LMAfrica Newsletter – April 2022

No. of localities: 8
No. of saints in church life: 1547
No. of saints attending the Table meeting: 547

In total, there are over 250 children in the church in Addis Ababa. We thank and praise the Lord for all the children and young people He has given to us. Due to the lack of suitable facilities, children’s meetings are conducted on Saturday afternoons instead of concurrently with the Lord’s Day meeting. The age grouping in the meetings is: 4-5, 6-8, 9-11, 12-14 and 15-18. The number of children who attend the children’s meetings is close to 150. Currently we are fellowshipping to start meetings for 3 year old children. There is not yet arrangement for infants who are less than three years old.

In the past we have not been able to gather the young people together to meet due to the lack of venues. The only opportunity was to gather some young ones between the ages of 12-18 years in the training centre. Praise the Lord for the prayer of the saints! The Lord has opened up two school premises for our young people’s meetings in two districts. In one of these districts we have 80 young ones and in the other 40. One of the schools has been generously provided by a sister who is meeting with us. The other one is rented for a very reasonable amount. We also have one neighborhood meeting in the home of the saints. In this meeting there are 20 children. There are 7 saints coordinating and 10 other sisters who serve in the meetings. We use different materials from the ministry and from other churches around the world for our lessons. We also have sessions for singing, craft, snack and playing time. Every week there is a prayer and coordination meeting. During our weekly sisters’ prayer meeting, mothers are encouraged to pray for our children, to serve and to prepare snacks for the meetings.

The testimonies which we have heard from the children and parents are encouraging. Because they play together, the children have more opportunities to get to know each other and to become companions. This makes them love the meetings. The older ones are caring for the younger ones, the younger ones are happy to be with the older ones! They love one another! The young people are also bringing their school friends to the meetings. They are more active in receiving and re-speaking the word. And every week the number of young people attending the meeting increases. The parents have been paying a price to separate their time; some even cancel other activities in order to attend these meetings. Parents who come to drop their children are able to stay behind at the meeting. As a result they become more burdened for the children and young people’s work and some have begun to participate in the service. Some parents come with their little ones who are younger than three years old and help to take care of other children in the meeting. Some saints who were dormant and have not joined the church meetings for some time also come for the sake of their children. May the Lord continue to bless this service and the children to be the continuation for His testimony.

We are very happy to announce another Africa-wide Conference about “Raising up the Next Generation” with brother Ricky Acosta, on 30 April and 1 May. This is a follow up from last year when we had a very blessed weekend on the same topic. Praise the Lord for the fellowship and supply from the Body. Please contact the serving ones in your locality for details.