The BEAM Missions Fund has helped to sponsor this effort, as has the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania churches of Christ, which give missions support to help in Pakistan.

Rawalpindi is a small city but it is very important because it is a part of capital city Islamabad and also people from all over Pakistan come and live there. Being a small city it is very crowded as well.

The mission team reached there on the 18th of Nov, 2007 at night and the next day they started to evangalize and share their faith with people. Many listened to them with respect while others did not pay any attention to their message at all. But God blessed their hard work and on the same day one visitor name Adil came to their house and had a great fellowship time with them. A few other sisters also came-Flora and her friend. They faced many oppositions from the different traditional groups. They were questioned about their faith and also the worship services.

They did not lose faith but kept praying and reaching out to people and on their first devotional they had 9 visitors, and they picked up a few studies and they are working with them and helping them to become disciples.

Then they decieded to have their first invitational service with the title of "HAVE YOU SEEN THE GREAT LIGHT" on the 9th of Dec, 2007 in Rawalpindi. They went to schools, campuses, streets, Door knocking and meeting people everywhere. Meeting time was at 10:00am but the disciples went in the morning to pick up the ones who were definitely coming to this service.

Once again it was challenging to bring people to the meeting becuse they were used to their traditional churches and were sleeping and some were refusing to come. Some were afraid of suicide bomb attacks, because a few days before there was a suicide attack near one traditional church meeting. Still the disciples did not give up and helped people to get ready and come to the meeting. The meeting started bit late ( IT DOES REMIND US ABOUT THE BANQUET WHICH GOD PREPARED AND THE ONES WHO WERE INVITED DID NOT COME AND THEN HE SAID TO GO AND COMPEL THEM TO COME GO IN THE STREETS ..........)

God did an amazing miracle, and that day we had an attendence of 143 in the first meeting. In this meeting we had 5 disciples from GC-1 and 1 from GC-3 to help in the service and to do Bible studies (GC=Green Crescent, meaning an underground church in Pakistan). A great lesson was preached about the the great light and the first point was the EXACT REPRESENTATION OF GOD and the second point was GOD NEVER CHANGES. The lesson was convicting and during fellowship every one studied the Bible with lots of visitors.

Studies were set up and the next day for the chariot ride we had 15 studies who are still coming and learning every day and we are praying that God will bless the mission team with abundant fruit.

Please keep them in your prayers.

From Shakeel in PAKISTAN for IcocHotNews...