For the next three Sundays, Dr. Dan Steere and I will be in Africa. We’ll arrive in Nigeria early Sunday morning, August 17, and return home late Sunday evening, August 31. The first week we’ll be teaching in Nigeria and the second in Ghana. Our task will be to instruct church leaders. By God’s grace, we hope to help them be better equipped to carry out their duties of preaching and teaching their people to love the Lord by loving others in His Name.
Please, pray for us: Safety in travel, strength for our labors, clarity of mind, and a sense of the Spirit working in and through us to accomplish more than we could possibly imagine. Please, pray for Susan and Linda while we are away. We know they’ll be in good hands.
Please, pray for the church staff, and especially Pastor Mullinax. He and the others will be carrying the load in my absence. How grateful I am to know you will be in good hands. (If you haven’t been with us Sunday evenings, you’ve missed two powerful sermons by Pastor Mullinax based upon the heroes of the faith listed in Hebrews 11. He will continue that series during the morning worship services while I’m away.)
Please, pray for Chris and Reba Gregory as over the next few weeks they become actively involved in the work and ministry of CPC. They should be arriving during my absence. I know you’ll make them feel welcome. They have all the challenges involved in moving from central North Carolina to a new home in Chattanooga. Give them your love and support.
Please, pray for Philip and Sarah Caines as they become settled in Cleveland and assume the work of serving our daughter congregation, Trinity PC.
And please, pray about our finances. You need to know that we are now more than $100,000 behind in giving to the general fund of the church. It’s not unusual for us to lag behind in our giving at this time of the year, but our present deficit is a little larger than normal.
We all know that money is tight. Like most of you, I don’t like looking at my savings and retirement accounts, only to see that I’m losing instead of gaining. So I know it may seem a little presumptuous to tell you that we all need to dig a little deeper and give what we can to help meet our various responsibilities as a congregation. But I would be shirking my responsibility not to let you know the reality of our circumstances.
Through you God has always provided for the work of our church. I’m confident He will continue to meet our needs. I have no idea what anyone gives. I don’t want to know. I couldn’t handle such information. But as you are able, prayerfully consider what I am telling you, and give cheerfully as God enables.
I love you all. I’ll miss you. I pray that God will bless the work of His Kingdom both here and in those various places where it is our privilege to serve directly or to help provide the means so that others may labor to tell all the world that Jesus is King.
Pastor Caines