|
ANGOLA
MISSIONARY PRAYER REPORT
Brian Howden
(June 2008)
Following the pioneering work done by
Maitland, Louttit, McLaren, Leonard Gammon, Donald McLeod, George
Wiseman, Crawford Allison, Roy Wood, and David Long, etc. there are
now about 1350 Assemblies in Angola, and so the present work is not
“pioneering”.
The Chokwe people are the main
tribe who have been evangelised. They are a people who have been,
and continue to be dominated by witchcraft. Many of the men in
leadership have limited Biblical knowledge – they are unable to
read, and so have to pass on what they have heard, rather than what
they have read and studied.
The following prayer requests are
made:
®
Pray
for additional Missionaries; at the moment there is only one
resident missionary from the UK, namely Ruth Hadley.
®
John and
Ruth Singleton of
the Fourmarks Assembly are exercised to go out there; they have four
children. Pray that the Lord’s will and timing might be made
plain.
®
Pray
that traditional cultural practices will not prevent the Word of God
taking a real hold on people’s lives, e.g. in times of distress they
will not resort to the use of charms, but
that the believers may discern what is of God.
®
Witchcraft is very real and people live in fear of it;
pray
that those in responsible positions will be given wisdom on how to
deal with these issues in difficult situations.
Pray
that the Gospel will continue to penetrate the darkness of
witchcraft.
®
May the people know the reality of turning from idols as evidence of
changed lives.
®
Divine help required for the preservation of New Testament
principles in the Assemblies.
®
A school
was built in 2007 for 240 children. There are 6 school teachers and
a headmaster. Please remember in prayer Ruth Hadley as she
seeks to teach the teachers the fundamentals of “teaching” to
try and raise standards; they need extra help for this.
®
Family
Bible Camps are
arranged to encourage the development of family prayer and Bible
Study.
®
Medical
work is carried
out very often by untrained personnel; they are treating leprosy,
malaria, and the usual common complaints.
®
Remember
Pedro,
an older brother who is quite rare in that at about the age of 70,
he is still married to his first wife, he speaks out against
witchcraft, and he is free from alcohol. These are rare attributes,
and the people take a lot more notice of him, an Angolan, than they
would of a white person saying the same thing.
®
Also remember
Joăi
Lologo
a younger Christian brother, but with the same characteristics as
Pedro.
®
Remember
Margaret Beckwith in Luanda who provides help with hospitality
and logistics for the transfer of goods sent by Medical Missionary
News.
®
Pray
for current literature needs and the Angolan Literature Fund. They
need 25,000 Chokwe Bibles, 30,000 Hymn Books, and 2,000 copies of
the McDonalds Bible Commentary in Portuguese.
®
Travel
can be very difficult because the roads are poor, and so we are
asked to pray for travelling mercies.
®
Pray
for the elections scheduled for September 2008; it is not impossible
that what has happened in Zimbabwe could happen in Angola.
Pray
then that peace may continue.
®
Pray
for Brian’s next visit, planned for
8th
August to 31st August;
remember them as a family.
|
