The amazing faith of an Afghan woman and our Lord’s reward

MATTHEW 15:28: Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” When I think about Necibe’s life, this verse comes to me. You’ll see below two paragraphs in red from December, 2022, about Necibe’s visit to our church asking that we pray for her salvation, and then in January, 2023, she came again having grown in her faith asking to be baptized .

I’ll briefly explain that Necibe is the young Afghan mother of two children that we were able to help with your generous gifts and prayers. She told us that her husband would possibly divorce her or even kill her if he found out that she believed in Jesus. Yet as you’ll read below, she grew in her faith and believed that her husband would someday wake up to God’s truth, too.

God gave her the strength to share the Gospel with her husband. He was very angry at first and harsh arguments happened, but this dear lady continued praying for him believing that he would wake up someday. Then one day her husband said to her, “I’ve noticed a big change in your life, and I’m wondering why, so I want to go to church with you. He was happy that we were praying for him (photo no 5).

After a few weeks he attended our church to worship our Lord (Photos no 6-7) and thanks be to God he has faithfully attended our church services in answer to your prayers for him over the past months. It does seem like an awakening is happening as God answers your prayers for us here, because we thought this situation would be impossible to end so peacefully.

Turkish believers who were baptized having believed as a child and lives in America now

Our God is awakening many around the world, not just in our country among those who are migrating to our country but to others as well, as a number of Turkish young people have been baptized (photos no 8-16). In some of my past prayer letters I have shared how about 20 to 30 visitors come to our church to hear the Gospel and during the day about 10 to 20 New Testaments are picked up from our church but we didn’t know how many of them actually received God’s Truth for themselves.

Sometimes we wondered where those who received these NTs went and how they were affected? Let me share Vefa’s experience as our questions were answered by listening to this dear sister’s life when she was in the group getting baptized. It was about 10 years ago when she was 14 years old that she attended our church.

In our country anyone under the age of 18 attending our church alone is unlawful, yet by telephone we could explain the Gospel to this young girl.. She would secretly attend our church and grew in her faith as she studied in the Izmir University, continuing to hear our messages by social media. She then was baptized (photo no 13). God blessed her abundantly and she’s studying at a university in Lakeland, Florida. We are so thankful for the seeds being planted by your prayers causing the growth of these young believers, who we believe will someday be ministers and evangelists in our country.

The Chorum Church is growing, and some have just been baptized.

The church we rented in the City of Chorum was on the main street, a large place which attracted many visitors and many would enter the building out of curiosity. After nearly 8 months according to them a number of people came to Christ and on the 7th of June 14 people will be baptized. The building in which the church met before was underground and very few people could see that it existed.

After 4 years in that building we noticed no growth in the number of people coming to worship, but in this new building in the middle of town many more people are coming to hear the Gospel message. (With 524,000 people in Chorum only 120 people are Christian). And we’re noticing how Satan is not happy with this increase of believers.

The owner of our worship place is threatening us saying, “I am so in need of money that I’m asking you to buy this building or else leave it so I can sell it, even though we have agreed on a two year rental use of it just 10 months ago, and if you don’t buy it from me I’m going to sell it to someone else who will insist on your leaving.” And this owner has already advertised the building for sale.

The cost expected to purchase this building is so high that I can’t even imagine buying it, and if we are put out of the building, I’m not sure where we’ll go to continue God’s ministry here. And returning to the underground church we once rented, the owner refused to even think about letting us back in as there is word around the city of people calling us unwanted missionaries in the city.

The growth of our church has been bad news to most people living here so to rent another place seems rather impossible. Please lift us up in your prayers that we will not be put out of this good place of worship together. (You’ll see the young people who will be baptized in photos 16-19).

Nilay, who is employed as an government employee wanted to be baptized secretly but now she’s become engaged to one of the workers there named Ahmet.

Nilay is a young teacher who recently came to faith in Jesus, but has been reluctant to share this with anyone in her family lest she be put out of the home and where she’s teaching doesn’t look positively on Christians, so she asked to be baptized at night within the church premises as she was afraid someone would take a picture of her being baptized along the Black Sea shore and report to her family and work friends getting her in trouble.

We agreed to let her be baptized at our church as she wished and God did a miracle. After baptism she became much more bold in coming more frequently to church and began a friendship with Ahmet, one of the young people’s Turkish leaders and after about a year of getting to know one another at the youth meetings, they were engaged to one another. Nilay is now boldly sharing her faith with others. (Photos no 20-24)

The newly baptized ladies among us.

Usually to witness women in our country coming to faith and wanting to be baptized is very difficult yet during these days we are noticing how many women are accepting our Lord Jesus.

You’ll see in the pictures below one Turkish lady and two Afghani young women who have come to faith. Many of them are unhappy refugees fleeing their problematic situation in their home country, Yet our King of Kings' loving heart reaches out to them as they are seeking to be in His Hands and God has sent them to us so they can meet our Lord Jesus. We use the generous gifts you send us to help them find food and clothing they need which allows us to meet them.

And your prayers have allowed us to share the Gospel with them as they have tender hearts open to receive God’s grace and love. We thank you so much for your prayers and support.

Pray with us for the Bible studies taking place during the week and for the new house church.

In our churches we invite the new believers, those who just heard the Gospel, and those eager to minister God’s grace to others to meet together on a day within the week to study the New Testament, and most of them come as families together. Just as Jesus encouraged meeting together as much as possible, we encourage these small groups to meet together and we believe new churches will be birthed this way. (photos 31-41)

Inflation has hit our country so hard that the rent for our church buildings has increased 100%

Please remember our country in your prayers as inflation is causing lots of despair here. The government has put forth a law stating that home rentals must not go up more than 25% which keeps things easier for us in rental homes, but rentals for workplaces are not under this declaration so the inflation for them is more than 100%.

Our church rentals in Chorum, Sinop, Ordu, Aksaray, Erzincan, Amasya are considered workplaces so our ministry is under immense pressure to pay more than 100% increase of rent. We need your prayers that God help us in this crisis. May God use these small churches to reflect His glory to the nation of Turkey is our plea.

We’re very thankful!

I know that this message is getting rather long again, but in my heart I’m trusting that you rejoice over the miracles God has performed among us.

. Just like those miracles performed 2000 years ago we’re seeing God’s power here, yet it may not be the dead rising again, or 10 thousand people eating from a few fish and 5 loaves spread around by Jesus. But our Lord’s motive in coming to be with us was to bring “eternal life to all mankind”, and our desire is to minister in this area continually to multiply those attending the church.

Refugees and Turks are hearing the Gospel and coming to faith in Christ. We are so thankful for your part in helping us to continue this ministry. May you be blessed.