Letter to the Brethren: October 8, 2015

Dear Brethren and Co-Workers in Christ:

Post Canadian greetings.  We just got back from the CCOG Feast of Tabernacles site in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

We had to go to six airports (four twice) in order to get on seven different flights to be able to be at the sites in both Denver and Canada and return.

This was our first trip to Canada since the formation of the Continuing Church of God.

We were able to meet the Canadian brethren for the first time as we had never met any of them in person before.  We were also able to meet some for the first time who came from the USA as well as others from the USA we had met before.

We heard about some financial problems that affected the sites in Nigeria and Kenya, and I have prayed that they would be able to be able to handle them over there as we had no ability to assist as they asked while we were away from our US bank.  We also discussed with the Canadian leadership how they could help.

Speaking of Nigeria, they reported much higher attendance at the Feast of Tabernacles than we would have expected.  I suspect that some were simply curious about the Feast as opposed to truly being part of the CCOG.  We hope that Pastor Evans Ochieng will one day be able to spend some time there to help assist, train, and evaluate the situation there.

Speaking of attendance, this Feast of Tabernacles had the largest number of people attending than any in the Continuing Church of God. We had major increases in North America, Kenya, and the Philippines over last year.  And this was the first time we had any associated with CCOG meet in Nigeria and Ghana.

Feast Sites in Canada, Colorado, New Zealand, and the Philippines

We got people together for photographs in the Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada and the Denver, Colorado, USA sites.

Here are some pictures from Denver, Colorado:

Denver, Colorado, USA

Here are some photographs from Niagara Falls, Ontario:

Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

We received email photographs from New Zealand:

Taupo, New Zealand

Anthony Flavell sent this photograph from the Philippines:

We expect to get photographs from parts of Africa and maybe elsewhere to also display in a future letter.  We also hope to get something with both Steve and Ruth Dupuie we can put in it (our paths never crossed as they were in Denver when we were in Niagara Falls and vice versa).

Feast of Tabernacles in Kenya and Abuja, Nigeria

CCOG Pastor Evans Ochieng sent me the following:

Feast Of Tabernacle Report 2015

Greetings to all Brethren and Co-Workers.
It my pleasure to give again the 2015 Feast Of Tabernacles Report .
First I hope all the brethren worldwide had a very inspiring Feast Of
Tabernacle this year. It is interesting and I will not hesitate to
say that God is surely going his work during this end time and He is
continuing to  call those who believe His Teachings worldwide through
the work being done by the Ministers of Continuing Church Of God
through  Jesus Christ “ For he who is almighty has done great things
for me and holy is his name to be venerated in his purity, majesty
and Glory”  Luke 1:49.

We say this because of the number of brethren willing to learn believe
and ready to follow the truth being taught by the Continuing Church of
God . Remember in John  10:15 “ Even as the Father knows me and I also
know the Father and I am giving my life and Laying it down in behalf
of the sheep”  Why would Chirst say this? Have we committed ourselves
to serving God? I believe that is what we should do and that is
exactly what the the Minister of Continuing Church Of God are doing.
We are not called to sit down but to do the work of him who has sent
us into the world.  Many churches now complain why the Continuing
Church Of God is growing so much. The is answer to this is because we
are not sitting, we are at work  and we shall preach the gospel of the
Kingdom of God till the end as that is our duty. We can’t  do as they
do because we shall carry our own load. We should to God’s will and
not hesitate to do it to His will “When Christ who is our life appears
the we shall also appear with Him in Glory” Colosians 3:4.
Well this years Feast Of Tabernacles was a little bit different from
the past years as we had 5 Feast sites in Africa. We had Three sites
in Kenya, One in Tanzania, and One in Ghana.

In Kenya we we had a Feast Site in Ndhiwa, Transmara and Bomet.  In
Bomet there were  50 brethren who Attend the Feast and in Transmara
there was a total of 174 brethren who attended and in Ndhiwa  212
brethren attended the Feast in Ndhiwa thus summing up to a total of 436
brethren who attended the Feast in Kenya.  We haven’t received report
from Ghana yet but one brother from Malawi attended the Feast in Kenya
but there was 35 brethren who attended the Feast in Tanzania. Remember
brethren we are commanded to Keenly observed God’s Festivals and
everyone who say he serves God must keep his feasts in Leviticus 23
Yearly till he come as we are commanded.

In General, we had a very inspiring Feast of Tabernacles in Kenya and
report from Tanzania sounded the same. I will attach all the photos we
took at the Feast site in Ndhiwa tomorrow mid day. PEACE TABERNACLE

Dear Pastor Evans,
we greet you in the name of the Almighty God.
we thank you for the work done for us. it has been a wonderful
celebration of the work done for us
. It was been a wonderful celebration of the feast of Tabernacle 2015
at Duayaw Nkwanta- Brong Ahafo region.
you did a wonderful work to let pastor Bob send us some money .
we thank you for that. we will send you some of the pictures taken in
the feast of tabernacle 2015.
it will soon be send to you through your email.
thank you.
Yours in Christ .

We have more members in Kenya (and the USA and other places) who were unable to get to the Feast sites.

Received the following two reports regarding the Feast of Tabernacles in Bomet and Transmara, Kenya:

Here is {a report} our one week feast of tabernacles at bomet. It began on sunday 27 of september when we open out meeting with celebration.we have preparing best meal and we slaughtered a bull for our visitors, we had over 20 members who attended on the first day.we have two lesson on the first day and was largely on part of feast of tabernacles. We also had an evening lesson to which more people attended and the house was full. On monday more people attended and we had morning-after lunch and evening lessons. We continued doing the same until monday 5th october and God bless us and new souls were saved and we prayed for, the years feast was actually more different from the others since we have spend allot due to big turn up.

Thank you

Thomas Koskey

PEACE TABERNACLE REPORT – TRANSMARA
Receive greetings in the name of our lord Jesus Christ. We are doing
well in Kenya, Rift valley.

Concerning the feast of tabernacle in Transmara, we had a blessed
meeting throughout the whole of eight days of the feast. We were
really well fed spiritually and experienced growth in our souls.
Indeed for the first time, we experienced a bigger congregation of the
brethren than ever before. We also had a total of eighteen brethrens
from Mau church who had managed to travel all along to the feast site;
however the number could have been bigger had not for the
transportation costs.

From Bomet, there were more than 50 brethrens who attended the feast.
We shall not also forget to thank Pastor Ochieng for we sat together
and made arrangements for these two meetings and gave us support in
terms of food of which he joined us and enable us succeed in these
meetings.

We also had brethrens from other local churches who also attended the
meeting together with the unconverted brethrens from locality. In
total there were 156 brethren from Transmara where the meeting was
held.

We are planning with Pst. Ochieng at the end of this month to go to
Mau and visit the brethrens there and address the problems of the
church there, since there would be Elnino rains in this month.
Attached are some few photos of the meeting – Choir, Pastors and Meeting.

Thanks.
Secretary – David Langat
&
Joseah Kipngetich

Received the following from James Dzerm related to the Feast of Tabernacles in Abuja, Nigeria:

Dear Pastor Bob,

It is by God’s grace that the feast of tabernacles and the last great
day ended well.

We began the 2015 feast of tabernacles on Sunday 27th September 2015
in Abuja ,Nigeria. We had a total attendance of 216 people. The feast
went well and we were all happy.

We ended the feast of tabernacles on Sunday 4th of October. We also
held the last great day at the same hotel on Monday , 5th of October
2015.

We broke and everyone departed on the Monday 5th evening.

Rachael helped us so much and in many ways like in solving transport
issues for some members.  We expected Mr. Mbah’s group but it was
unfortunate they never attended the feast.

Be blessed,

James

The ‘Rachael’ above, is Rachael Sharon.  She has been working with us for some time.  This is the first time the Nigerians attempted to keep the Feast of Tabernacles (though they had some visitors with a COG-related background) as they do not have a COG background.

We have also received reports from elsewhere in Kenya.  Sosten Libungwa, who visited from Malawi, was involved in an accident, and this has delayed his return to Malawi, though he did not indicate he was injured.  I am praying for his safe and timely return.  When I heard from him today, he had made it to Tanzania, so that was good as he is making progress getting home–but he made need assistance to get back to Malawi, that we may need to provide.

Ghana

Ghanaian Elder Osei Bonsu sent the following

Dear Bob

Thank you for your help given to us to celebrate the feast of tabernacle 2015.

It has been a wonderful this years feast of tabernacle. we once again thank you. we are living to send you all the activities done in the feast to you soon.

It has been a wonderful and a happy feast this year. may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob bless you

Amen.

Ghanaian Pastor Samuel Fosu Gyeabour sent the following:

Dear Bob, its nobody but your own fellow servant in Christ expecting the future kingdom of God of which our savior shall dwell with us indeed. And a voice came from the throne saying praise our God, all you His servant who fear him, Both small and great. Here with much gratitude, our sincere greetings to you all brethren in our Lord.

As we seek diligently without notice, the promised kingdom in which we  are all stewards, i say Bravo, for constantly keeping us updated with proceedings here.

I enjoy every moment of your time with pleasure in the fellowship, honestly, you have strengthened us and there is so much boost in morale for the love you have demonstrated to us.

May God bless you abundantly.

The peace of God Reign on you, For a long time, there has been no such great moment of joy as this in our congregation at commemorating the Lords mandated feast.

Your financial assistance encouraged many to honour the feast unlike the previous times. the unity in our camp in relation to participation is very encouraging and its motivating all brethren with a unique understanding to the  feast.

As i write to you, on this day, we have already celebrated the women”s day  ona theme THE ROLE OF THE CHRISTIAN WOMAN IN CHURCH BUILDING. There was a medical screening , we celebrated the youth day also with the theme TECHNOLOGY AND ITS EFFECT ON CHRISTIANITY AND IMPORTANCE OF MUSIC.

As part of the activities marking the youth day a Walk exercise was also conducted.

This is the brief of the proceeding update here. May the Lord who keeps you from falling protect and bless you.

Sincerely

Pastor Samuel Fosu Gyeabour
Ghana

We are working with those in Ghana and hope that they will want to work with us in the future to support Matthew 24:14 and Matthew 28:19-20 as part of the Continuing Church of God.

World News Items

The world continued with wars and deals during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day.

Russia is now using air-power in Syria and the USA has concerns about this (see Russia is bombing in Syria).

The group calling itself the Islamic State apparently was stopped from acquiring nuclear materials to make a terrorist weapon known as a ‘dirty bomb’ (see Islamic State stopped from getting more materials to make ‘dirty bombs’).  The UK and USA and other places are targets for the Islamic State terrorists. Even Russia may now be.

But wars and rumors of wars (Matthew 24:4-8) are not the only items in the news.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership deal was tentatively agreed to by representatives of the expected member nations (see TPP tentatively agreed to. Is TTIP next?).  Some believe it will transform the economies of many nations of the world. I believe that it is likely that trade disputes will be one of the reasons that the Europeans will decide to one day attack the USA (cf. Daniel 11:39).

In the USA, the State of Oklahoma decided to remove a public plaque of the Ten Commandments at night in order to not have public protests (see State of Oklahoma removes Ten Commandments’ plaque in middle of the night).  This type of act by a government in the middle of the night should show those who live in the USA that their governments do not have the same respect towards its people or the Bible that some earlier leaders did.

Suggested Sabbath Service

Here is our suggested format for Sabbath services this week:

• 2-3 hymns (our songbook, The Bible Hymnal, contains the materials from the 1974 Bible Hymnal from the old WCG with new covers, plus ten additional hymns; there is also some Choral Accompaniment online).
• Opening prayer.
• Sermonette, which for many who receive this letter via email will be a recorded one titled: 17 Laodicean Errors in Prophecy.  Other sermonettes are available at the Bible News Prophecy channel.
• Announcements (if any; though for many it will be this letter) and one hymn.
• Sermon, which for many who receive this letter via email will be a recorded one. The one suggested for this week is: CCOG Answers: Proselytizing, Week Day Names, Make-up, & More. Other sermons are also available at the ContinuingCOG channel.
• Final hymn.
• Closing prayer.

Note: If you have a slow internet connection, you can watch these by starting the video, then below it (and towards the right) look for an outline of a gear–if you click on that, it will allow the YouTube video to be played with lower video quality, but at least it will not stop often–you can select a quality as low as 144p.

If your internet connection is still too slow (as my home one is) and/or you prefer audio messages to audio-visuals ones, go to the YouTube link for the message, click on SHOW MORE related to the description. You will then see something that says, “Download MP3.” Below that is a link to an MP3 file. Most computers (and even some cellular telephones) will allow MP3 files to be downloaded and played. This is an option we have made available (but we are also looking into ways to improve that as well)–and, of course, we have written article options that we list each week. Some people have found that if their internet connections are not fast enough, that they can simply listen to the messages that are found at the new Bible News Prophecy online radio channel.

IN CASE YOU DO NOT RECEIVE A ‘LETTER TO THE BRETHREN‘ FOR ANY WEEK, REMEMBER THAT THERE ARE MANY SERMON MESSAGES ON THE ContinuingCOG channel AND MANY SERMONETTE MESSAGES ON THE Bible News Prophecy channel.

Concluding Comments

The Bible says:

1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. 4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. (Hebrews 12:1-4)

Brethren and co-workers, now that this year’s Feast of Tabernacles is past, remember the messages and continue to strive and endure.

Sincerely,

Bob Thiel
Pastor and Overseer
Continuing Church of God