The Brouwer Family

For Easter Sunday, we had a combined morning service with three of our independent Baptist churches here in the Mwanza area. It was a tremendous service with standing room only in the church auditorium here in the village of Fumagira. Fellow BIMI missionary Greg Wagoner preached a powerful message on the resurrection from the Book of Acts. After the morning service, we had an African feast as only the Africans can do it. The dear women of our church cooked over 300 pounds of rice and slaughtered six goats without the aid of a well-equipped American church kitchen. They cooked outside the old-fashioned way with a wood fire and fifteen huge metal cooking pots. With a crowd this size we were a bit concerned that there would be enough food. However, Baptists are the same around the world; there was more than enough food for everyone to eat their fill.

Posted by Bill & Tammy Brouwer at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am pleased to report a happy ending to our Polygamy 101 episode. As you may recall, a faithful man in our village church wanted to get himself a second wife and bring both of them to the same church. Our assistant pastor and myself made an appointment to meet this man and his wife. Following our Lord's instructions in Matthew 18, we confronted this dear brother concerning his offense against his wife, and we urged him to repent. Initially, he put up some resistance, but after his sin was clearly laid out before him, he slowly bowed his head and sat silently for quite some time. He finally broke the silence by confessing his sin and asking for forgiveness. He apologized to his wife and promised to inform this other woman that their relationship was over. It was awesome to see God use the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, to bring this brother to repentance. In the weeks following this confrontation, this couple has been faithful to our church services, and they seem to be doing quite well under the circumstances.

Posted by Bill & Tammy Brouwer at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

God gave us wonderful services at Fumagira Baptist Church today. The attendance again was good. We had about 175 in our morning service. Our assistant pastor, Pelegrino, preached this morning from Matthew 14 and did a tremendous job. He preached on Peter walking on the water until he took his eyes off of Jesus. He presented some great applications from this passage. Another one of our preacher boys preached the afternoon service. It was only his second time to preach, but Pasi preached a very good message from I John chapter 4 on the love of God. Please pray these young men who are called to preach that they would continue to grow in grace.

Posted by Bill & Tammy Brouwer at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)