February, 2024
Dear Friends,
The above scripture talks of the churches of Macedonia that sent offerings to Jerusalem by the hand of Paul, even though they were poor. When we were going through our new missionary orientation with the IBPFM, Dr. William LeRoy taught the Nevius method of missions, which is just the scriptural method of missions. That is, that the goal of our missionary work in foreign countries, is to develop self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating churches, even if they are relatively poor. This is the only sustainable method of missions.
CAMEROON
Speaking of self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating churches in relatively poor countries, we have the good example with the church we work with in Cameroon – The Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Cameroon or EPCO (following the French name, and has no connection with any Orthodox Presbyterian Church anywhere else). They have been on their own since the creation of their denomination back in around 1970. On the self-propagating side, Ken was involved in them sending missionaries to the Muslim north of Cameroon; and they are still working there.
On the self-governing side, they have a General Assembly, three synods, a dozen presbyteries, and about 200 churches. They just had their annual General Assembly (held every January). Ken received an official written invitation from EPCO to attend their General Assembly and strengthen their ICCC ties, but he had to decline for the moment. Ken explained to them that he has not gone anywhere by airplane since the ICCC was held in Chile four years ago, and that he had blood pressure problems the last few times he flew.
Now, after four years, Ken will try to fly again on a shorter trip to Florida. They will be going in February to see their new grandchild Jotham (pictured right), son of our Mark, and his wife, Lydia. If all goes well with this flight, perhaps Ken can go to the General Assembly of EPCO next year and also to the ICCC in Kenya in 2026. It would be better to go to Cameroon closer to the ICCC because EPCO is not likely to make serious plans for sending delegates to Kenya much in advance.
EPCO had a big split in the church for a few years, but that is now healed. In their invitation letter they acknowledged that Ken had urged them to heal the division. The letter says (translated from the French), “We do not forget that you are one who made great initiatives to bring back peace in the midst of our spiritual family.” We have enclosed two pictures of Cameroon on the back of our letter. The one is of the seminary director, Olama, and his family. He was the one to whom we sent the pallet of books, etc. recently. The other is a recent picture of a congregation where Ken preached multiple times in the past.
USA
We are continuing to preach, teach, and go door-to-door in Kingsville and Marcus Hook. Lately Ken has been preaching more often, just about every week. Ken preached at the annual Thanksgiving service of Marcus Hook, the Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving, and as usual the other BP churches in the area were invited to attend. Not that we put much faith in numbers but we praise the Lord that the attendance was the most that we have ever seen for any service of the Marcus Hook church. We also attended special meetings in Collingswood: the Reformation Day dinner and the Christmas concert.
Ken just received another printing of 10,000 English Gospel tracts, entitled “Moving On Up.” We never want to run short on ammunition for the good fight.
At the end of December we had a get-together celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary, which was put together by our daughter, Priscilla. It was good to see many of the people from our churches there.
Our sons Matthew and Luke, and their families, were up visiting for the holidays. Continue to pray for our granddaughter Leah, as her cancer markers went up slightly recently. She had a biopsy on a point of concern, but, Praise the Lord, it came back as showing nothing amiss. The doctor found a staph infection that may have caused the increased cancer markers and Leah will be taking some antibiotics for this infection. Enclosed is a picture of Leah this past Christmas.
Thanks again for all of your prayers and support.
In Christ,
Ken and Ira Olson