The Brouwer Family

Today was a day of mixed emotions in the village of Fumagira. We had tremendous services today. The attendance was good, and we had two visitors receive Jesus as their Savior during our time of invitation. That was all very encouraging.
However, after the morning service it was necessary to do something which was very heart-breaking. Several weeks ago it had come to the attention of the leaders in the church that an 18 year-old faithful member of our church had been seen at a disco in the nearby village of Igoma. It had been reported that this young lady was regularly attending this bar and dance hall on Friday nights and staying until the early hours of Saturday morning. This place has a reputation for drinking, drugs, dancing, and many other forms of immoral behavior. It is certainly not a place for a Christian young lady who is a member of one of our churches.
The leaders in the church came to me immediately and asked me what they should do. I asked them if they felt like her immoral behavior fell into the category of Matthew 18 and I Corinthians 5 requiring church discipline. They emphatically said that this kind of blatant sinful behavior by one of our members cannot be tolerated by the church. I then encouraged them to follow Matthew 18:15-17 and I Corinthians 5:1-13. Since this young lady's sinful behavior had first come to the attention of Petro (one of our deacons), he would take the first step of Matthew 18. After a Sunday morning service recently, Petro confronted this young lady about her frequent attendance at this bar and disco. She admitted going to this place regularly, but she refused to repent. In accordance with Matthew 18:16, Petro then got our assistant pastor, Pele, and another leader in the church to confront this young lady once again about her sin. Again, she denied nothing about her sinful behavior, but she refused to repent and stop attending this place. In the process of all of this, I reminded the men in our church that the goal of all of this is to restore this young lady to a right standing with God and His church. I urged them to show compassion and to plead with this young lady to repent.
Since this young lady did not respond to the first two steps of Matthew 18, we were obligated by the Word of God to proceed to the third step. With heavy hearts it was necessary to bring this young lady's sinful behavior before the church. Our assistant pastor, Pele, thoroughly explained to the church her sinful behavior as this young lady sat there listening to every word. You could have heard a pin drop while all of this was going on. I was sitting in the back of the auditorium just observing the whole procedure. Pele publicly and very compassionately urged this young lady to repent of her sinful behavior, reminding her that the church would forgive her if she repented. Amazingly and quite stubbornly, she refused to repent. Pele then asked people in the church to share their hearts in this matter publicly. Several other men in the church pleaded with this girl to repent, but were also quite stern in saying that we could not tolerate such blatant sinful behavior by one of our members. I have been working with the church at Fumagira for almost two years now, and this is the first time that we have ever had to bring a member before the church for discipline. I could tell that many of the people were uncomfortable doing this, but they knew what the Bible was clearly telling them to do. One man said, "The holiness and glory of God is more important than any person in this church." He went on to say, "This church is God's church, and we must follow His Word. We love this young lady and don't enjoy disciplining her publicly, however, we must love God more and obey His Word and protect His church."
At the conclusion of this discussion, Pele then took a vote, and it was unanimous that she should be removed as a member of our church. Pele again urged the other members to pray for this young lady and to lovingly urge her to repent. All of this may seem harsh to some, but all of this was done directly from the Bible with our assistant pastor reading over and over these specific passages on what the church should do in this instance. Pele also brought up the fact that this young lady's behavior, if tolerated, would certainly influence other young people in our church to participate in such sinful behavior. He also asked what kind of a testimony this would be for our church if we allowed such behavior to go on without doing anything about it. I saw Pele's point very clearly as I sat in the back of the church building and observed the reactions of the other young people in attendance this morning. The other young had very somber expressions as this girl was being church disciplined. I believe this created a healthy fear of sin in the hearts of our other young people.
In conclusion, please pray for this young lady and for the continued blessings of God upon the church at Fumagira as they seek to do God's will.

Posted by Bill & Tammy Brouwer at 9:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We had to perform our first "exorcism" in Tanzania. No, it was not on the local witchdoctor or one of the nationals. It was on our computer!!!! Surely, this crazy computer has been demon-possessed lately (HA!). We have had one problem after the next with either the computer, internet provider, or with the electricity. On many occasions we wanted to write an update, but were just unable. However, we are back online, so we will give it a try today.
There is great news to report from our new church plant in Igekemaja. After the dust cleared from our big opening service on Easter Sunday, we were very curious to see who would actually stick around and attend faithfully. The first Sunday after Easter, there were 78 people in attendance. The week after there were 81. Last week, we did not get an exact count, but there were between 90 and 100. For a church that is only four weeks old, we are very encouraged by a faithful core of people that have attended every week. What is also encouraging is that I have only attended the first service, so this new church in not being built around the missionary. Three national preachers from Fumagira are preaching there on a rotating basis, and they are doing a tremendous job. This church will become indigenous much quicker if I don't need to be there every week.
Please continue to pray for the dear believers in this new church. They are very excited and zealous, but also very vulnerable to Satan's attacks. We have immediately started many of these new believers on our foundational discipleship material. There are 16 lessons which will take them 16 weeks to complete. The first few months are crucial in grounding these new believers in God's Word. Also, please continue to pray for the three national preachers as they lead this new church. Their names are: Pasi, Petro, and Pele.
Also, all is well with the other churches that we are working with for which we give God all of the glory. They are certainly His churches.

Posted by Bill & Tammy Brouwer at 2:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)