GOD IS GOOD all the time. Let me share a little bit about the ministry of CEF in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is an island which is situated in the Indian Ocean. It has a population of 22 million and among them, 6 million are under 18 years of age. That’s our target group. CEF ministry was introduced to us in the early 1970’s and in 2004 Rev. Jeremiah, a missionary from Korea, came and re-started the ministry again.
Presently, we have 15 full-time workers representing eight different chapters (local areas). Please pray for more workers, as we need to recruit 3-5 new workers each year to open new chapters. Also pray that CEF will receive its registration as a corporation soon. By God’s grace our main ministry to children is Good News Club and we have over 1200 GNCs™ around the country and weekly, over 20,000 kids from Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic backgrounds are hearing the Word of God throughout the year. Among those, over 15,000 have confessed and received Jesus Christ as their Saviour.
Every year God has enabled us to train over 3000 adults to teach in GNCs through TCE1, Super Seminars and other programs. Recently 23 teachers attended a Super Seminar at Negambo Prayer and Mercy Ministries. Afterwards the pastor told me that it was a real ‘eye opener’ for the ministry and most of those who attended have started GNCs in their local areas. We are so excited about Christmas Party Clubs; we have seminars for adults in over 60 cities and nearly 2000 adults will be trained every Christmas to conduct one-hour Christmas Party Clubs in their neighbourhoods. God has blessed this ministry and last year as a result of the Christmas Party Clubs around 12 new GNCs were started.
Please pray for the Christmas program this year as we are expecting to reach 50,000 children with the gospel. These have been difficult months in Sri Lanka following the Easter Sunday terrorist bomb attack on christian churches. As a result many churches are no longer actively involved in evangelism and we have had many training and outreach programs cancelled. As a CEF family we have been devoting our time to prayer and planning for the future when tensions will ease. Please pray that God will encourage pastors to engage in training and evangelism again.
However, God is still at work in the midst of difficulties! Some of our workers visited a village where mostly widows and children were living. The children were not attending school regularly and were already involved in crime. But praise God, a home was found and a GNC started with 32 children attending. Initially they were teasing and mocking the workers but slowly they started to enjoy the club and now there are 92 children attending. Many of these children have found Jesus as their Saviour.
This article first appeared in our Autumn 2019 National Newsletter.