Window on Gamboula

Volume 5 Issue 5 Gamboula, Central African Republic lukeandleanne@gmail.com PEF P.O. Box 847, Bristol, TN 37621 May 27, 2018

Luke, Leanne, Benjamin, Bobby and Timoté Turk with Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship in Central African Republic

Dear Family and Friends, It is a quiet Sunday afternoon after a busy week. We want to share a bit of what the past few weeks of ministry here have involved—again, mostly in pictures. “Go and make disciples of all nations…’ In our last newsletter we asked for prayer for an upcoming evangelism conference that Luke was involved in planning. The conference happened the first week of March and we saw the Lord at work in some real-ly encouraging ways…..

The conference was led by the 3 men (above, in the middle) from Campus Crusade for Christ who drove all the way from Yaounde to be here with us. They stayed in our home , so we had the opportunity to get

to know them a bit better—mostly around the dining room table with a cup of tea

We expected 20-30 attendees, mostly lay people. But the Lord brought 42 people, 15 of whom were pastors!

There were good times of teaching and learning and prayer and wor-ship. Each evening the group divid-ed up and went to two different places to show the JESUS film and

the film “Walking with Jesus”, with audiences of over a couple hundred each evening.

Luke taught Eric’s (below)evangelism class when he was a Bible student here many years ago. Eric still holds the fire of the call to share the gospel in his

heart!

There was time for reflection as well as good fellowship with others in the group. It was a great mix of younger and older, men and

women, lay people and pastors. You don’t know their names, but the Lord does. Pray He will continue to stir their hearts to share Jesus—His Truth and His Saving Love.

On the US side of the ocean, our oldest son, Benjamin, graduated Magna Cum Laude from LeTourneau University a few weeks ago with a degree in Mechanical Engineering! Unfortunately we don’t have a good graduation picture of Benjamin to add here, but we are very proud of him! Luke was able to go to the US a bit earlier to attend his graduation. Benjamin will begin an official job in June at Norbord Com-pany, with whom he has interned this past year, in Longview, TX in June. Norbord manufactures orient-ed-strand-board for construction. Thank you for your continued prayers and support for our family and for the work and ministry here. We are ever so grateful for each of you! In His grip, Luke and Leanne

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Literature was handed out for use during the conference as well as tracts for the group from each church to take home and use. Each attendee also received an SD card loaded with the JESUS film, Walking with Jesus, and other evangelistic films that they can use to show the films one-on-one with people on their cell phones.

And of course there must be food! Different groups of women took turns cooking each day to make sure the conferences didn’t go hungry. It was a REALLY hot week, so cooking over an open fire all day was no small sacrifice on their part. But they did it with a smile!

God works in mysterious ways. The normal chauffeur for the team coming from Yaoundé wasn’t able to come at the last minute. So, via the recommendation of someone else, they found Marcel (above) to drive. He stayed with us as well for the week, and, after at-

tending the JESUS film the first night of the confer-ence, he had a long talk with one of the leaders and made the decision to give his life to Jesus.

So thank you for your prayers!! God answered, people came, and we pray that a zeal for sharing the good news of Jesus will carry on in the villages the attendees returned to. The local evange-lism team here has already made a trip to each of the villages the attendees came from to encour-

Soccer!

Sometimes ministry is just

plain FUN!

This past spring break both Timoté and Jordan Cone, the RFIS Athletic Director, came to Gamboula (Jordan’s parents are fellow missionaries here). Surys, the young man pictured above with the sack of balls, has recruited a group of young adults to organize community soccer teams for kids under 12.

We watched these guys grow up (Surys is almost like a 4th son to us), and it’s fun to seen them giving back to their com-munity! So Jordan brought 4 sets of matching uniforms and a bunch of balls, along with a great dose of encouragement, and he, Surys and Timoté went to work to put together a tournament for the 12 y/o teams! Most of the kids played barefoot, but wow—to play with matching uniforms was cool, even if it meant trading sweaty jerseys when substitutes were made! Surys kept things organized, while Jordan and Timoté served as referees. The Lord provided a beautiful afternoon to

play in.

Kids’ Corner….

So kids!!!.....The afternoon was not just about kicking the ball around. We had the complete makings of any exciting tournament. See if you can find the following things in the pic-tures on these 2 pages:

• The snack stand featuring fresh avocados, served by some girls watching the game

• The water girl in red who walked around with a jug of water for anyone who was thirsty

• The arguably cutest little spectator in the bunch!

• The make-shift “risers” carved into the hill so that everyone could have a good view (and one Zaccheus-like kid who found his own high perch above the crowds!)

• The self-appointed cheerleaders who didn’t have pompoms, but came up with a couple fun hats to set them apart

• Figure out what the 4 team colors were…..

• A chance for Jordan to share with the kids at the end (as it started to rain) that there’s Someone more important than even soccer. His name is Jesus.