FEATURE

On March 12, Pastor Lowell Ivey shared the following report of the exciting work happening in Virginia Beach and spreading to nearby Yorktown. Please ask for the Lord’s continued blessing on the work of his faithful servants there!

“We now have two candidates in training for the office of elder, and two for the office of deacon. We hope to be able to organize by this summer.

“We continue to minister to a Muslim family that lives across from us. The husband and wife are caring for the wife’s sister, who has brain cancer. We have been able to give them two copies of the Bible in Arabic. The wife and sister came to our church a few months back and since the sister only speaks Arabic, she couldn’t understand anything in our worship service--except when she heard her name mentioned in the pastoral prayer. She looked at her sister and said, ‘He just said my name. Why did he say my name?’ Her sister said, ‘He was praying for you.’ We are praying the Lord will use this for their salvation.

“Another man came to our worship service this past Sunday. He’s been coming for some time, but this time he was in tears. I had just preached on ‘The Mystery of Godliness’ from 1 Tim. 3:16, and the sermon centered on how Christ is the great mystery that has been revealed openly to the whole world, God manifested in the flesh. This man told me, ‘I’m addicted to drugs. I know I need Jesus, but I’m just numb.’ I said, ‘Every person in that church was an addict. We were addicted to sin, self, ungodliness. But Christ is able to set us free from an addiction far worse than drug addiction.’ The next day (praise the Lord!) this man reached out by phone. We’re praying that he will come to know Christ.

“I’ve also had more opportunities to reach out to several students at Regent University. Regent is a Christian university founded by Pat Robertson. It has a strong nondenominational and charismatic flavor. But we have been seeing more students coming, and I have had a lot of discipleship opportunities. We plan to have ‘Chess with Calvin’ on Wednesday afternoons, and another discipleship study on Friday evenings, with the help of some very motivated younger men in the congregation. Please pray for this outreach ministry.

“I can also report that our Yorktown Bible study has become a mission work of RPC! We are hoping to plant a ‘mother-daughter’ church there. Currently, about 7–8 families (18–20 individuals) are meeting for Bible study, fellowship, singing, and prayer on Sunday nights. We plan to begin regular Sunday evening worship services on April 21, Easter Sunday.”