Dear Friends,
Thank you for praying and for supporting CFM. An update to our urgent need: we are so grateful that we have received $45,000 of the $90,000 to get us through our debt and May running costs. Still going forward.
Above: a missionary and his wife, whom Australian Christians sponsored for training many years ago, are constantly on the move to obscure places with the gospel. These missionaries are training many others all over Nigeria.
Fulani continue to attack villages around Mangu at night. They totally destroyed villages, including all stored grain. Anyone who tries to farm is killed. A staff member of CFM had her whole village burnt to the ground. One village is armed with homemade weapons and is resisting attack, against AK-47’s. Nigeria has legal vigilantes, difficult to run in villages, but common in towns. We are taking our first consignment of food to displaced people in camps in Mangu today. We are also taking bibles. We are taking some of the children into our crisis-care homes. Can you help with funds as CFM responds to the devastation?
Kent & Ruth this morning with “Missionary” (next to Ruth) and Zaharaddeen. Missionary runs CFM’s missions in the Miango region and oversees CFM’s Miango Widows Centre for sewing. Zaharaddeen oversees all CFM’s computer centres and is going to Mangu to discuss with elders about a new computer centre CFM is starting there.
World View: Romans (from Kent's class)
In Romans 1-4, Paul showed that the claims to supremacy, that either the Gentiles or the Jews held to, did not justify either group before God. The point being, that if God receives us BOTH only on the basis of grace, through faith, then faith is the basis upon which we also receive each other, along with our differing cultural traditions, such as circumcision or uncircumcision. Paul’s aim in speaking about faith was to unite the Roman congregation in the image of God, the image shown in Christ’s own faithfulness, in serving humanity through his incarnation and sufferings.
In Romans 5-7, the broader point is the law and how it fits in with God’s plan of salvation. Though humanity reaches out to law, to justify ourselves over our enemies, the law instead revealed our common need for humility. Israel served humanity in their fall, the law working in their fallen conscience, drawing them to transfer their guilt and shame onto Christ, as a scapegoat for the conscience of us all. The cross was where the fall of creation met with the innocence of God, revealing to all the vain pride of humanity and the staggering grace of God to forgive. The cross of Christ therefore unites us through faith, bypassing our sectarian boasts.
In Romans 8, the life of grace revealed through Christ unites humanity in mutual service and healing, bringing to light the new Adam, healing creation in her bondage to corruption. Violence and death, brought about by our enmity and divided "superiority," give way to grace, reconciliation and healing of communities and nations through service and care. Paul claims the powers of this world are opposed to this reconciliation, since it is through division that they rule and corruptly prosper. So they persecute the new community, but through this persecution the Spirit works Christ’s transforming image into our lives. The resurrection of the dead brings God’s final justice to all.
Romans 9-11 concentrates on grace, that unites Gentile and Jew in the Roman church. Just as the Jews were told to remember they were called by grace, the Gentiles also, receiving the great benefits of God’s love through the gospel, must not boast against the Jew in the Jew’s fallenness. Instead, the Gentiles must be grateful for what was revealed to them through the fall of Israel, and reach out to the Jews in forgiveness, compassion, and service, revealing the grace granted to us all through the sufferings of Christ. It is through this grace and service, given first by Christ and now by us all to one another, that God brings in his people from blindness to his family, and turns away ungodliness from our hearts. This way, “all Israel” (the circumcised of heart) shall be saved and God’s promises to the nations fulfilled.
Romans 12-13 speak of the church’s role in the fallen world. We are to reveal God by forgiving, blessing, and healing our enemies, which is the renewed mind, or mind of Christ, Paul speaks of. The government’s role is to defend the weak and to punish the wicked, whosoever they are, and so believers should also not do wickedness. We are to pray and work towards this kind of government to emerge in our nations, because this is the government that is of God.
In Romans 14, we sit at one table of care, despite our cultural or social differences, serving each other as one family. A united table was intolerable to the powers of Jerusalem and Rome, but was Paul’s revolution, for which he suffered severe persecution. The church's role is to build longer tables, not higher walls, bringing care and mercy to all, no matter their background.
Sin is also a major issue in Romans, which means missing the mark of our image bearing mission to creation. Sin, living for ourselves, is overcome through faith/ faithfulness, in which we become healers of creation through renewed families and communities. Our redemption has a clear creation focus, not left or right wing, but that which births and nurtures life. The church is crucial for promoting this truth, not just by word (online or other), but by living embodiment in service communities.
Christian Faith Hospital is holding a dental outreach to our wider community on June 3rd.
We are seeing the fall of a global crime syndicate which has taken over governments, global finance, and media, and is responsible for money laundering, wars, revolutions, child sex trafficking, and many other human rights abuses. This syndicate will not go down without a fight but will try to distract the world with propaganda, crises, racial divisions. We are under attack, and we respond peacefully and legally, and this will, in the end, require a military-led tribunal, like Nuremburg, for their war crimes. The public are becoming aware of the necessity of victory for our children. This victory will be one step in freeing Nigeria and all our nations from decades of increasing devastation.
CFM is supporting the gospel in thousands of mission centres all over Nigeria and in surrounding nations.
CFM’s fulltime bible college students are going on a six-week practical ministry/ service period, beginning early June. 1,200 students will serve in mission stations all over Nigeria, as well as in churches in many centres. These students are serving with our pastors/ missionaries on frontline gospel ministry. Many of these mission centres are in regions where Fulani are attacking and where displaced camps exist with hundreds of thousands of people. One of our mission stations was driven out of a village by militants recently.
One of CFM’s missionaries at one of countless numbers of displaced persons camps in Nigeria.
We are on the Lord's side: standing for compassion in places of violence, mercy and practical help in place of oppression, for light, making darkness flee. We have all read the end of the Book: we win. It's not time to give up. Can you stand with us to help our brothers and sisters in desperate times? Thank you for your prayers and your messages telling us you are praying. Thank you to those supporting financially.
Exams for our bible college at Wurin Alheri running for two weeks at the end of first semester 2023. These exams are holding in rooms all over the campus. This week, it’s vocational theory exams. They also have practical exams.
Love in Christ, Kent, Ruth and team
Giving In Australia A/C Name: Christian Faith Ministries Int., BSB: 032870, A/C# 207255 Donations to CFMI are not tax-deductible in Australia. However, you can give towards tax-deductible projects in CFM, where 100% of your gift goes towards your specified project, if you contact us for details before you give.
Giving in the UK A/C Name: Christian Faith Ministries Int., SC: 230580, A/C# 28337116 UK Charity Commission# CFMI 1137723. To give via Gift Aid, contact Peter Embling Gifts are tax-deductible. Please contact Peter Embling: emblingpeter@gmail.com International Transfers: Metro Bank, London, 1 Southampton Row, London, WC1B 5HA, IBAN: GB06MYMB23058028337116, SWIFT: MYMBGB2L
Giving in the USA CFM is now a tax-exempt charity in the USA. Christian Faith Ministries USA, US Bank, Routing Number 122105155, Account Number 151708783072, Contact Bart Langland tmatf16@gmail.com
Make an Online Donation Click here to be taken to a secure site where you can make an card online donation.
We don’t have any admin fees. 100% of what is given to CFMI goes to our projects in Nigeria. Our admin costs are covered by volunteers. Kent & Ruth receive no wage from CFMI. No address is added to CFM's news email address list without a personal request. See www.cfaithministries.org.
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