While in New York City, ICOC HotNews interviewed church leaders from around the world and asked them how God has worked among them. In this, the first of a three-part series—we share just a few of these great stories of faith.
Video script:
Mike: I’m Mike Taliaferro. 2013 marked another year of growth for the International Churches of Christ. Here at HotNews we heard about many stories of faith – from mission plantings and church revivals to HOPE service projects and community events. While in New York City recently, we interviewed church leaders from around the world and asked them how God has worked among them. In this, the first of a three-part series—we share just a few of these great stories of faith.
Ron Conkling: I bring you greetings from the Florida/Louisiana region. We’re over 3,000 disciples with over 300 campus students.
Laurianne Conkling: And we’re super exciting about our partnership with HOPE worldwide. About two years ago we were able to scrape together enough money to start a project down in La Paz, Bolivia, one of the poorest nations. We were able to provide medical equipment and personnel to the orphans and so many needy people in that area. Since that time God has provided a grant for over $400,000 so we can continue the work there in La Paz, Boliva.
Budi Hartono: Hi, my name in Budi Hartono. I’m from the Jakarta church. I bring you greetings and good news from the nation with the largest Muslim population in the world. Currently, God has blessed us with 31 churches and more than 4,000 disciples. In the past four years we have seen God work in a powerful way and added 15 more churches. By 2020, prayerfully, we will see 60 churches all over Indonesia.
Justin Renton: God is doing great things in Southern Africa. Our teen ministry has gone from less than five baptized teens to over 25 in the last few years. We also had our first ever Purity Conference in Johannesburg. We were not sure how many people were going to come out to learn how to live pure in this world. We had nearly 800 people show up. It’s amazing what God is doing in Southern Africa. Please keep us in your prayers.
Shawn Wooten: We’re so excited to be working with the Eastern European family of churches. There are 20 nations. We have 24 churches in these 20 countries. This year we are starting a mission school that will help us to raise up 14 young fired up Christians to serve in the full-time ministry.
Lena Wooten: About 20 disciples from Kiev and other cities in Ukraine collected money and sat on a bus for thirty hours and came to Poland. They were sharing their faith endlessly for hours. In the end we had a church service for 95 people. We replanted the Warsaw, Poland church.
Luz Martinez: Hey, our greatest news from the Dominican Republic is that we finally have our own building. The year that we build the building was the year that the church most grew in a very long time. In fact, we had 105 people baptized and restored that year. Also, right around the time that we were building most of our teens graduated from high school, so we literally had two kids in our teen ministry. We have about 42 baptized teens now in the church. Two of those teens have already baptized their entire family including moms, dads, and siblings, and have baptized their best friend’s entire family as well. With God all is possible. Thank you.
Shared from ICOC HotNews
