A New Church is Started

Dear Don & Mary,

Warm Greetings to you in His precious Name! I hope this finds you well.

I want to update you about the way the Lordis leading us in starting a new church. We praise God for the wonderfulway He is guiding. We have continued to have a church in our Chapel. We are still searching a hall to rent outside. We will eventually moveinto another building, but in the meantime we are having the Worship and Breaking of Bread service in our Chapel and we are having an excellent response. Last Monday we had a meeting of some of our main men staff who are very keen and godly. We had prayer together and we have made the following decisions for the present. We are naming the church"Bridge Gospel Church".

We are having Worship services from 11.30 a.m.to 12.30 noon. Before the Worship service we are having a short time with the children with suitable singing and a children's talk, but all the main people will come before 11.30 a.m. We are registering the church as a Trust, which is the normal procedure. We have unitedly prayed and appointed Mr Anbu Raj at present to be the Pastor, and other staff are assisting him.

At present any people are coming from outside, contacted through the ministry and last Sunday we had such a beautiful time of worship and 19 at present are staying afterwards to attend classes for baptism. There are more people coming this Sunday, who have been asking for baptism, and they will join the classes. Some of these are our kitchen staff, and some from the soup kitchens who have been requesting for baptism for some time. From this coming Sunday we are sending our bus to pick up all the people who wish to come from the soup kitchens. We have also invited HIV affected people to attend. Some of them are asking for baptism also. We are planning to have the baptism in Padappai in the middle of June. I think there may be at least 35 people who will be baptized.

I have purchased all that we need for the Communion Table, and we are using individual wine cups. We have bought the round containers that contain 36 cups in each, and this is working very well. At present David Lingam and Balaji from Choolaimedu are coming at 11.30a.m. and Mr David Lingam has been taking the baptism classes.

On Sundays we feel so happy now. It is such a relief and so wonderful to have real worship and to feel the presence of God so much. We have Mr Daniel who plays beautifully the key board for the services, and it is lovely to have music played softly while the Bread and Wine is being distributed. This is just to update you and to ask you to pray earnestly that we will soon get a place to rent outside of CMCT.

With warm greetings to you all.

Sincerely, in His glad service,

Colleen