A couple of weeks ago we started to share regarding Tenth’s Global Partners who will be receiving funds from our Easter Sacrificial Offering this year.

In Europe, our partner, Gethin Jones and his wife Katie, will be planting a new church in Lille, France.  Gethin has been serving as a pastor in France for many years, and with the support of their denomination, the International Presbyterian Church, they are launching out to a new city to plant a new church to reach one of the most secular societies on earth.  Funds are needed to cover start-up costs such as venue fees and furniture. Gethin will be joining us at Tenth for a Global Partner lunch on April 16 to provide us with an in-person update on this exciting new opportunity in Lille.

Going south from Europe, we have two projects in Africa.  First, our global partners, Dr. John and his wife, Lori Kempen, serve in Ethiopia where John serves as an ophthalmologist.  His medical ministry has proven very fruitful among the poor and needy who cannot afford to pay for medical care.  The ESO will help fund surgeries and medicine so that the poor in Ethiopia will receive quality care in addition to the preaching of the gospel as the Kempens partner with local churches and missionaries. Below is an update from John Kempen introducing us to one such patient:

“Hiwot” (not her real name) was sent to the MCM Eye Unit for free surgery from a government hospital, where I, [John Kempen], am teaching residents. (She consented to let us use the picture.) A retina specialist working under our clinic, Dr. Tsedeke Asaminew, performed the eye surgery without pay and the Eye Unit used donated funds to pay for the marginal costs of the surgery, leveraging the infrastructure we have built over the years with many contributions. Our staff assisted as part of their regular job. Hiwot showed her appreciation by trying to kiss my feet when she told me she that she can now see her children for the first time in nine months. MCM Eye Unit is the only place in Ethiopia (a nation of 120M people) where a person with retinal detachments or other conditions requiring vitreoretinal surgery can receive surgery without paying about $1,000 out of pocket, which is close to the cost-of-living wage for one year. Paying patients can have difficulty to access such surgery, because fewer than ten doctors perform this surgery in Ethiopia, two of whom are affiliated with our clinic. Those who cannot afford to will lose their vision irreversibly and permanently. We aspire to grow our ability to perform these services over time. We (the Kempens] thank Tenth Presbyterian Church (through your Easter Sacrificial Offering) for supporting this kind of service to poor Ethiopians. We also thank our dear Savior Jesus Christ for giving us the opportunity and the skills to help patients like Hiwot.

In another area of Africa, our global partner, A., (who has had an outreach to Muslims for decades here in the States) has expanded his ministry to Kenya, where pastors and their families have been greatly hurt by COVID-19 and severe droughts that have devastated the economy.  ESO funds will go to relieve some of the suffering of these pastors and their families.  Funds will be used to buy food and medicine.

Finally, we move west again to the coastal city of Barranquilla in Colombia, South America, where our pastor Enrique Leal comes from originally.  Tenth has had a long relationship with churches in Barranquilla.  Last year, ESO funds were used to build the exterior of a new sanctuary building for the Los Olivos Church.  This year, ESO funds will help complete the interior of this new building.  Los Olivos Church is in a low-income, neglected neighborhood of Barranquilla and serves hundreds of underserved children in the community.  The sanctuary will be a huge boost to the church’s presence, visibility, and effectiveness to reach its community for Christ.

You can give to the Easter Sacrificial Offering online.

The cluster of villages in the shadows of the Himalayas are an anthropologist’s dream: the exquisite wooden courtyard homes and the fertile lands at eight thousand feet elevation provide shelter and work for the P. peoples, one of the last matriarchal societies in the world. Property rights are handed down through the woman’s lineage and “walking marriage” is practiced widely, where the man visits the woman at night but then returns to his sister’s house the next morning to help her care for her children, often having no meaningful relationship with his own children. Their houses are adorned with colorful Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags flapping in the breeze as the aroma of incense wafts by, emanating from the snow-white stupas (mound-like places for meditation) nestled into every P. home. But this idyllic scene belies the rough edges and the dysfunctional social and family dynamics that are more suitable to the local name given to the P. peoples which translates as “Barbarians from the West.”

“Derma” and “Joshie” (not their real names) grew up in this context as neighbors and friends. When Derma was sick during her teen years and no local doctor, nor even the chanting of the best-paid lamas could accurately diagnose her, much less cure her, her family wrote her off as already gone. And yet, our merciful Father led an American physician across her path who accurately diagnosed her with acute tuberculosis, found medicine for her, and rescued her from the grave. It was then that Derma heard the good news about the Great Physician, and she believed in Him. Around the same time, Joshie was hearing parts of the same story and seeing it lived out in a teacher’s life, and he, too, came to believe. When Derma and Joshie married each other a few years ago, not only was it a rare example of true marriage for their culture, but it was also the first known marriage of two P. Christians in the history of the world!

“SEED” (not its real name) is partnering with Joshie and Derma in 2023 to grow three thousand cherry saplings and five thousand apple saplings for two years that SEED will then buy back to sell to future customers. This arrangement gives this young couple the promise of a living wage from their land, allowing them to stay and serve in their community, while also giving SEED a new source-nursery, after maxing out our own nursery space in our current city. Our consulting visits and nursery management training for this couple will also give a context for regular mutual encouragement and accountability in an environment where temptations for young believers are overwhelming.

With support from the Easter Sacrificial Offering (ESO), SEED will be able to make a difference in this couple’s life, and by God’s grace, bearing fruit in their family, their village, and the wider P. region, including fruit that will last.

This is just one example of how, through our Tenth global partners, this year’s Easter Sacrificial Offering will help accomplish God’s global mission to bring all nations to Himself, especially those who are unreached and hidden.

You can give to the Easter Sacrificial Offering online, or by check.