Category Archives: Prayer Letter

Coffey Family June 2016 Prayer Letter

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We want to thank all of you who have played a part in our ministry here in South Africa.  Because of your prayers and financial support, we have been able to learn and minister in this great country for over 3 years now.  Time has passed so quickly.  So much more needs to be done, and we are excited about our future here in South Africa.  This December, we will be taking our first furlough and look forward to reporting back to all of you of what has happened and what is to come. 

I am booking for December 2016 and all of 2017 now and hope to have my schedule fully booked before we return to the states.  If you would like to have us in please let me know.  I plan on calling and emailing all of my supporting pastors, but if you want to go ahead and contact me that would be great.

We are also hoping to get contacts of other pastors in your area that may be interested in having us present our ministry in their church so we can raise extra support for ministry.

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Prayer Request

  • Visa Renewals for my family- All visas have been resubmitted and we’re hoping they will be granted without a problem.
  • For more souls to be saved
  • Visiting group from Michigan will be here in August.  Pray this trip will impact their lives greatly.
  • Wisdom in going forward with our idea to start a Camp & Retreat Center

More Highlights

  • We had around 100 young people attend our Youth Day Conference this month 
  • My Brother-in-law Trent Cornwell and his wife Stephanie visited for two weeks.  Trent is also the Asst. Pastor of our home church.  He did a great job preaching and challenging us and our people. 
  • We had several new teens come to our soccer tournament and all of them came back for at least one church service.  We are praying for their salvation.

Needs 

  • Meetings in New Churches during our furlough 2017
  • Funds to finish Wells Estate Baptist Church building

May 2016 Coffey Family Prayer Letter

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Prayer Request

  • Visa Renewals for my family-  Our daughter Addison’s visa was denied this month and our other children’s visas were only extended to July.  We don’t see it being a major problem, but it will take a bit more time and money.
  • Upcoming Soccer tournament May 28th- The outreach is geared at sharing the Gospel with new teens. 
  • Tract Distribution- We’re praying to see more come to church & Christ through these efforts. 

Things at New Life are going well.  We haven’t seen many saved this month, but we’ve been having good services and training sessions.  We are working at building a stronger core at the church that will be able to help when we leave for our furlough in December, which is only 6 months away.  Please pray our evangelistic efforts will be more fruitful this coming month.

We are thankful for those that have helped finish the basement project.  We now have two larger rooms that will be used for teens and children ministries.  The young people have really enjoyed the new space. 

The building at Wells Estate Baptist has temporarily stopped.  We had enough funds to finish the outside but were unable to continue with the electrical and plumbing.  We’re hoping to be able to finish in June so the church can move into their new facility.

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We have stopped our Saturday meeting in Jeffery’s Bay at the moment.  The family we were working with has been able to get transportation to attend all the services in PE now, so the push to start something new in that area isn’t as pressing.  With only six months left, we decided starting a new ministry in that area may be best when we return from furlough.

More Highlights

  • Kevin and Corli Hall are back in SA now and have taken over at Grace Baptist Church.  Our family will be helping at this church as well on Sunday evenings and with the Bible Institute. 
  • Missionaries Stephen and Ashely Underwood are coming to the end of their deputation.  Pray the rest of their support comes in.

Needs 

  • Approx. $1500 to finish the electrical and plumbing of Wells Estate’s new auditorium.
  • Electric Piano- $400

The Coffey Family April 2016 Prayer Letter

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Prayer Request

  • New Saturday service started in Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa- Saturday Bible Club
  • The Kevin and Corli Hall family-  They return from furlough at the end of this month.

Needs 

  • $1000 to complete the basement area for New Life Baptist Church.  The only thing that lacks is the electrical work. 
  • Approx. $1500 for the inside of Wells Estate’s new auditorium.
  • $500 for printing tracks and booklets

The Friday before Easter, aka “Good Friday”, was a big day at New Life.  We had a special 10:00 am combined service with Soweto Baptist Church.  It was the largest attended service in the one-year history of our church.  Around 50 people came from Soweto and about 100 people came from our community.  We praise the Lord  for the two people who trusted Christ, and for the three new adults who have been coming to all the services since.    

The basement project for New Life Baptist is almost complete.  The only thing we lack is the electrical work and decorating.  Even without lights, the children were thrilled to start using the room, and the adults were  also pretty grateful not having the kids in the next room:)            

Our new building for Wells Estate Baptist Church is finished on the outside, but quite a bit of work needs to be done on the inside.  We are hoping the funds come in this next month so we can completely finish this project.  The church is growing and we’re happy about the new location that comes with a lot of growing room.

Coffey Family March 2016 Prayer Letter

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Since the start of our Friday youth meetings this year we’ve seen several young people make professions of faith.  We’ve also had a few adults this past month trust Christ as well during our main services.  We praise the Lord for those who have been changed by the truth of the Gospel.

This past Saturday we started having a Saturday service in a city called Jeffery’s Bay about 45 minutes outside of Port Elizabeth.  Jeffrey’s Bay has around 30,000 people and a family who lives there asked us to start having services.  We’re working with this family in the hopes that a new church can be started in the next few months.  Pray the Lord opens doors and gives us wisdom in the coming days.

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We are in need of more space for both the children’s and teen’s ministries right now.  Finishing our basement is one of the top priorities.  Several new boys from 9-12 years old have started coming faithfully, we just need a better place to teach them.  For children’s church, we have about 20 kids crammed into an small room.  We really don’t have room for any more.  This room is also right next to our main auditorium which has been causing some noise problems.        

Prayer Request

  • New Saturday service started in Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa.
  • Youth Meetings and Discipleship classes going on at New Life   

More Highlights

  • Josh & Meagan Sullivan, our teammates on deputation, just had their third baby, Silas Elliot.   
  • Jeremy & Bekah Hall are doing a great job at Soweto Baptist Church.  They’ve had a high day this month of 90 people.  Their new building looks terrific.
  • Pastor Babalo and Wells Estate Baptist Church are growing and doing very well.  We finally have a piece of property (pictured below) for the church and need to have a structure built on the property by the end of March in order to comply with the community requirements for designated church property.  Pray we can get all the money raise and labor completed in time.

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Needs 

  • $2500 to complete the basement area for New Life Baptist Church.  This would almost double our meeting space. 
  • Approx. $4500 for Wells Estate’s auditorium on their new land. This would include the slab and a 12m x 15m building.

 

Coffey Family February 2016 Prayer Letter

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Prayer Request

  • New Church Plant in Soweto and my cousin, Jeremy Hall, as he leads the church-  All the money needed for his new church building came in.  The building is almost finished and looks terrific.  The last two Sundays, they’ve had around 80 people.  The building is filling up quickly.
  • All our kids have started at new schools this year.  Pray for them as they get accustomed to the new way of doing things. 
  • 3 South African Pastors we work with, and for more young men to give their lives. 

Needs 

  • $500 for printer and paper for Gospel tracts and Bible Institute Booklets

4 adults trusted Christ as their Savior our very first Sunday of 2016. Two of them were family members of some of our church people.  We are continuing to pass out hundreds of Gospel tracts and invitations each week.  Please pray for more souls to be saved.    

It’s hard to believe January is already gone.  We are hoping to see great spiritual and numerical growth at New Life this year.  Our plans are to take our furlough in December, and the pressure is on to get things set before the end of the year.  I wish we could slow down time a bit. 

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Pastor Sipho and his family are doing well.  We also have three key young men that have been very faithfu and working hard to help us in the ministry.  Each of them  play a part in each service, and are actively involved in going door to door.  As a team, we are hoping to see a lot more discipleship groups set up soon.  We want to get as many plugged in as possible to make sure they grow in their faith. 

Please be praying for our Friday youth meeting that we started back up since our summer break.  This meeting draws much more young people than our traditional services and we hope to see many come to Christ.  Several have already showed a lot of interest in making salvation decisions.

More Highlights

  • One of our young men have started piano lessons.  This is the start of the training for a better music ministry.  We have a long way to go, to say the least. 
  • This week Holly Pearson, a young lady from our home church, will be visiting.  She’s been part of the great support team back in the states. We’re very grateful for people like her who have stayed connected with our ministry here. 

December 2015 Prayer Letter

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Dear Pastor and Friends,

I am writing this prayer letter as we return from Cape Town on a survey trip with Jason and Ashley King. It is incredible to see the need for the Gospel all over the country of South Africa. We are passing through dozens of towns, each with their own township, and hundreds of thousands of people with no Baptist Church. The Kings are hopeful to arrive here in August as church planters. If your church is looking to support a church planting missionary in 2016, I would recommend you have them come by and present their burden (mjasonking@gmail.com). 

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We thoroughly enjoyed our first annual BFWE Christian Youth Camp this month. We had 78 campers and each camper heard 23 message by 10 different speakers! And all of them want to come back next year! Many decisions were made to follow Christ and his will for their lives. Please pray for these young people.

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We officially started Soweto Baptist Church on November 29th. The Lord blessed with 28 in attendance for our first service and we were able to baptize 11 young men who I have been working with for the past several months (Aphiwe, Zolani, Soli, Athule, Aphele, Luxolo, Khanyiso, Likhaya, Sethu, Ntsika, and Miyanda). Our second week we saw an increase in attendance, up to 48! God is blessing and we are expecting to see some incredible things in 2016. (watch the video at https://vimeo.com/147233980)

We are almost to capacity in our current building with those who the Lord has already given. We currently have $1,000 toward our building fund. We are still needing $11,900 to build. With the new building we will have a seating capacity of 120 adults. Thank you to those who have already given.

We want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. You all are in our thoughts and prayers this season. Thank you for all that you do!

Sincerely,

Jeremy and Rebekah Hall

Coffey Family December 2015 Prayer Letter

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  • The last day of the year; it’s hard to believe.  2015 has been a great year.  We praise the Lord we were able to start New Life Baptist Church.  We have a superstar group of supporting churches and individuals that have been with us all along.  We truly don’t deserve you. 

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We finished strong this year with our Christmas day service with 10 first time visitors in attendance.  Over the past two weeks we have placed a Gospel tract on every house in Kwadwesi.  Several thousand homes were given the Gospel, along with being reminded there’s a lighthouse in their community preaching Jesus.  All of this is because of you being used of the Lord. 

As we change our focus from more language learning to church planting we are even more excited about what the Lord has in store for New Life Baptist Church this  coming year. 

Continue to pray for lives to be changed.  We are in a routine of going door to door 4 to 5 times a week with our team which is usually between 6 to 10 people.  There’s potential to reach a lot of people this coming year  with the Gospel. 

Prayer Request

  • New Church Plant in Soweto

More Highlights

  • Our first teen camp was a great success.  I say success because every teen made it back without injury or death, and we had a teen girl from our church trust Christ as her Savior. 
  • Jason and Ashley King came this month for their survey trip.  We are looking very forward to having this family back full time towards the end of the year. 

 

Needs 

  • $1550 was given to cover the remaining cost of teen camp.  Praise the Lord.
  • $6,000 has been given to start Soweto Baptist Church.  We have $4000 more that needs to be raised in the next few weeks.  We hope to see construction begin next week.  It’s been a joy seeing the young guys and girls of this church grow in their knowledge of the Bible. 
  • $500 for tracts.  Since we are going through a couple of thousand tracts a week now, we have decided to print our own tracts using a nice Ink Jet printer.  This amount will help purchase a new printer and supply tracts for 2-3 months

Coffey Family November 2015 Prayer Letter

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Praise the Lord, we had 4 Baptized last week and will have 1 more  baptized tomorrow.   We just completed the construction of our baptistry and are happy to put it to use.  We are starting to gain traction in the area of faithful people making the right steps in their Christian life.  As our core group is faithfully attending services and discipleship classes, real growth is taking place at New Life Baptist.   

Josh and Meagan Sullivan have been here for the last 6 month’s as interns working with our teens, and also going through language school.  They left this week to start full time deputation to come back to South Africa as missionaries.  Pray for them as the work to get back.  We are praying the Lord will bring us many more young families to help reach the people of South Africa.  The opportunities here are wide open.  Maybe you would consider coming to help. 

December begins summer holidays where many people go back to their homeland for a month or so.  Our Bible Institute will be put on hold until January, but we will use this time to really invest in the young people that won’t be traveling.  We pray, that as we begin, the summer with our teen camp, many of these young people will make life changing decisions that we can build upon during the summer months. 

Prayer Request

  • The Sullivan Family as they raise support to come back to South Africa
  • New Church Plant in Soweto
  • Teen Camp (Dec. 7-11)

More Highlights

  • Pastor Tom Hatley from Fellowship Baptist in Maryville, Tn, visited this month with his daughter and another member from their church.  Pastor Hatley has been a great friend in the ministry.  He was a great encouragement during his time here.
  • Pastors Austin Gardner & Robert Canfield from my home church visited this month, along with my mission’s Director Jeff Bush.  They were a help challenging our people and all the preachers to be men and women of the Book.

Needs 

  • $1550 for youth camp.  Three families will be trying to raise this amount to cover the cost of our very first teen camp here in Port Elizabeth.  (120 campers approx.)
  • $10,000 to start Soweto Baptist Church.  We have a small building but are already in need of more space.  The group that will leave from New Life to start the church will already fill up that space.

November Prayer Letter

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Our God is worthy to be served and we count it as a privilege and honor to serve him in South Africa.

My family and I only have 3 weeks left here in South Africa. We are sad that we have to leave but we are also excited to get deputation started! We were privileged to take a trip to Cape Town the first week of October. God opened my eyes to the need all over South Africa. Khayelitsha is the biggest township in the Cape Town area. It has over 400,000 people with very few Gospel preaching churches. The need is tremendous!

We are currently in our last week of language school. When we return to South Africa this will be our priority.

My Pastor (Tom Hatley), his daughter (Abby) and another young lady from our home church (Torrie Sutton) will be arriving in South Africa in the first week of November. We are so excited to see them. Please pray for their trip. Pray that God will use it to encourage our visitors.

Pastor Austin Gardner and a few of his colleagues will also be arriving in the 2nd week of November please pray for them as well.

Prayer Requests

– Pray for laborers to South Africa.

– The young men who Pastor Sipho and I have in our discipleship.

– Our return to The States on November 20.

– Youth Camp will be Dec 6-12. We still need nearly $3,000 to take 120 teens to camp. The young people have been fundraising on their own but if you would be interested in helping please send money to P.O. Box 519 Braselton, GA 30517 (Att. Jeremy Hall/Youth Camp).

– New church plant coming in November. Jeremy Hall will be planting a church in the Soweto Township.

 

 

Coffey Family October 2015 Prayer Letter

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Prayer Request

  • More laborers for Southern Africa
  • New Church Plant in Soweto
  • Language learning
  • Youth Conference at Madiba (Oct 5-10)

As I sat with three teenagers at my home this week during a discipleship lesson, I was reminded about the priority of our ministry here in South Africa.  I’m excited about the people who were saved over the past few weeks at New Life Baptist Church.  I’m excited we have people in attendance that’s not just my family and Pastor Sipho’s family.  But the one thing that excites me the most is being able to sit around a table with some young people who seem interested in learning more about God’s word. 

Lisakhanya and Abongile, both 15 years old, were saved this past month.  Mvumelwa, who is 16 and also leads the music of the church, was  also there.  As they are learning the books of the New Testament this week and how to say Romans 3:10 & Romans 3:23 by memory, I see the future of a stronger church planting ministry in South Africa. 

I know investing in young guys is what it takes to build a ministry that will last.  Pray for our team as we seek to win and train more young men for the Gospel ministry.  Currently, I’m able to meet with around 10 young people who have showed interest in learning more of the Bible and of the ministry.

Needs 

  • $1550 for youth camp.  Three families will be trying to raise this amount to cover the cost of our very first teen camp here in Port Elizabeth.  (120 campers approx.)
  • $10,000 to help with the building for Soweto Baptist Church which will be started in December, Lord willing.  20 people who have been faithful to New Life will be going with my cousin Jeremy to start this church. 

More Highlights

  • 8 Saved at New Life this month
  • My wife Amy is now teaching two discipleship classes a week in Xhosa.
  • My sons are pretty happy about finding a baseball league here close to our house.  Luke is especially happy to have baseball back.
  • 8 Saved during open air service yesterday