the meeting," he recounted later. After the meeting he sat down with Turkish believers, who explained the gospel to him, and he committed his life to Christ. The change in his countenance was immediately obvious; he was always smiling in the following days, attending every church event that he could, and since then we've been told by the church leaders that he continues to come to many of the church's weekly events, including the Sunday worship services.
Quote
"What I saw was so amazing. Now I know that we can reach Muslims. Before I came, I had no idea how to do this, but now I'll find opportunities to share with Muslims. Now I know that I can bring a Muslim to God." – Jeroen from Holland
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