Church Planting Update - Casco Bay Church of Christ

"For this is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth."  1 Timothy 2:3-4

There could not be anything more true in the Bible than this passage.  God desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth in every land and every culture.  A little less than 20 disciples have decided to move up to Portland, Maine to bring the gospel to a state they call "Vacationland."  Many of these disciples have sacrificed salaries, opportunities and comfortablity because they too desire as God does that all men be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

God has prepared the way for us, as in a little over a month of ministry we have 20 Bible studies and have been seeing every Sunday new faces and new stories of people desiring to know God.  The harvest is truly plentiful! We also have been blessed to have 8 summer missionaries that have sacrificed their summer to help jump-start the mission in Maine.  This past Sunday, July 25th was an incredible day as we had an over 60 in attendance at church even with some of the team not totally moved up yet. We were packed in our little chapel with no empty seats left!  God has exceeded our expectations as we rented out a chapel that has a capacity of 45.  We had many new visitors and a good amount of our studies were all there.  

Even more encouraging was having our first baptism.  David Piete, a college sophomore in Portland was baptized.  He was praying for God to help him in his life and was shared with.  Born and raised in Bangor. Maine, his parents drove down 2+ hours from Bangor to see his baptism and were impacted by the church.  He was baptized right on the beach in the ocean right near our chapel.  Please keep praying for the Casco Bay Church of Christ!  God is moving as we have 20+ Bible Studies, 4 people that desire to place membership, and 5 that could be baptized in the next two weeks.

I also visited Kayamba's group this last Sunday at 4pm.  He is a brother baptized in the Hartford church who is originally from the Congo.  He was a denominational preacher who had a Ph.D. in Theology from the Mennonite church, and was in charge of the mission effort in Congo and Africa.  He came over to Hartford CT in search of helping his family escape a war-torn country.  God moved as he realized he was not a disciple, and he was baptized and began trying to bring his family to the United States.  God opened the door for Kayamba's wife and 7 children, but only if he moved to the state of Maine!  The problem was that the church was not planted yet, and he had to wait for the planting for over 2 years.  Rather than be discouraged, Kayamba decided to start a ministry up in Maine with refugees from other countries in Africa. God has moved as he has over 30 people that meet with him on a weekly basis!

I went this last Sunday to speak to this group, and they had 33 in attendance all hungry to learn about God.  Kayamba told them that his church was the Casco Bay Church of Christ, and that this is a ministry that he just started up because God had called him to.  He told them that they will be partnering with the  Casco Bay Church of Christ very soon.  I think we could have a possible 20 bible studies.  We are going to take it slow with them but it was moving to see how the hearts of these 30+ seekers of God desiring to know God and his word.  God has been working before we even moved to Maine to prepare the way. He has been preparing a harvest of people up in Maine!

Please pray for the Casco Bay Church of Christ as our inaugural service will be on September 12th, 2010.  Beginning in the fall we have rented out a facility that holds 230+ people.  Pray that we will fill up this auditorium with many hungry souls in Portland.  

With Love
Glenn & Danielle Petruzzi