Ukraine Team Update ~ 06/28/18

Hello Apostles family,

Today our team has spent much of the day in preparation for the arrival of Ukrainian students. We are preparing bible studies , workshops and outdoor challenges (think ropes course type activities — yikes).  The desire is to have many different contexts in which to interact with and get to know these students. We partner in this with a team of students from the UK.  Our team has been so impressed with these students and really enjoyed interacting with them.  They love Jesus, are warm and funny and curious about us and life in the States.  (The picture shows a few of them over dinner.)

Today, many of us on the team are feeling the intensity of the schedule. Continue to pray that the Lord will give us lots of stamina and will use brief breaks in the day to restore us. 

Thanks for your prayers. 

Terri Shell

Preparing for Reaching Ukrainian Students

Our group has arrived in the city of Lviv and are staying at a Catholic seminary outside the city. After flying through London, we flew into Kiev, then took a four-hour (or more?) train to Lviv, and arrived feeling REALLY tired, but thankful to be on time with no travel difficulties!

There are about 20 college students and staff from the UK, about 15 local Ukrainian ministry staff, and the five of us on our team from Apostles. We’ve been spending the first full day learning about Ukrainian culture and preparing to lead the Ukrainian students who will be coming next week.

Please pray for stamina! And also that we will be well prepared to love, listen to and show Christ’s love to these students who will be joining us!

(Our Team with Yevgen, one of the Ukrainian staff who has spoken to us at Apostles)

Ukrainian Team Launched!

Monday, June 25, 2018

We've made it through security and are sitting at the gate. We've been discussing concerns. "What did I forget to pack?" We've laughed about how many times we checked to make sure the Passport was in hand. We've talked about the prospects of bumps and snags that inevitably come with travel. 

But the thing that puts us at ease is the fact that there is a group of young, energetic, lively Ukrainian university students we are about to meet who probably have little to know church background or awareness of who Jesus is. And we are joining the Lord in his effort to reveal himself to them. 

Our flight leaves at 6pm tonight, and we'll touch down in Kiev at 1:30pm local time (6:00am Raleigh time). 

Please pray for us as we go, that we will humbly step into all that God has for us.

-Ukraine Team {Catherine Wood, Terri Shell, Austin Harris, John Creasy, Eric Bolash}

Boultons in Keyna: Update

Bryon and Stacey Boulton and their family are currently working at a Christian hospital in Kenya, Africa.  Below is a mid-trip update from Bryon:  
We arrived safely at Tenwek hospital in the evening of 12/30, and then were able to worship together with the Kenyans and missionaries on Sunday.  Monday was a holiday and work began on Tuesday.  Stacy has been very busy delivering babies.  She has found her work very challenging to manage the acuity with such limited resources.  She asks for prayer for Thebet, a mother of 3 who developed a severe complication of pregnancy and is now on life support.  Bryon has been busy as well, performing 7 heart and thoracic surgeries, and thankfully all the patients are doing well as they recover.  He asks for prayer for the team as they make decisions selecting the surgical patients for next week, as they will unfortunately have to make some difficult decisions as not everyone will be able to be offered surgery.

Fortunately, two of Bryon’s ICU nurses, Lillie and Jenny, who are Christians, were able to join us on our trip this year. Below is a picture of our post-operative ICU team.  Please pray for Lillie as she is recovering from a bad GI bug, and Jenny as she recovers from working the extra shifts while Lillie was sick.

We are thankful to be able to serve Christ as we work alongside the Kenyans and full time missionaries. We have seen God work, answering numerous prayers, and seeing His amazing sovereign hand at work.  I was in awe of Him walking before us in just the first heart surgery I performed.  Once the heart was stopped and open, I found a congenital birth defect that can not be diagnosed pre-operatively with the current Kenyan capabilities.  While I was selecting and packing some donated cardiac surgical instruments before we left the states, I came across a special instrument that I initially excluded because I didn’t think it would be needed, but went back and added it to our collection as I knew they likely didn’t have it in Kenya.  It turned out that that was the exact instrument that I needed to correct the birth defect, and without it, the correction would have been much more technically difficult.  An excellent example of His fore-knowledge, and daily grace and mercy.  I reflected that it is such a small reflection of Christ, who was the stone the builders rejected, but the cornerstone of our faith.

Also pray for Stacy as she is working all weekend long, both as a word of thanks that she can give the full-time missionaries a much needed weekend off, but also strength for what will be a very busy weekend.In Christ~Bryon J Boulton

Christ Our Hope Anglican Update

The first week of September was a HUGE week in the life of our new little church. It's amazing to think back to November of 2015 when God began to reveal his new call to Erin and me. And to think that now we have had our very first service. I always knew God could do it, but certainly wondered if he had made a huge mistake in asking me to be a part of things.


On September 10th, we met at 9 AM at the Wrightsville Beach Brewery for Worship on Sunday morning. It was special and a sweet sweet time with the Lord. The space worked very well. (As a complete aside. We are being charged $100 per week for rental of the space. This very low rent is a huge blessing. The owner made it even better and charged us just $1 for the first week. I was informed by the owner last week that the first 11 weeks of our rent were anonymously taken care of. I think maybe God is showing off a bit.) Our systems came together. There is a wonderful team of very talented and hard working people that have made this at all possible. We even had children's church. We call it the "REEF." The kids had a great time and seem excited about coming back for another go around this week.

We actually had music, prayers, communion, and a sermon. 47 people were in attendance. Two of our regular families were out of town this week, and we had a couple of new faces amongst those worshipping. God has mightily blessed this congregation all along. The Leadership Council voted prior to Sunday that our first offering would be sent to hurricane relief. So we are sending just over $1000 to that effort through the Anglican Church of North America.

Thank you each for making this church possible. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement.  I can't wait to get back together with this family to Worship our Lord Jesus.

Many blessings to you.

Curt Solomon

Rwanda Mission Team 2017 ~ Pastor's Summary

Dear Apostles family and Rwanda trip supporters,

The team is back safe and sound! After thirty hours of travel, we touched down in Raleigh RDU at 4:19 PM on Tuesday. Praise God for a safe trip! We had hoped to capture more blog entries before returning, but due to some technical difficulties we got out less than anticipated. However, I’d like to update you now with a summary of our trip. 

This was my fourth visit to Rwanda and easily my favorite! There was something about the depth of relationship and the evidence of the fruit of nine years of visits, prayers, and partnership that made this trip so special. I could see it in the faces of many of the people we have come to know and love over the years. I could also see it in the lives of our team, (John and Barbara Wilson, Teresa Kincaid, Chris Hendricks, and our three graduating seniors: Amanda Stahl, Abigail Jordan, and Matt Bocklage).  We had a lot of laughs, tears, and sweet times together…as well as eating lots and lots of starchy foods!

The Water Project

I could see God's fruitfulness in the continued expansion of the health center at Gikomero; an expansion that was made possible by the addition of a fresh water system supplied by Apostles in the early years of our partnership. We made the trek down into the valley where the water pump was installed. I had forgotten how far it was from Gikomero’s perch high atop one of Rwanda’s many “hills!” They have now added additional tanks for intake of the precious spring water which is pumped over a mile up the hill. 

The New Church Building 

I saw the joy of a people who had mourned the collapse of their church building as we worshipped for the first time in their new space (still unfinished but capable of hosting a five hour worship service of confirmations, baptisms, new member receptions, communion and testimonies!) One man even brought in a cow as an offering, fulfilling a vow he had made! He had been distraught at the collapse of the church building and didn’t believe a new one would ever be possible. However, when he saw it being built as a result of the people’s faithfulness, combined with the prayers and financial help of Church of the Apostles, he pledged to make a significant offering to God at the first worship service scheduled in the new space. It was a joyful thing to behold! 

I could clearly see the value of building this new church as it is capable of holding three times the people as the old structure. Although it was packed on its first day there will still be room to grow since the whole church worships in four different chapels three Sundays a month, and Sunday’s service was a special occasion attracting many visitors as well as the regulars. I was also deeply grateful to learn that one of their chapels, the Mutara parish (over an hour’s walk distance) became a self sustaining congregation that is now planting other chapels in its surrounding area. 

The Showing of the Jesus Film

I saw God’s faithfulness as over three hundred adults and children committed or recommitted their lives to Jesus in response to sermons and the showing of the Jesus Film in their native tongue. We showed the film three different times. 120 people attended the first showing at Runda parish (the sister church to Redeemer Anglican). The second showing was in the old church building in Gikomero, and over 1000 school kids jammed in to see it. They were literally spell bound for the first thirty minutes and gave their full attention for the remainder of the film. (After thirty minutes a lot of the little kids had to hit the bathroom! )  

Several of the kids openly wept at the trial and crucifixion scenes. In the evening, 300 adults and some kids attended. A Rwandan Campus Crusade worker narrated some key moments in the film and even led the crowd in cheers and hallelujahs! He then issued the invitations and both prayed with and provided followup instructions for those who had committed their lives. All of us were in awe of the effect of this movie! The Jesus Film project gifted the diocese with the projector, battery, solar powered recharger, screen and film (all of which fits in a backpack) with the agreement that the film be shown 150 to 300 times over the next three years. Bishop Jered Kalimba assured me that this will be “no problem!” as they have the capacity and enthusiastic desire to do so. I was very encouraged to hear from one of the diocesan workers that she had given her life to Christ years earlier when she had seen the same film! It seemed like icing on the cake when both Teresa and I preached on Sunday (She at Runda, me at Gikomero) and about 35 people responded to the invitation to receive Christ. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

10 Goats

We were so delighted to meet up with over 60 moms in the Healthy Moms Project. We saw how a vision of their previous pastor, Pastor Etienne, had grown from a small group of downhearted single moms, to a group who now hold their heads up, share resources, start businesses, and encourage each other in the Lord. It was sheer joy to present ten of them with goats purchased through the offerings of our Monday night women’s bible study group, as well as gifting the rest of the group with hand made wash cloths made and given with love from some of our parishioners. One elderly widow said that she had never in her life owned a goat. She was clearly moved and deeply grateful. 

A Farewell Party

Finally, I saw the fruit of this relationship in a farewell party at the bishop’s house. The evening was about as special as they come. We were hosted on the bishop’s lawn outdoors. Besides getting to meet the Bishop’s cow, Mathilda, there was music, good food, and a special cake prepared in honor of John and Barbara Wilson’s 45th anniversary. The bishop had learned of their special day that morning and had made hasty arrangements to include a cake, complete with a huge sparkler candle in the middle! Several of his staff dressed in traditional Rwandan garb and sang and danced in the old style of the African villagers. Of course, we danced with them! At the end of the evening the bishop called for speeches, and particularly asked our young people to share their thoughts. I was touched by their sincere words and the love evident in them and in our hosts. It is clear that the Lord has his hand of blessing on this partnership and that their is more in store for us as we continue to exchange visits, prayer, and partnership in the gospel of Jesus.

Thank you for all your prayers and loving support over the course of this trip. This is a church partnership and you all are a part of it. Although I had a great time, and it was deeply meaningful, I can’t tell you how grateful I am to return to you. I love Church of the Apostles and all the Lord is doing in and through you. Keep praying for our brothers and sisters in Rwanda and keep praying for the work of God right here in Raleigh as we all seek the joyful expansion of his kingdom and the honor and glory of his name.

With you always in Christ,

Patrick

Rwanda Mission Team 2017 ~ Wednesday, July 19

Wednesday - Runda Parish

" I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel...I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace." --Philippians 1: 3 & 5

We spent an incredible day spent with Redeemer's Sister Church, Runda Parish and their Chapel, Muganza Chapel.  When the team arrived at Muganza Chapel, people were already singing, dancing and worshiping Jesus Christ.  Inside we were greeted by women, men and a preschool class.  The children sang sweet songs and recited the story of Creation to Christ return.  Praise God for Athansia, Muganza's Catachist.  She is a woman of God!

I had the blessing of presenting Pastor Jean Baptiste and Muganza Chapel with funds to help purchase a much needed key board.  They were overjoyed with Redeemer's wonderful gift!  I wish all of Redeemer could have experienced the love and gratitude Muganza feels for the gift.  

We were humbled to be invited to Athansia's (Catechist) home for tea and a meal.  Athanasia has been given the gift of hospitality. Afterwards, we went to Joselyn's home for a delicious lunch. Joseyln is Runda Parish's Catechist.  We felt very loved by these gifts of hospitality.

In the afternoon, the Team showed the Jesus film.  What an incredible experience to partner with Pastor Jean Baptiste in sharing the Gospel.  It was a powerful 2 hours!  Twenty people gave their lives to Christ!  Yesu ashimwe!  (Christ be praised)  We also fed everyone a basket dinner and they were thrilled to have a delicious meal.  The people were nourished spiritually and physically!  Jesus is the Bread of Life!  

Our day with Runda began at 8:30 am and we returned to the Guest House at 9 pm.  We were tired, but energized by the power of the Holy Spirit, also!

Imana ishimwe (God be praised) for His many blessings with Runda Parish.  I am excited for Redeemer's partnership in the Gospel with Runda to continue growing, as we share the love, grace and mercy of Christ!

Imana iguhe umugisha (Many Blessings)

Tereza