Letter to the Brethren: February 22, 2024

Dear Brethren and Co-Workers in Christ:

Greetings from Grover Beach, California (where now our ceilings have to be replaced because of water damage related to the tornado that hit earlier this month).

We were disappointed with the proposals we received from Corpus Christi. Therefore, we have contacted to other cities further north in Texas related to the USA site for the Feast of Tabernacles in 2024, who have not yet responded. That said, a representative from Corpus Christi said she was looking into getting other proposals submitted, so we have not yet totally eliminated Corpus Christi. We plan to let you know when a decision has been made.

The Feast of Tabernacles is later in the calendar year than usual (begins after sunset October 16th), so we still do have time on this. But we do not wish to wait too long which is why we have contacted two additional cities.

We received another 20 translations of our English booklet titled The Gospel of the Kingdom of God this week. These translation are helpful to support the fulfillment of Matthew 24:14, Romans 11:25 (see What About Romans 11:25 and the Full Number of the Gentiles?), the Ezekiel warning (see What is the Ezekiel Warning?), as well as the short work of Romans 9:28 (see also Preparing for the ‘Short Work’ and The Famine of the Word).

Wedding in New Zealand

Richie White and Shirley Gestro were married in New Zealand on the 29th of January 2024.

They submitted the following photo:

Many of you may recall that Shirley was the widow of John Hickey who died in July of 2020.

Richie lived in the South Island of New Zealand and now Shirley has been moving from the North Island to the South Island. The official address for the Continuing Church of God in New Zealand will soon also be switched to one in the South Island.

Anyway, all the best to Richie and Shirley.

Kenya Matters

We received the following in an email from CCOG pastor Tiongik Sawek:

Receive greetings in the name of Jesus Christ. We are doing well in the name the name of Jesus Christ both in North and South Rift. New churches are emerging as a result of hardworking of the ministers of God and that we are receiving many invitations in various places as a results of getting teachings from our books, others are hearing from our teaching. Others are accepting while others might not accept. Just as it was in the days of Christ and Apostle Paul others could accept while others could not.

Therefore we in rift valley have to visit up to three times in order to know whether they were speaking the truth or not, just as Apostle Paul said in 2corr. 13:1. We agreed together with Ochieng that if anyone writes a letter in Rift valley, he will give our contact to him so that we may travel and find if that person is truthful at least three times before travelling whit Ochieng. When we started doing this way we were able to overcome liars who were pretending to be Christians while they were not. …

Secondly we were pleased with what we had said with Ochieng that no minister will be ordained without us in rift valley consulting in order to make it sure that those who might be ordained are well equipped with faith and the teachings of the continuing church of God.

(1^st Tim 3:1). Not the one who accepted recently for he might boast even if that has been a leader in another church or could be well educated for such may make them to be boastful and bring the dispute in the church.

We had proposed Elder Cheruiyot to be in charge of the churches of the north rift but in case of the opening the new churches, he will call me and I will go ascertain with him to find whether they are truthful or not before calling Evans Ochieng. Although we leaders we cannot prevent anyone from joining the church so long as they want the truth (1 Tim 5:1-2,1^st peter 5:1)

We are now in the rainy season and in most cases we normally experience outbreak of diseases especially malaria as a result of increase of mosquito.

Remember to pray for one mother who has been admitted to Kapkatet hospital for a week now who is a member of Chilani church. God bless you.

Pastor Sawek.

We also received the following this week from a man who had left the CCOG, was temporarily associated with the ‘Hope of Israel,’ and told us that he wants to return to the CCOG. He also sent an email stating the following:

First Let me thank you for your research in publishing this book “Fatima Shock”. It is a must read for those who are really serious to know Satan’s deceptions that will be very rampant in the near years ahead. I’ve read the book in two rounds but it is still fascinating. My background as a former Catholic is more or less the same way as you stated yours. I was born in a Catholic family baptized there in 1955 when I was 14 years old. My confirmation was in 1957, I become a staunch Mass Servant for some years and I had believed in everything plus our Lady of Fatima, I had crammed everything in Latin. I appreciate that book plus another shocking one from our esteemed  Pastor Evans Kisiengo, the other one was Secret Sect 2000, Wow!

We should commend a pastor who hit hard at the enemy the way you do. May the Loving God bless you and bless the work.

   Sincerely, Lukas A Ogada.

I first met Lukas Ogada when I visited Kenya in 2014. He was one of the first Kenyans to be part of the old Worldwide Church of God.

In terms of media in Kenya, we are on one radio station, with three presenters. The presenters are Grantone Otieno, Joel Owuoti, and Charles Agwenge.

This week we were able to renew the following station for the next six months:

The above station comes from Migori, also reaches Tanzania, and is a called Radio Milambo and is on 103.8FM. We have been on Fridays from 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm.

Being on mass media, including radio, is something that COG leaders have done since no later than the 1930s to help fulfill that.

Radio was used so much to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom and other biblical messages, that after he left CG7, the late Herbert W. Armstrong initially named his group the Radio Church of God.

In addition to Kenya, we of the CCOG are on other commercial radio stations around the world, as well as on two shortwave radio stations. More on them can be found at the Continuing Church of God Multimedia page.

Another Facebook Fake