Harvest Festival

Last week I finished listening to Pastor Josh’s Hole in the Gospel series.  It’s so great that you are supporting the poor through this ministry (not that there is anything wrong with Burundi).  It is hard to explain the reality of the poverty here, and I ask that you would really pray for our local Free Methodist congregation to do something like WFMC is doing around the world, just do it here in the neighborhood.  It seems when everyone’s life is overwhelmed by need, they can’t focus on all they have to share, which I think amounts to some spiritual blindness God wants to overcome in the name of Jesus. 

 

This weekend is our Harvest Festival.  I’ve asked a lot of people from other churches about it, and generally all over Nigeria, everyone makes a big money gift to the church and there are many declarations of thanksgiving.  For the weeks leading up to Harvest Festival, everyone distributes envelopes to their friends asking for money gifts to bring (it also serves as an invitation, but giving cash is really the goal).  In some places they do these at two harvest times a year.  People bring something like first fruits, too, an offering from their farms, or some clothing they don’t use.  Generally, it is shared around the neighborhoods, or the money stays in the church purse and the goods are shared among the members.  And there is food.  Pray for our church to go out into the community.  There is no talk like that here.  Everything will go to our pastors and our needy members and our church purse, which doesn’t serve the community or engage in the mission to the Fulani.  Pray for a spirit of generosity here that goes out into the world in an intentional way like WFMC encourages us to do. 

 

The wonderful thing is we have 6 or so different tribes represented in our adult population of less than 20 regular attendees.  Most people speak at least two languages and can manage simple conversation in another two.  Everyone knows somebody who is really hurting and identifies themselves as poor – which does have a real spiritual impact.  This church is positioned to make a great impact!

 

By the way, you can download Pastor Joshua’s sermons to your itunes at wenfmc.org