Letter to the Brethren: January 15, 2015

Greetings from the Five Cities region of California.  Another busy and productive week with a lot of international news to report.

Before getting into international matters, I would like to state that we have heard more from a few scattered individuals in the USA who are looking more towards the Continuing Church of God, which is always nice.

Canada

Although we have not heard anything for months from Canadian authorities in regards to our request for recognition as a charity in Canada, we have another small group that has gotten together to be part of the Continuing Church of God there.

Here is a report on that:

The CCOG has found a home in Milton Ontario Canada! Anyone who would like to worship and fellowship with like-minded brethren, then direct them to micheal.radtke@sympatico.ca. We are going to meet every Sabbath we can, 10AM to 12PM.

We met last Sabbath for the very first time, and things went really well! We had a grand total of two in attendance, and that`s counting myself. If there are other brethren who support the CCOG, and are willing to make the trip to Milton, we would welcome them with open arms. Milton is in south west Ontario, about a half a hour drive out of the city of Toronto.

There is interest in the truth from people in various parts of Canada.  We now have two small groups meeting there.

Netherlands

We received a translation of the Statement of Beliefs of the Continuing Church of God into the Dutch language this week. Here is a link: Verklaring van geloofspunten van de Continuing Church of God.

We have a couple of scattered supporters in the Netherlands and are glad that we know have our Statement available in Dutch.

New Zealand Website In Progress

The CCOG.nz website is starting to come together, though there is more to come.  We plan to list it on the back of the next edition of the Bible News Prophecy magazine as well as our other official websites.

Although its focus is on New Zealand, it is my hope and prayer that people from other British-descended nations, as well as other lands, will notice it.

This site gives us the opportunity to better fine tune messages for New Zealand and perhaps certain other lands.

This site is another door (Revelation 3:8) that is being opened to proclaim the gospel (2 Corinthians 2:12; 1 Corinthians 16:8-9; Colossians 4:2-4).

Computers in Africa

Kenyans with Some Laptops

Kenya-based Continuing Church of God Pastor Evans Ochieng sent the following report today related to the work in his part of Africa and receiving used laptop computers a few days ago:

Greetings to all our brethren worldwide. I am sure everyone who is truly called by God to His end time Church must and should always be happy for we wait to be kings and priest when Christ will return with His Kingdom to this planet earth.

God has a master plan and we know that.  We live because of Him and if it were not so, we would have been dead. We all have sinned and became short in the glory of God but because of his mercy, we still live to do his will. We should always pray until when God will return and how I wish that the kingdom may come soon so that most of us who have stay with Lord should continue to stay with the Lord and not me moved with all the various calamities that has hit the world at large.

There is something to notice in the book of Micah 6:1

“ Hear you now what the Lord saith, Arise, contend  thou before the mountains and let the hills hear his voice”

Many may take this verse for granted and not just many but also those in Christian organizations.

Why would I say so?

Because they don’t think it is their responsibility to fulfil Matthew 24:14 and Matthew 28:19. Many organizations think that it was the work of Herbert Armstrong to help call many to God, well that is not false but have we ever asked  ourselves why the end has not come if it was only for Herbert Armstrong to do it as it says in Matthew 24:14

“And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached to all the world as a witness to all nations and then shall the end come.”

We should all know that there is, for all of us, the duty to preach/support the gospel until the end come.

Many have been asking why the Continuing Church Of God is growing day by day.

Some even complain about that.

I want to let everyone know that there are many organizations that have much money but they don’t preach the truth and there will be no need to fellowship with such because the will not direct you to everlasting life.

It is God that calls people and only his people to Him and we are sure that Continuing Church of God is part of the end time Church and that God is calling his chosen people to his true Church. Matthew 7:18:

“ A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruits neither can corrupt tree bring forth good fruits” It is how fruitful the Continuing Church Of God is the only God’s true end time church. Vs 20 “ Wherefore by their fruit you shall know them”

Why should anybody go against the will of Him who sent us into the world to preach the gospel?

The work in AFRICA is growing day by day. Many people  are contacting us from every corner just because of the very truth that CONTINUING CHURCH OF GOD is trying to dig out from the Bible. We all know that every true thing we need is within the Bible but many take it for granted and are not willing to have the responsibility as theirs.

Let me just mention where the Continuing Church Of God has congregations in this region:

1-    In Western Province we have one congregation.
2-   In Nairobi we have 3 new congregations
3-   In Rift Valley province, we have 4 new congregations.
4-   In Nyanza province we have 17 congregations.
5-   And in Tanzania we have 5 congregations.

So even if the Continuing Church Of God has billions of US dollars, could we pay for everyone to be in the Church?  Or has everyone ever seen any advertisement by Continuing Church Of God that we would pay people so they may join?

No.

I am not saying it is always bad to criticize aspects of the work being done by the  Continuing Church Of God, but we should know that they even criticized our Savior on various occasions so who are we not to be criticized?

We are not the only ones preaching the Gospel in public.  But as you can see, we are getting everyone ready for the coming of Christ.

You could witness that when we had the youth camp last year December (2014).

So God is doing the work and none can stop it.

As a means of fulfilling both Matthew 24:14 and Matthew 28:19, the Continuing Church Of God  has been able to donate laptops to Kenya to help eradicated illiteracy among brethren and to make it easy in preaching the Gospel.

Below are the things that the Laptops will help.

1: Help in the translations of teachings into various languages.
2: Help in reaching the brethren as sending in weekly newsletters (the Letters to the Brethren) can be read in every congregation that received a laptop.
3: Help teach the young children as a way of preparing them for leaders tomorrow.
4: The laptops will help a lot in keeping church records.

Those are just some few important fields the laptops will help. Here are some of the comments from two of those who have received the laptops:

I am grateful to see for the first time that our brethren from the United States have donated to us laptops. It is a pleasure because the laptops will help in areas like making it easy for translation of the teachings from English to other languages, making communications easier between brethren in Africa and the world at large, helping eradicate computer illiteracy among the children and all the brethren, helping in spreading the word of God to all the world, and helping in storage of Church Documents. May God bless everyone who help donated the laptops to us.
Charles Osutwa

I hereby say thank you for the good work done as I have received the laptop today on 9/1/2015 (January 9, 2015). I am seeing some light before me. This will help do God’s work as that is what we are called to do during these hard times. It will help reach every community easy. It will help me translate the teachings from English to Ekegussii. Pray for God’s work in Kenya. Thank you.
Ezekiel Oanda.

May God sincerely bless our brethren who made it possible to have the laptops sent to us. God willing we can see great income from it.

Thank you all and may God bless you.

BOOKS AND MAGAZINES

I would like to thank Dr Bob Thiel and Continuing Church of God for the big work and much effort that he has put to promote the work in AFRICA through books and magazines.

Translation of Magazines in Swahili has made the church to do a big role in reaching many people both in Kenya and Tanzania. I will have my trip to Tanzania where I am going to baptize a lady and after that I will visit all our groups in Tanzania. During this trip I will carry some laptops for our translator in Tanzania Mr Simon who will help us to translate magazines in Swahili.

I am congratulating our brother Bill Wedekind who has done a wonderful work to help Africans to eradicate computer illiteracy among us. This will help people especially in the Continuing Church of God to understand and get access to the information easily and this will also enhance the communication among the individuals in Africa. It will also help brethren to get weekly updates easily.

May God bless all those who donated the laptops. Also I thank Shipley’s Shoice that has donated the laptops.

Sincerely,

Evans

Jesus taught:

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

That is what we are trying to do, and as Evan Ochieng’s letter shows, that is something that we have been doing.   Our member who sent the laptop computers is planning on sending more there as well–and we ordered 100 copies of The Bible Hymnal as well as 56 copies of the NKJV Bible to go to him to see how many he will be able to include.  Why? It is much cheaper to use this way to send items to Kenya than other services we have tried (though it is also much slower).

It is my hope and prayer that the computers and literature in Africa will help our brethren in Kenya and Tanzania in many ways.

Perhaps I should add that we have received a lot of attacks from other claimed Church of God ‘Christians’ in Kenya.  Pastor Ochieng, myself, and the CCOG, have received attacks from those who are willing to use filthy language, false information, and false accusations, in an apparent attempt to discourage us from going forward.

We have made major inroads into Africa and some wish to oppose us.  But we (Pastor Ochieng, myself, and other leaders and members in Kenya and Tanzania) continue to “press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).

Spanish Language Magazine

We finally received the printed copies of the January-March 2015 edition of the Bible News Prophecy magazine yesterday and mailed them to our Spanish subscribers.  Here is a link Noticias de Profecía de la Biblia: ¿Comenzará la Gran Tribulación en 2015?