October 2005 - WORLD MISSIONS CONFERENCE 2005 A GREAT BLESSING!
The Missions conference at CBC has now come to a close and what a great blessing it was. Our first missionary speaker was Javier Almanza from Xalapa Mexico and the last missionary of the week was Randy Smith from the Ivory Coast .
Brother Almanza preached a humbling message on sacrifice. He said that a sacrifice has to be something that costs us, either time or money or energy, or it is not really a sacrifice. Two days after he preached for us he was re-entering Mexico with a car that someone had donated to them from here in Texas . He of course didn’t have the title yet, because it takes several weeks to receive it. That was enough for the Mexican authorities to put him in jail! He was in jail for several days, but instead of feeling sorry for himself he organized 3 services and preached to the inmates there and had almost 30 professions of faith! The Lord evidently had people there that night that knew they needed Christ and were open to a clear presentation of the Gospel, and so he sent Javier.
On the last night of the conference, Randy Smith, our missionary to the Ivory Coast spoke and gave a report on the mission there. It was extremely interesting to hear how people in other countries respond to the Gospel. But the testimony of how his wife almost died of malaria and is still recovering was a deep heart searching time for all of us. What a sacrifice many of these missionaries make to get the Word out to those who have never heard!
