Our personal comfort level has been way down of late, but our excitement level about the Lord's Work has been way up. Over the past few weeks we have been under Tropical Wave and Low Pressure Systems. This has brought a lot of rain and flooding along with opressive heat.. Five inches fell in Marsh Harbour in about a four hour time period and closed a lot of intersections and roads. In addition, the Electrical Power has been more off than on. I went eleven hours without power the other night with rain falling so hard you could not open a window or door. That made for a hot sleepless night. The phone system has also been out along with the Internet Connections, and the overcast was so heavy that even my Satellite Phone would not work. That makes it very hard to get weather information and file flight plans and notify authorities of your arrival. Arriving without notification is not good, as they accept no excuses about weather and phones and all that stuff. I was very busy flying with a number of appointments and my stress level was heightened by looking for windows of opportunity and the efforts to get weather and file flight plans. In addition to all of this, I have had both the car and van down for repairs. I also spent some time going over the plane and getting the oil and filters changed.
Two elders from the Palm Beach Lakes congregation in West Palm Beach flew to Marsh Harbour to meet with the congregation and to attend an Evangelism work shop conducted by George Hall. George works in South and Central America and also told us about their Training Schools. George stayed a week and worked with Jason Quashie in setting studies and sharing his personal Bible Study methods. They had one baptism and set a number of studies. Some are still in progress. Jack and Donna Stewart had been in Treasure Cay and Marsh Harbour for a number of days, and have returned to Texas until January. We appreciate the work they have done in the Islands over many years. They were responsible to getting George Hall down to Abaco.
Lincoln Young had a second group for the summer come in from Wynne, Arkansas. This group not only does Vacation Bible Schools and Personal Evangelism, but has been helping Lincoln get his house in order. They built him a deck off his kitchen ( this is a great place for devotionals and fellowships with the congregation), added bunk beds to his spare bedroom and put doors on his kitchen cabinets. When I got down to spend a day and night with them, they had a number of walking wounded. So in addition to taking new batteries for Lincoln's wheel chair, and Bibles for New Christians, I spent some time playing Doctor. All eleven of them got their luggage on time except for Homer Kennon. We were all surprised when his suitcase came back to Memphis only two weeks after they left for the Islands??? Delta called and said that Bahamas Air sent it to them with no explanation! We were able to give Homer a fine Bible from the youth in Conroe so he could teach and preach even if he wore the same clothes for over a week. I understand that they were washed for him several times during this period. I wonder yet if that was for him, or for the ones who were with him? The Vacation Bible School was conducted at one of the local schools and the attendance was great. The highlight of the week came with the baptisms of John Sands, husband of Ann Sands and their grown daughter Loretta. Keep Ann in your prayers as she is still in Nassau awaiting the results of serious tests. Ann has been a Christian just about a year and her influence has brought several members of her family to the Lord.
The Freeport Church had invited me to speak at their Monthly "Bring a Friend Day". I had hoped to go over on Saturday evening, but the weather never broke. I did get to fly over on Sunday morning. They were just completing an Evangelism Seminar with a group out of North Miami-Dade. Derrick Turnquest was responsible for setting up the week long effort. We were thrilled to learn that in the past few days, there had been eleven baptisms. There was one more on Sunday with a number of special prayer requests. In teaching the adult class, I had spoken on Evangelism and talked about the excitement of bringing others to Christ. Two of the new converts stand out in my mind. After class a lovely young lady came up and gave me a hug, then said that we had not met, as she was one of the new Christians I had been talking about. Jasmine Sands is about 19 or 20. At lunch with James and Carolyn Miller, they revealed that her father was a preacher in a denominational church, and when she obeyed the Gospel she was put out of the house. Becoming a Christian is more hazardous for some than others. Please keep this young lady in your prayers. James also told me about Peter Higgs. In the mid-1990's, James had been working with some Bible Correspondence Course Students in West End, Grand Bahama .One of the students was the grandmother of Peter. James spent some time with the young man, and then lost contact. Someone invited Peter to study last week and he became a Christian. This is a reminder that the "Word does not return void...". The seed planted more than a decade ago has brought forth fruit. One plants, another waters and God gives the increase.
This brought the number of baptisms to 15 in just a few days. This shows what happens when we make a special effort to share Christ and Him Crucified with those in regions of Spiritual Darkness. Pray for all of these new Christians and for the studies in progress. Also pray that all of us will be more active in reaching out with the message of Hope.
Our special thanks once again to the Young People of the Longmire Road Church in Conroe, Texas for the hard work and sacrifice in providing Bibles for these students and for the New Christians. Twenty Four new Bibles were sent to Freeport. We are expecting more conversions!
Thank you so much for your prayers and support. Checks can be made to Bahama Mission Church of Christ, and sent:
Att: David Caskey-Mission, c/o Gulf Coast Church of Christ
3825 McGregor Blvd.
Ft. Myers, Florida 33901.
david
Bahama Mission Home Page
http://www.flyingpreacher.com/
Mission Contact
David Caskey
Webmaster
Jerry Pickup
http://www.jpickup.com/
