Evangelist Craig Cobb: DAY #5 - MISSIONS CONFERENCE

Tonight was another great service filled with singing, special music, missionary presentations and awesome preaching! It was also filled with "technical difficulties" as we connected (or tried!) via Skype to two missionaries we currently support.

First up was Jim VanVoltenburg in Scotland. We had a hard time with the Skype as there was a very long delay with the audio. Finally we ended up connecting on "FaceTime" (go iPhone!). The conversation was not as long as we would have liked but we were able to get the following update from Bro. VanVoltenburg:

The church is doing very good. Some battles that they were fighting the Lord has taken care of.
Visitors have been steadily stopping by the services.
A lost man (Billy) has come four weeks in a row and we were asked to pray specifically for his salvation.

After our conversation to Scotland we were able to get a good connection to Bulgaria and hear from Missionary Nick Maulucci. He and his family have been on the field there for many years and the Lord is really doing a great work in that part of Europe. Here are some highlights:

They have handed out over 50,000 John & Romans since the first of the year.
Their goal is to completely cover each door in one city per month. The major goal is to give every home in the whole country of Bulgaria a copy of John & Romans. Since they started this project they have given out over 600,000 - praise God! This translates to approximately 40% of the country.
The church recently had their second missions conference and saw the Faith Promise increase from $500 per YEAR to $350 per MONTH - a big jump.
A public school ministry has been started and that is also now a big focus of their outreach.

Pastor Danny Farley hit the nail on the head again! God has really been using him in the preaching this week. The message tonight was a missions message but could apply to an individual's life, the church, a ministry and so on. Acts 13 served as the text and I will just simply give you the outline as it was preached. The idea was on OPPORTUNITIES...

They come to those who are already busy (verses 1-2)
They produce opposition (verses 6-8)
They reveal character - the possession of it and the lack of it (verse 13)
They reveal and produce leadership (verses 9-10, 2 and 13)

Bro. Farley also gave two quotes tonight that really stuck out to me...

Don't get so hung up on the past that you forfeit your future
Opportunities that are neglected are lost forever

We have one more service tomorrow night and are praying God will give us a great finish to the meeting. After the service we will be having an "International Taste of Old Time". The service will be live streamed beginning at 7:00pm (EST) on the church's website.