Revival Report: Pastor Hamilton from Benin

We have been so blessed this past week to have Pastor David Hamilton from the nation of Benin here to preach the word of God to us. Pastor Hamilton has been in the nation of Benin for the last nine years building a powerful work of God. They have already planted a baby church that I have had the privilege to preach in which is bearing much fruit.

Pastor Hamilton reminds me so much of his Pastor; Alvin Smith. He preaches with such passion and anointing and the people here were ready and open to the word of God.

What blessed us so much was that he preached the entire revival in French which is very important in this nation. The people were overwhelmed with gladness to hear the word of God without an interpreter. This is a tremendous tribute to the work and labor that Pastor David has given to learning the French language with excellence. Most of the people had no idea that his original language was English and even after I told them they found it hard to believe. He has inspired me to press further in my language studies. By the grace of God, I will be preaching soon in French.

We began Friday night with a Men's Discipleship Class, it was a powerful time. Pastor Hamilton preached about how we respond to the will of God when it does not match our own will. On Saturday we had a special service to dedicate our new location. We had a joyous time of thanksgiving and prayer and fellowship together as a congregation as we begin this new chapter in our church's story.

Sunday morning we started the revival and took it through till Wednesday night. I wish we could have kept going. We had so many visitors out each night. many people from the neighborhood stopped in to see what was going on and ended up giving their lives to Jesus and coming back the following nights. All together we saw seventeen people pray to give their lives to Jesus.

Sunday afternoon we will be having a water baptism, their are already eight people signed up to be baptized and most of them from this revival. Please pray for us and believe God to continue this work that He has started in this nation. We will be beginning practices shortly for our Fall drama "The Judgment" which we can now do in our own building. God has given us momentum and we plan on pushing it as far as we can.

Many thanks to the Tucson congregation for your prayers and support in this time. Nothing we are doing here would be possible without your faithfulness. Every time I think of your sacrifices for the nations of the world I am overwhelmed and must stop and thank God. Your reward shall be great; both here and now in the souls being won and in eternity as you get to meet the people you are impacting face to face and hear their story of salvation. May God bless you all!!!

New Building and Remodel

We have been very busy the last couple of weeks as we were blessed to find a new and bigger building. Our old building was nice but it was small; just a hall with no facilities, not even a toilet. We were packing in people every week with the children having to sit outside on the steps. It had been like that for some time and we were diligently praying for a new building.

God answered our prayers a couple weeks ago when brother Vitalis called me on a Friday morning to tell me he may have found something. We went down together and paid within the hour to secure the building (thanks to the generosity of the Tucson church). The new building is perfectly located on the main highway with tremendous visibility. It has a proper bathroom, two nursery rooms and a storage room.

We have had to do a lot of work the last couple weeks. The building use to be a nightclub and was painted in dark colors with hardly any light fixtures, etc., so we broke down a wall to open things up a little bit.

We also added some privacy bricks in the windows so the air could flow but people can't see everything inside when we're not there. We added a window and probably need to add a couple more in the near future to allow for more airflow.

While the major work has been finished for a week or so, we have much detail work to do. We are still adding fans and light fixtures and doing some plumbing in the bathroom. God is helping us bit by bit and piece by piece and He has provided for everything we have needed so far.

We have had our first couple of services and the presence of God has been so wonderful. I thank God that the church is not a building but the people that gather together inside of it. He is faithful to be in the midst of those gathered together in His name.

On Saturday we will have a special building celebration and dedication and on Sunday we start revival with Pastor Hamilton from Benin. Pray for us that God would give us much favor in this new harvest field he has given us and that no one would be lost in transition.