Coffey Family January 2023 Prayer Letter

January 24, 2023 by The Coffeys

Summer camp season has ended. From our junior and teens camps, we saw 61 young people make professions of faith in Jesus Christ. What a fantastic time with all our Camp Rhino workers and our volunteers from the States. This was definitely one of the best camp seasons in our short 4-year history.

Over the past 4 years, we have been able to operate almost debt-free due to generous gifts from churches and individuals. All our property and buildings are paid off. This year we are hoping to start raising monthly support for Camp Rhino that will enable us to plan for more building projects and cover the actual camp, youth home, and bible college costs. Right now we’re spending at least $2000 a month just for basic upkeep and expenses.

If your church would be interested in making Camp Rhino part of your monthly mission budget we would be very grateful. We pray that this camp and training ministry will continue to aid in more churches being started all over Africa.

Prayer Requests & Praise

We saw 10 girls and 15 boys trust Christ during our teen camps. We had 68 teen boys the first week and 52 teen girls the 2nd week. School schedules limited our numbers a bit, but we still had great camps.
Pray for Lighthouse Baptist Church. We’ve made it past the normal summer slump and had a great attendance of 50 people this past week. I’m praying we will average over 100 by the end of the year. We also had two men trust Christ after the morning service to start the new year off right.
Pray for our son Luke who will be going back to live in the States in February. He will be working and getting ready for Bible College in September. Any time our kids leave is a difficult time for us parents. We need your prayers as well:)

Quick Updates

Interns Josh and Morgan Barton arrived to start their 3-month internship. The Barton’s believe the Lord may be leading them to the neighboring country of Mozambique after their internship. Pray as they finish up their last months.
Missionaries Noah & Tristan Wilkerson’s little girl Alainey has been making good progress. Please continue to pray for her and the long road ahead.
We’re heading back to the States on February 6 until April 26th with our son and to be a part of VBM’s annual orientation. We’re praying for this to be a productive time for recruiting, teaching, and fundraising.

New Support Address | Vision Baptist Missions has moved locations. Vision Baptist Missions P.O. Box 647 Dawsonville, GA 30534

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October 2022 Coffey Family Prayer Letter

October 6, 2022 by The Coffeys

Prayer Requests & Praise

10 Young People made professions of faith during a Soccer tournament this past week held at Camp Rhino. This event was organized by 3 of our Bible college students. They promoted the event and also did all the preaching. It was neat to see them in action.
Close to 300 people made professions of faith during our medical clinic with Medical Missions Outreach. We saw over 2,000 patients during the 5-day clinic with most of them hearing a presentation of the Gospel. MMO has been a great blessing to our churches.
A new teenager is entering the Africa Youth Home this week. Pray for us during the transition. He’s the first new teen we’ve added since buying the new property for the youth home. Also, pray as we are still in search of house parents for the boy’s and the girl’s homes.

Quick Updates

We have decided to hold off on starting a new church until after our short furlough in 2023. We’ll be back in the States to help our oldest son get settled and also for the VBM Annual Orientation. We will continue our focus on helping Lighthouse Baptist Church until then.
My cousin Jeremy started Bay Baptist Academy Primary School last year. The Lord has opened doors for us to purchase property right across the street from the primary school to start the High School. Pray we can raise the $68,000 in less than 60 days. It’s been exciting seeing the school in action this past year and I know it’s going to be even better with the addition of the high school. Jeremy and his wife Bekah have done a tremendous job with this ministry.

This past month I started 3 new Bible studies with people in different parts of our city. Pray the Lord works and we can see many come to Christ through these efforts. I’m hoping that maybe God would open doors for future church plants from these meetings.

One of our supporting churches, Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryville, TN with Pastor Tom Hatley is visiting this week. During any visiting group, my hope and prayesr are that God moves on the hearts of at least one person to give their life to foreign missions. Would you help pray that more laborers would be raised up?

Last month a high school principal asked me about using Camp Rhino for a full month to host all of his 12th-grade students (90-100 students) for 30 straight days. They would use that time to prepare for their graduation exams, but during that time we would also be able to preach to them each morning and hold Sunday and Midweek services. Pray as we make this decision for the 2023 school year.

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Coffey Family August 2022 Prayer Letter

August 22, 2022 by The Coffeys

Prayer Requests & Praise

I am currently discipling three new families that I don’t believe are saved. Would you pray for their salvation? They have been very open, but still need to realize that adding anything to Jesus is another gospel.
Please pray for our son Chase and his wife Ashely. Chase was recently in the hospital for 6 days with Mono. He is doing much better but is still experiencing pain. They continue traveling raising their support to return to South Africa.
Pray for us as we are considering starting a new church. There’s such a great need and we’re still unsure of our next step in this area.

May be an image of 1 person, standing, tree and outdoors — Chase & Ashley

Quick Updates

Our oldest daughter Emilee will arrive next week for a 3-week visit. I can’t tell you how excited we are to have her back with us. She has definitely been missed since starting Bible College in the States. Adri Bush, my son Luke’s girlfriend will also be coming with her. Having them both here will be a great time.
The South Africa Youth Home is up and running now. We moved the three boys into the new house and property. They no longer have to live in the boy’s dorms at the camp. We still need a lot to furnish the house but at least they have hot water:)
We just completed a 900 sq ft workshop that we will use to help with projects around the camp and in our churches. It will also be used to teach trades to our teenagers in the youth home. Any carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc are welcome to come to help build and/or teach.

New Work Shop for Camp Rhino and South Africa Youth Home

Medical Missions Outreach and their team of 21 people arrive this week to put on a health and vision clinic at one of our churches. We are hoping 2000 or more people come in for treatment and have the opportunity to hear a clear presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The last clinic we did a few years ago had over 200 people make professions of faith.

Lighthouse Baptist Church and Pastor Mvume Johnson are hosting the clinic this year. This is one of the churches we restarted a few weeks before Covid and had to close again during Covid. Please pray this will be a great help to the growth of this church.

In other African news, Graham and Olivia Young just arrived in Abuja, Nigeria. We’re very excited for this young couple as they begin their ministry in this needy country of over 200 million people. Please pray for them and pray that God would raise up more laborers for Nigeria and for Africa. Our time is short but the need is great. Maybe God is calling you.

Coffey Family July 2022 Prayer Letter

July 13, 2022 by The Coffeys

Prayer Requests/ Praises

My wife’s ear surgery seems to have been a complete success. We won’t know for sure how much hearing she regained until next month, but things are sounding good, figuratively and literally:) Thanks so much for your prayers.
Please pray for Missionary Katie Dilfer’s South African Visa. She’s ready to come as soon as she has her visa.
Pray for the 30+ Juniors and Teens that have accepted Christ as their personal Savior these past few weeks during our Winter Camp Days.
Pray for us as we are considering starting a new church. We are currently working out of Lighthouse Baptist Church with Pastor Mvume but are leaning toward starting a new church soon.

Quick Updates

Since May, we’ve hosted 4 different mission teams with 75 people in total. God used them here in a great way and really worked in many of their lives. Our hope is that God calls many Gospel laborers from these teams.
This week we are having separate Junior Camps for boys and girls. So far over a dozen boys trusted Christ. The girls will arrive this evening.
2 Weeks ago we hosted Teen Camp days for the boys and girls separately as well. We had 13 young people trust Christ during those days.
Vision Baptist Missions will be hosting the World Evangelism Fellowship on November 8th. You can click here for more info. It’s going to be a great time.

Now that all our mission teams have departed we’re going to be working a lot more on the Youth Home this month. We have 3 teens ready to move in and possibly a fourth. Pray that we find the right house parents for the Home. We have some that can help temporarily but are praying for a long-term solution.

I would like to ask you to pray for Pastor Khona Nohamba and his church Nkandla Baptist Church. Khona recently graduated from our Bible College and is looking forward to devoting more time to building the church.

We helped Khona right before the start of Covid and unfortunately had to close a few weeks later. He and his wife Iminathi have been working hard to restart the church and have been making good progress. In our city of over a million people, there is much work that needs to be done. Pray that we can build a foundation that will last and aid in church planting for years to come.

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Mission Teams and South Africa Youth Home

June 19, 2022 by The Coffeys

We have had a great and full month here in South Africa.

Mission Teams have visited from Ohio, Michigan, South Caroline, and now Georgie. A group from Tennessee will be here at the end of this week. “Group Season” is one of my favorite times of the year. God changed my life on a mission trip when I was 19 years old and I’m excited about people being able to visit the mission field and have the same type of opportunity. Please pray for these groups and for the Lord to call more to the foreign field.

We are getting the new house ready for the South Africa Youth Home. We had the floors tiled and with the help of one of our groups, the landscape looks much better. We still have a way to go, but the young people should be able to move into the house this week.

Hope Baptist Church in Fairfield, OH and Immanuel Baptist Church in Corruna, MI

The groups have done a terrific job ministering in all the churches here in Port Elizabeth. The preaching, singing, and testimonies have been encouraging and I believe they have really helped the people.

The groups have been an extra blessing to Camp Rhino with the safari hunts and fishing trips. Needless to say, our freezers are full, and they’ve supplied enough meat to stock our freezers for at least the next 6-8 months. A lot of kids will enjoy great meals from their gifts to the Camp.