At the start of the month, we had the privilege to lead a lady to Christ who had been attending the services for several months. While visiting her at her home, she was sweetly saved after working through the gospel and realizing that what had been a “head knowledge” had never been applied to her heart.
Another ministry we are starting up this month is Wednesday night discipleship. There are a number of new Christians that this will enable to have a more consistent discipleship time. Alyse will be working with several teen girls and I will be discipling several men. The course is thirteen weeks long and we are praying God will use it to add growth and depth to His church.
It was a blessing to hear a friend from the States, Bro. Micah McCurry, preach at a soul winning conference this month! The ministry he leads, Bible Tracts Inc., has provided the cover artwork and a follow-up infrastructure for the John and Romans project. This is in addition to the hundreds of thousands of tracts they have distributed to pastors across New Zealand.
We want to acknowledge that God’s timing is perfect for each word of encouragement and prayer we receive from our supporters. When it is a week of especially tough spiritual battles, we hear from several people that their church was lifting us up in prayer that week. When we see someone saved out visiting, there’s an email in the inbox notifying us of prayer at that moment. We are thankful that you are sensitive to the Spirit in prayer.
Lastly, we would like to provide several updates to requests given in our last letter. Alicia, a young girl in our church, underwent a successful major back surgery on March 1 and within six days she was recovering at home. Thank you for praying!
Also, the New Zealand office has given approval of our John and Romans, so those will begin production, Lord-willing, this month. We are praying to obtain the first 600,000 copies within 12 months and maintain that pace annually until each home in the country has a copy distributed. This equates to 1.7 million homes. The distribution will take place through hand-delivery by a private company that specializes in this industry. The cost for distribution is six cents per home. For $100,000 we can get a John and Romans into every home in our country. We have a significant amount saved toward this project but we wanted to give an opportunity for our supporting churches to be involved. If your church desires to assist with this project, there is a fund set up with our board, NBBM, where you can designate towards the “Szwarga JR Project.”
Thank you for praying,
Josh, Alyse and Bentlee Szwarga
NBBM Mailing Address: 9N889 Nesler Road, Elgin, IL 60124