|
The Kelly Report
22 March 07
Hello
dear Friends, Greetings from the land of Luther. I trust this email finds
all of you rejoicing in the goodness of our Great God (Daniel 6:26-27).
Family
life:
As many
of you probably already know, Solea and Shane are already in the States
right now. They were in Chicago for one week, by my sister in St. Louis for
one week and are now with my parents in Mississippi. A big thanks to those
who hosted them during their stay in Chicago. The rest of us hope to arrive
in Chicago on April 23rd and spend a total of four weeks in the
States. We plan on being in the Chicago land area from the 23rd
till the 30th of April. (This will put us at GCD on Sunday the 29th).
At that time we plan on heading down South to visit relatives until we
return to the Chicago area on or around the 12th of May. That way
we can spend two more Sundays at GCD before heading back to Germany on the
21st of May.
Samantha
had a really bad bout with Pneumonia, but is home from the hospital now and
is doing much better. Seth has a bad cough that refuses to go away, although
the doctors can find no problems with him. Linda has had several health
issues, but seems to be doing better now. All of these incidents have caused
us to be more thankful for our good health, when we have it. A big thanks to
all of you who have been praying for us in this area.
Trip
to Kazakhstan:
My trip
to Petropavlovsk with Andre Michel went very well. Our travel could not have
gone smoother. This was our sixth trip to Petropavlovsk and we were greatly
encouraged by the progress of the men there. We studied 1Peter together and
the men had done their homework well. I am convinced that these men are
fully capable of expositing God’s Word with clarity and conviction. They
have embraced fully the pursuit of the authorial intent of the text
over against a devotional approach to Scripture. Andre and I feel like our
work of training men for the ministry there has come to an end. Apart from
traveling there to encourage and strengthen the church, we are no longer
needed there. Please pray in particular for Pastor Mikhail Maslennikov. He
is a father of five (their youngest son now 5 was born deaf). His wife Gala
truly qualifies him for ministry and we were happy to take part in his
financial support this year, through the generous giving of our church body
here.
The
EBTC:
I
continue to teach once a month at the European Bible Training Center
in Berlin. Starting in September I am scheduled to teach Expository
Preaching and Homiletics in Zurich also once a month. This is a wonderful
opportunity to influence young men for the ministry as well as to help
current pastors (some of them older than I am) sharpen their interpretive
skills so that they stay with the point in the text that God Himself was/is
making. The training of men for ministry has always been a passion of mine
and I would ask you to pray for me in this ministry. Pray also for the EBTC
that God would bring us in contact with more students who are in need of
training. For more information about the EBTC please visit their homepage in
English at
www.tmainternational.org/germany
Church
life:
Our
church plant continues to grow and we are thankful for the unity in
doctrine, spirit and purpose. Please pray that this unity would grow and
that we would be faithful in guarding it as we should (Eph. 4:1ff). We
expect to be “losing” several families this year. Four families will be
moving on due to work. Two of these families have been with us since the
very beginning so their going will be particularly difficult for us. Another
missionary family will be moving back to the States this year. But we know
that God will use all these families where they are headed for His glory and
for the progress of the gospel. It is a joy for me to see their spiritual
maturity and fervor for the Lord, knowing that they will be a tremendous
blessing in their new churches. We see this “scattering” of mature well
equipped Christians as God’s will and accept it with both joy and some
degree of sadness.
My prayer
has been that God would replace these families with others and he has!
Please join with me in praying for these four new families that have been
coming regularly, that they will embrace sound doctrine where it is lacking
in their convictions and that they will sense God’s calling to become
faithful members of the body of Christ in Gravenhorst.
Most of you know that I wrote a book titled: “Auserwaehlt
und eins gemacht: Die Lehren der Gnade als Heilmittel gegen Spaltung.”
The title translated reads: „Chosen and made one:
The doctrines of grace as God’s cure for division.” The publisher is
featuring the first chapter in a Christian magazine called Keller und
Schwert. It is our prayer that this will help create interest in the
book. The book is an exposition of Ephesians, Romans, 1Cor. 1:1-4:7 and
John’s gospel with the purpose of demonstrating how the Apostles Paul and
John used the doctrines of total depravity, election, predestination and
effectual calling to provide the theological groundwork for unity in the
body of Christ. A second primary goal of the book was to model what it means
to seek the authorial intent of the text, rather than to approach Scripture
either devotionally or dogmatically. I sought to demonstrate the practical
importance and beauty of these doctrines of grace by demonstrating how Paul
and John used them to get Jewish and Gentile Christians to accept one
another. Please pray for the impact of this book.
On the fourth of February I had the joy of preaching in a
large Russian/German Baptist Church in Bonn. It is a church of over 800
members. I preached on the superiority of Christ and the two reasons why he
became a man from Hebrews chapters 1 and 2. After the service a man in his
70’s came up with eyes reddened from crying. I met with him and his wife in
the pastor’s study and he shared his desire to have Jesus as his high
priest. What a joy it was to see both of them crying before the Lord. This
man, because he had found peace with God and his wife because she had been
praying for his salvation for more than 40 years. That Sunday evening I had
the opportunity to preach to over 1000 young people. I preached about life
on the edge of God’s will. We looked at the life of Balaam in the O.T. Over
30 young people followed me out and several of them gave their lives to
Christ. What a joy to see spiritual fruit
Building Project:
Andre and
I met with the new Mayor of Meine this week and she was pleased with our new
plans for the church building there. She explained the reason why they can
not offer the building lots for less than 180,000 Euros. She said that the
city council has to be able to defend any reduction in the price of the lots
to those that would see it as a promoting of a Free Church over against the
two State Churches in Meine (i.e. Catholic and Lutheran). As it is they have
reduced their asking price by over 40,000 Euros so that the price is now
fixed firmly at 180,000 Euros. But we are thankful for the fact that the new
mayor has a positive attitude towards our planned building. We are also
thankful, that we have enough money to buy these lots. Please pray that the
remaining monies needed to build will come in. We estimate that we will need
to raise between 130,000 and 150,000 Euros. Please pray for God to help us
meet this need.
Needed
Financial Support:
I hate
mentioning our need for additional financial support, because I know that
there are many other worthy causes, to which you could contribute. So please
do not feel under compulsion to meet this need, but please pray with us that
our monthly deficit in support will be met. Please allow me to speak frankly
about our need.
The elders at GCD have authorized me to raise an
additional $1,000 dollars a month in support to make up for the over $600
deficit each month due to the weak dollar. In the 9 years that we have been
here we have never had a raise in support, so the elders authorized a raise
of another $400 to cover the rise in the cost of living here in Germany over
the past 9 years (some things such as gas have more than doubled in that
time) and the additional costs that come with two more children. My pay was
set at an exchange rate of $1 to 1€. The exchange rate over the past three
years has been between $1.24 to $1.31 U.S. dollars for each euro. This
exchange rate is not expected to get better any time soon. If you are
interested in contributing to our support occasionally or regularly, please
contact Pastor Ray Glinski at Grace Church of DuPage: Tel. 630-393-7344.
Checks can be made out to Grace Church of DuPage and in the memo line you
would write “Kelly Support”.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this letter we are
looking forward to seeing many of you in April and May. May your desire for
God and the progress of His gospel increase with each passing day.
For
the progress of the gospel in Germany,
Tim
|
