A year end filled with miracles!

Written by Sia Tongu
+ 5 8 10

We would like to wish our families, friends and partners a happy 2018 and pray you will be in good health and prosper in all that God has called you to do.

November and December, 2017 was an awesome time for us here at Iris Global in Guinea and God has been faithful in leading us in all that we do.

The weather in Guinea is good at this time of the year so we were able to make two trips into the interior of the country to visit our churches to encourage and strengthen them.

In the first week we held meetings out in the open and after one meeting, the local witch doctor and his followers went home to get what they believed were magic charms, and returned to start a fire near us and burnt them all. They then all repented, and gave their lives to the Lord. After that we saw that there was a new freedom in the community. Fear was gone and Jesus is King!

The following week I went to visit the leaders of our three churches in the forest region of Guinea. It is harvest time at this time of the year in this area so everybody went out to their farms early in the morning and came back in the evening. This made it difficult for me to reach everybody

But,as usual, God has His own way of doing things. During my spare time waiting for the leaders and congregation members to come back to the village in the evenings, I started visiting the leaders in the villages nearby and, by the grace of God, many accepted Jesus as their Savior.They opened doors for us to plant churches in 5 more communities and I am so grateful for these unexpected opportunities to make the Good News of our Lord and Savior known to those that have never heard it.

At both locations the presence of God was powerful and there were many salvations, healings and deliverances.

We returned to our base in Conakry just days before Christmas and immediately went and bought food for the festive meal we planned to have on Christmas day. We then sent out word to the local community that we were celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus and that they were welcome to join us for lunch.

We held a popcorn and juice party for the children who live outside our compound gate on Christmas Eve. (We call them the Gate children because as we are able to pay for more of them to go to school, and to feed more of them every day, they are crossing through a 'gate' from a future filled with hopelessness into one filled with hope)

On Christmas day lunch was cooked by a team of local ladies and our leaders spent time talking to the children who had arrived early. By the time lunch was served more than 600 people had streamed through our compound gates and we not only gave them a festive lunch of chicken stew and rice, we also put on a Nativity play for them to watch. We then preached the Gospel and afterwards many people gave their lives to the Lord.

I finished off the year by going up into the mountains with leaders from our local churches to fast and pray for three days, dedicating this coming year to serving our God in whichever way He leads. We also prayed for our friends and partners and the presence of the Lord was with us.

We would appreciate it if you could continue to pray with us for direction as well as more laborers, provision and wisdom to do all that God is calling us to do. If you would like to partner with us in what we are doing, you are welcome. Our giving page is here.https://www.irisglobal.org/giving-center and if you scroll down to IRIS BASE, you can fill in Conakry and the other particulars they ask for.

Thank you for your love during 2017. We appreciate it.

Bless you,

Sia