Tim Beavis: “Come and Help Us” - The Macedonian Call Continues Today

In Acts 16:9 we see how Paul received a vision of a man of Macedonia saying, “Come over to Macedonia to help us.”  While we don’t receive visions from Lord, we do regularly receive the same kinds of Macedonian calls, “Come over here to help us!”  In fact, we currently have 127 requests from church networks around the world asking Carey to come and provide training to pastors and leaders.  Sadly, we cannot respond to all of them, but in March we were excited to be able to launch new training centers in Yirgachefe, Ethiopia and in Chambishi, Zambia.
 
Tim along with Carlos Paul, a new volunteer team member, spent several weeks traveling to these locations, preaching in local churches, sharing the gospel to audience of over 1,500 people and teaching our week-long Hermeneutics (Bible Study Methods) course in each location.

We invite you to take few minutes to check out the short video testimony from Pastor Kabaso in Zambia as he shares about the impact of the training on his own life and ministry and to keep reading to learn more about these 2 new training locations.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support of our ministry.  We are so grateful for your partnership with us in the work of the gospel.

Tim & Lisa Beavis

Ethiopia

Yirgachefe, Ethiopia is one of our most remote training centers, located 11 hours by road south of Addis Ababa, the capital.  While famous for its coffee production, it is an area that has been largely overlooked forgotten by outside Christian ministries.  It is for this reason that Pastor Asfaw, our new training center coordinator has been diligently pleading with us for 5 years to come and provide training to the pastors throughout the region.

Like much of the rest of this part of Africa, the so called “prosperity gospel” has caused great harm to churches and their communities, but as we gathered for training, we were encouraged to find the pastors both teachable and eager to learn.  Throughout the training module 33 pastors crammed into the small classroom each day, diligently making notes in their training manuals, and continuing to ask questions even after the long 8-hour days of teaching.
 
The network with which we are working in this area is made up of over 200 churches and so while we are only able to begin the work with this group of 33, they assured us that there is already a long line of other pastors from the network who will be waiting for their turn to receive training in the future.

Zambia

Chambishi, Zambia is a mining town in the Copperbelt region of northern Zambia.  Our new work here in this region is rather unique in that all the 26 pastors who gathered for training are serving in this one town.  In fact, these 26 leaders represent all the protestant churches in Chambishi and as such are from an assortment of Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal, and non-denominational churches.  

Most of these leaders have never had the opportunity to receive any form of Biblical training.  The one exception to this was the Anglican pastor who, as required by the Anglican church had been trained at their official seminary in another part of the country. Yet after only a few days of attending our Carey training center he explained that this training was of a far higher quality than any of what he had previously received.  We often hear from our pastors that the blend of theological depth and practical pastoral focus is unique and transformative to their lives and ministry. 
 
We are excited to continue our work with these Zambian leaders and to watch and see how the Lord will work throughout the churches in this town and beyond.