Africa Report - Poured Out For Africa

BAPTISM

CHRISTMAS DAY AT HEKIMA BAPTIST CHURCH, DR CONGO

-PASTOR HABIMANA PICTURED IN GREY SUIT-

BLANKET DISTRIBUTION

CHRISTMAS SERVICE AT HEKIMA BAPTIST CHURCH

NEW PLANTED CHURCH


DR CONGO - ORPHAN GIRL

Philippians 2: 17

"Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all. "

Greetings in our great Savior Jesus’ glorious Name!

I have just received this great report with pictures from Pastor Habimana in DR Congo. See the fruit of work of our Savior Jesus and be blessed!
Pastor Don Schwarz

UNION OF BAPTIST CHURCHES OF CONGO REPORT
It is with great joy to have this opportunity to share with you this short report from our local churches.

The Union has 134 planted churches. The Union is committed in evangelism and church planting according to the great commission in Matthew 28: 19-20, and it is working in North Kivu, South Kivu, and Maniema Provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Union of Baptist churches is located in eastern of the DR Congo, a difficult place where war and insecurity destroyed everything. The consequences of it is that many orphans, widows, and maimed persons are seen everywhere without any assistance, and they do not have hope to live.

The union with its little means tried to help widows and orphans but it is insignificant, only 24 orphans are supported by Don Schwarz and they are attending schools, while others are crying for help.

After resembling reports from local churches, the following is the statistics:

· Local churches: 134 (adding 9 new planted in 2010)
· Pastors: 78
· Total members: 12,731 (not including students in primary and secondary schools)
· Primary schools: 14 (Christian school)
· Secondary schools: 4 (Christian school)
· Theological school: 01
· Health centre : 02
· Number of orphans: 800
· Number of widows: 350
· Crippled and maimed persons: 55
· Raped women: 78
· Adult school: 4
· Evangelism team choir: 01

PRAYER REQUESTS:
1.Pray for orphans and widows in their difficulties to have means to survive.

2. Pray for the Union to have supporters to help to rehabilitate schools, to build orphanages home, build health centers, and Goma Baptist seminary…

3. Pray for pastors to have sponsorship, and tools (bibles) for the ministry.

4. Pray for peace in this part of the DR Congo.

5. Pray for believers to be faithful and prayerful for those who are not yet believe in Jesus Christ.

6. Pray for pastors and laymen school fees.

7. Pray for discipleship training program.

Sincerely and Best Wishes,

Pastor Habimana Athanase

To see all the pictures from this report and to learn more about Poured Out For Africa see our blog and website at
www.pouredoutforafrica.blogspot.com
www.pouredoutforafrica.com

Africa Report - Poured Out For Africa

Philippians 2:17 Yea, and if I be offered (poured out) upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.

Poured Out For Africa
Why are we called Poured Out For Africa?

When the Apostle Paul was incarcerated in Rome he did not want the fledgling Philippian church to be discouraged by his situation. He even told them that he was not Rome’s prisoner, but the Lord’s. And that it was an honor to pour out his life for the faith of those in Philippi.

That is the reason for the name of our ministry. When I and others with me go to Africa we often don’t know from where the Lord will bring the money or how He will give us the time, but we hear His voice and pray and plan to go. We leave our families to the Lord and praying partners and go. We get on planes and fly for 22-40 hours (one way) and just go. Who will the Lord seat us next to, will they be open to the gospel or even speak English, but we just go. Will we be able to not weep when we see the orphan children who often are taking care of other children, or as in some cases, the dogs, pigs, and people picking through the same garbage for food, but we just go. Will our jet lag knock us down for the first few days or will we be up and running fast, but we just go. Will the plans we have be the right ones or another zip code away from what the Holy Spirit has in mind, or will we be called to do something that we would have never considered like the ladies who went with us that manicured the toe and finger nails of the ladies who had been brutalized in the genocide in Rwanda (many of whom had HIV and rarely shower and often do not wear shoes) but what-----you got it-----we just go! Will the Lord ask me to stand in the street and draw a crowd to preach the gospel, and like in Northern Ethiopia, will they threaten to stone me, but HALLELUJAH WE JUST GO!!!

Why do we go? BECAUSE WE LOVE BEING POURED OUT UPON THE SACRIFICE AND SERVICE OF THEIR FAITH IN AFRICA!

If you want to learn more about this exciting adventure called Poured Out For Africa see our blog and website: www.pouredoutforafrica.blogspot.com www.pouredoutforafrica.com

Please pray for us as we are going to Rwanda and the DR Congo March 12-26, 2011.

Glory to the name of King Messiah Jesus!

Don Schwarz

Mission Pastor, Executive Director
832-878-0756
pofa@earthlink.net

AFRICA REPORT - Poured Out For Africa with Pastor Don Schwarz

Philippians 2: 17 "Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all."

New Year’s Greetings In King Jesus’ Name!

I am so thankful to begin this New Year with a great report from our anointed ministry partner Pastor Habimana in the DR Congo! I was just with him during my trip to Rwanda and my what a glorious time we had there! I have just received this report and share it with you for the glory of the LORD! I am not going to edit his English so as to maintain the authentic flavor of the message. May we see Kingdom fruit from our lives in 2011!

John 15:16 "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you."

Dear Partners,

Greetings from Dr Congo. It is with pleasure that I would like to share with you the goodness of our almighty God. We started our training on 27th December which ended this afternoon. 23 evangelists attended our seminar. It was joy to be with them during these three days learning how to win souls to our master Jesus Christ using F A I T H as tools. It was new to them where there were curious and followed us attentively. The new strategy of witnessing people was very well appreciated. Testimonies from evangelists.

Evangelist David said: Thanks to our teachers; they give us the best tools to win souls to Jesus. Our churches were not growing because we didn’t have strategy for evangelism.

Evangelist Emmanuel said: We thank so much God because we were trained for the ministry and we have now tools (bibles)

Evangelist Muhasha said, God bless you for equipping us with the strategy of evangelism.etc..Under rains our students went for practice and won 30 new believers who accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior while 8 persons joined the church. There were backslide. But we faced problem of transport for instructors and for students. This has been a big issues to those who attend our training coming far from the organized centre.I will send to you the calendar of our training of the coming year 2011, so that you may have time to pray for it.There is a good news which I need to share with you, on the Christmas day, in the whole Union of Baptist churches we baptized 751 new believers. Please join us to thank God for the harvest.

Continue praying for the ministry, and we appreciate so much your prayers and financial support.

May God bless you richly.

Sincerely,
Pastor Athanase Habimana

To learn more about Poured Out For Africa check out the blog and website: pouredoutforafrica.blogspot.com and www.pouredoutforafrica.com
Have a fruitful New Year!

Pastor Don Schwarz

Kenya December 2010-HIV Orphan Healing!

Africa Report - Poured Out For Africa

Philippians 2: 17 Yea, and if I be offered (poured out) upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.

There is much I will share about my recent trip to Rwanda and Kenya later, but in this report I will exclusively give glory to our Savior Jesus for His healing hand of mercy upon two orphans in Kenya.

Our team was on our way to an orphan facility we support in a rural village in Kenya. There are 108 orphans in this place. During our drive, one of our companions, who is a powerful pastor, church planter, disciple maker, orphan caregiver, and recording artist was giving us counsel about many things in Kenya. He spoke of a 25,000 persons gospel event he had preached recently. There a man was carried in on a stretcher and walked out upon hearing a word from the Lord given from this pastor. I then told our brother that I desired to see more power from the Lord in my ministry and asked him for prayer. Little did I know how quickly this prayer would be answered.

We arrived that day and HIV testing was being conducted on all of the orphans. I was later told that some would expect that out of 108 orphans in Kenya up to half would be found HIV positive. Things were going so well and none of the children were testing positive until the end.

At this critical point we were informed that, as I understood it, one child had tested positive. One of the deacons from our church and I began to pray fervently for healing, forgiveness, mercy, and full restoration for this precious little soul! Then they tested the child a second time and the test was negative, and then a third and the test was NEGATIVE-NO HIV!

There is more, and this deals with the scoffers who would attribute this to a faulty first test. Due to privacy and discrimination regarding HIV in Africa we were not informed anything about this child and I wanted a little information for this report. So I contacted the administrator of the facility to ask if he could at least tell me if it was a boy or girl that was healed. He then told me through a strong Swahili English accent “Pastor Don, you must have misunderstood, it was a boy and a girl that were healed. There were two that had tested HIV positive before you prayed and two were healed!” And to demonstrate that it was not faulty testing he told me this: “The same testing was used the next day on the staff and three of them tested positive for the first, second, and third test. Pastor Don, we have seen a miracle!”

Oh give glory to our Savior Jesus, as He answered our prayer and showed us His mighty power by healing these precious children from the “incurable” disease HIV! He truly has healed all our diseases and forgiven all our sins!

To see pictures of the orphans in Kenya or get more information about this ministry you can go to our blog and website: www.pouredoutforafrica.blogspot.com or www.pouredoutforafrica.com

All the glory to Jesus!

Pastor Don Schwarz
Missions Pastor Poured Out For Africa
pofa@earthlink.net
832-878-0756

Africa Report - Poured Out For Africa

Philippians 2

Yea, and if I be offered (poured out) upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.

Please pray for me as I am in Africa being poured out for the faith of those whom the Lord loves in Africa! What a great privilege to serve our Savior Jesus amongst a people so open to the gospel and so needy for the Savior! I will be in Rwanda and Kenya December 4-19 preaching the gospel, making disciples, and ministering to orphans and widows---Hallelujah!

I will be working in Rwanda with Pastor Muhoza Lewi and our Congolese partner Pastor Athanase Habimana will come from neighboring DR Congo to greet me and pray for the work. Below is the latest update from Pastor Habimana who is an end times dynamo for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ---glory to His name!

These updates are from 10 new churches planted this year.

Don.

Greetings ffrom Goma: After being ok last week I organised a seminar of evangelists for three days from 25th up 27th: I was teaching them about FAITH and its explanation; How to witness; and practice: The 10 local churches of Hekima sent their evangelists and Hekima provided food and transportation:

It was very interesting as they knew how to do evangelism using the Key Question: In your opinion what takes a person to go to heaven?

F A I T H
F- Forgiveness
A- Available
I- Impossible
T- Turn
H- Heaven

At the end of the training 36 participants witnessed 78 persons; and everyone back home saying that they are ready to plant new churches: Thank you for your prayers and finacial contribution: All of them received bibles as the tools for the ministry:

You sent to me money for bibles, I distributed them to these evangelists who are qualified for the harvest:

Funds for orphans; I bought blankets as the Chrismas gift: You will receive photo next time

Sincerely
Habimana Athanase

To see more pictures and learn more about this Kingdom work in Africa come to our new, and still under some construction, website—www.pouredoutforafrica.com.

Also, you can see more of the most recent pictures from Pastor Habimana at pouredoutforafrica.blogspot.com
Lord willing I will have an exciting report when I return from Africa!

In The Service Of The King,
Don Schwarz
Poured Out For Africa
Executive Director

Africa Report - Poured Out For Africa

Philippians 2: 17 Yea, and if I be offered (poured out) upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.

Rural Village in DR Congo April 2010:

This is an updated report from one that we shared earlier as we have discovered pictures not yet seen.

Earlier this year our team went to the DR Congo to minister the word of life. Our church planting partner Pastor Habimana led us to a rural village not far from a semi-active volcano. We knew as we approached the small congregation that we were in for a special time in the Spirit of the Lord Jesus! We were greeted by maidservants of the Lord who danced and sang to the Savior upon our arrival. The joy of the Lord was so very unique and powerful---why shouldn’t it be since the joy of the Lord is our strength?

As we entered into the church, which in terms of the building was a ceiling of tree limbs reaching to the sky tied to plastic tarps and the earth for flooring, we knew the Holy Spirit was there with us to point us to our Lord Jesus! Plastic chairs were our seats with an old table for a pulpit. But oh dear ones, the building isn’t the church---the church is the Holy Spirit filled followers of Jesus Christ, and they truly are the church in this village!

This congregation was primarily made up of widows. You see, they are survivors of the Hutu militia that first came to their village when they crossed the Rwanda/DR Congo border after killing one million civilian men, women, and children in 1994.

The Hutu army then killed their husbands and others and brutalized many of these women and some of their children. There are also men who migrated there later or survived the attack.

It is striking to me how much they have suffered, how much poverty of earthly things in which they languish, yet HOW MUCH JOY THEY HAVE THAT WE DO NOT!!!

When I was watching one man worship the Holy Spirit showed me that this dear servant of Jesus had been places in the Spirit that have amassed him a wealth that I knew not of.

During our time together I preached and was humbled and broken and felt a great need for them to preach to me. But they were preaching to me---you see, their very lives were preaching and penetrating my heart with the things of heaven!

Well, the Lord anointed and blessed my feeble efforts of sharing His glorious word and some of the precious souls who had not yet been born again were saved by King Messiah Jesus. When the time came to leave, our hearts were full and a special time of fellowship was had by all.

A few weeks later we received a tragic report from Pastor Habimana and then read about it on internet news wires.

That volcano in the area combined with an overflowing river from rains spewed a sea of mud that covered our little village and killed about four of the ladies to whom we had just not a month ago ministered during our special day. I have posted an article about the flood.

http://wireupdate.com/wires/5247/landslide-victims-in-eastern-dr-congo-aided-by-un-peacekeepers/

Our hearts were broken and we sent some money to help with the restoration efforts. Those from our team prayed for the mercy of the Lord upon these special ones.

But I cannot help but think of something; I wonder if any of those who prayed to receive Jesus that day for the first time were amongst the four that were killed? Could it be that He sent us there to prepare them for heaven? Either way, think of the kindness of the Lord to send us to them that day with His love and, in some way I cannot help but believe, to prepare their hearts for the trouble that was coming.

We must remember that Jesus told us we would have tribulation in the world, but to be of good cheer as He has overcome the world (Jn 16:33).

We have received never before seen pictures of that trip to the DRC. They are glorious!

We have more posted on our blog www.pouredoutforafrica.blogspot.com.

Our website is in transition so see www.pouredoutforafrica.com or www.pouredoutforafrica.org to keep an eye out for our new website.
Praise King Jesus for He is worthy!

Pastor Don Schwarz
Poured Out For Africa

Pastor Ouatarra Bagalassin (Lassina): Burkina Faso-The Dogossee People

Philippians 2:17 “Yea, and if I be offered (poured out) upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.”

Ouatarra Bagalassina (Lassina) is an amazing man the Lord has chosen as a vessel of honor!
The miraculous way we were introduced to him through much prayer and fasting is a demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit!

When we arrived to Burkina Faso we were told that we would not find someone to speak English to us in a remote part of a Western African country called Burkina Faso. And that we had little hope of being able to communicate with any of the unreached Muslim people groups as we were asking the Lord which one He wanted us to engage. We had been praying before leaving and the Lord raised up Lassina by introduction through a missionary who speaks five languages including English. He has a Master’s degree in linguistics.

He is one of the approximately 300 believers of the 40,000 Dogossee (Doe Go Say) people who are Muslim/Animists. He has created the written language for the Dogossee, translates books of the Bible into their language, and teaches the Muslims to read by teaching these books of the Bible---PRAISE OUR GREAT KING MESSIAH JESUS!

We go to Burkina Faso and teach the believing Dogossee people how to reach their people with the gospel and then go out with them into the villages! Here is a picture of Pastor Don preaching in Burkina Faso:

Here is a recent report from Lassina:

Hello Pastor Don,

Thank you so much for your prayers. This month I was so busy with some books of the Gospel we had to check. with a consultant. We thank God that we checked well Galatians, Titus, 1 and 2 Timothy in 2 weeks. We are going in progress the Bible translation, we have already finished the following books: Genesis, some portions of Exodus, Deuteromy, Mark, Luk, John, Jame, Acts, Galatians, Titus, 1 and 2 Timothy and soon Matthew. Praise the Lord! Thank you for your prayers.

I am presently in Ouaga, at the end of this month, I will go to Banfora and the village to see the mayor about land in order to have a big place for building houses for my project I told you in the past. As I am working among muslims, I remarked sometimes the young people are opened to the Gospel but as they depend to their parents, they are afraid to give themselves to Jesus. Girls are facing up to forced marriage, their resort is church but very often, church cannot take care.

I received the burden to build a training house like Dorcas' Home which can welcome girls facing up to forced marriage, boys and girls who are persecuted and don't have home because they became christians. As, it is difficult to welcome people without means, how to feed them? In my mind I think why not open Evangelical school where people will pay for classes and the money can be used to welcome people in difficulties in Dorcasse' home, train them in charpentry, mechanics, masonry (concrete), breeding, farming, sewing, weaving, making soap and so on. I have already build a home (See the file I attached) but I need a bigger land to be able to accomplish my project. I talked with the mayor, and he thinks it is a big and good project which will develop the community. So, he allow es me to see the office which will help me fto find a big land. I think if I am able to build an Evangelical secondary school with Dorcasse' home inside, it will also help to share gospel with youth and it can have an impact in the community. This is my burden and I need your advise, your insight.

I have a bad or good news. It was not in my plan but God knows all things. There was a changing in my work location since the beginning of October. Let me tell you that my National Bible Organization nominated me as a National Bible Coordinator for about 15 Bible Translation Projects. They asked me to stay in Ouagadougou in order to be able to coordinate the 15 languages projects. I am presently in Ouagadougou with my family but per month I have to spend one week with my own project located in Banfora. I am in Ouagadougou not by my will. I hope and I am praying for a short time service here, as I have a burden to fulfil in area. If by God will I am able to fulfill my burden which is to build Dorcasse training center in my village, my family and me will go back to banfora or in the village. Who knows God's will. Pray for me.

Thank you for your prayers.
Blessings!
Lassina

It is a great thing to help those who have never heard the gospel (especially Muslims) to receive this glorious Savior and become His disciples. It is also wonderful to partner with servants like Lassina and precious souls like you who pray for our work!

If you would like to learn more about the work and see more pictures of our last trip to Burkina Faso, come to our blog at http://pouredoutforafrica.blogspot.com/ and our web www.pouredoutforafrica.com and our new developing site at www.pouredoutforafrica.org

Praise King Jesus
Don Schwarz
Poured Out For Africa