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The
Reed Family |
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Serving with Charity Baptist Missions to Eastern Europe since 1992
“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Gal. 6:2
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Feb. 28th 2010
Thankfully we are writing to you and everything is going well. We have a return date at the end of April. The Lord has done many things so far.
He has helped us raise 500 hundred dollars more a month for the national pastors in Bulgaria. When leaving Romania, the Senior Missionary spoke to me about his desire to raise more monthly support for the ten national pastors who help him take care of the over 80 monthly meetings. This will give the men 50 dollars more a month. We are so thankful to be able to help these faithful men and join in the fight to take the gospel to their poor villages. We have watched and prayed for most of these men and seen many of their persecutions and burdens since becoming believers. Their faith in Christ and his Church has brought them through many battles. I rejoice in the fact that through your faithfulness and sacrifices, we are able to extend our arm to help them have a larger part in this blessed work and their families well being.
Also the winter has been severe in Romania and Bulgaria this year. I myself ran out of wood and it helped wake me up to see and feel the need of the people I love and minister to in Romania. I wrote to Dave and ask him about it. He told me that in a nearby village an older woman had frozen to death because of not having wood and a lot of people were chopping up their furniture and burning old clothes to stay warm. I spoke to him about my burden and ask if any wood was available. Within two days they were able to locate a truck from the Ukraine. They were able to deliver 1 ton of wood to every one of the fifteen places where we have churches and feeding centers. Thankful for the ones that helped us pay for the wood and please don’t forget we will have to do this at least one more time before winter is over. Just let your fire burn out for a couple of hours and as you rebuild your fire, think of those poor children being able to come into a warm place and feel the warmth of the woodstove and hot meal. Oh if you could just hear the little voices sing the praises of God and thanks to His Church for their small sacrifices.
The Lord has opened many new doors since we have returned. New churches have asked us to come. We need more monthly support. We are praying that in the two months we have left here in America, more will help us on a monthly basis. God has given us 200 dollars more monthly support for Romania. We are so thankful for this, but are still asking God to really use us in the months ahead to raise three times that. Please join us in prayer and we will let you know how it goes before we leave in April.
Yours for Christ, Nathan Reed and Family
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Dear Brothers and Sister in Christ, November 13 2009
Greetings from Romania. I apologize for the delay in sending a prayer letter. The summer months have kept us so busy I haven't been able to find the time until now. I want to start by saying that we Praise the Lord for His goodness and provisions. We have seen the Lord provide for us to go to these meetings this summer as the gas prices have risen to $8.50 a gallon and food prices have tripled. We have seen God do great and mighty things.
The believers here are growing stronger everyday in the Lord. We are always amazed at how God is helping the believers as they come together in these towns and villages. They sing the hymns with power and pray in faith to their Father in heaven and He always sends the victory in one way or the other. Another blessing is during the summer months I have been able to take the children from the children's home to these meetings with me. They also have seen God working among their own people and they are starting to speak Turkish, their native tongue. They have gotten close to the believers, many of whom are their relatives, and they are being prayed for in every meeting they go too. We now have fifteen meetings a week were I go everyday.
There is a town called Megidia where we have had a meeting for around eleven years now. It is stable and people in the town know where the believers’ meeting is. A lady came two months ago and asked us to come to her house and pray for her husband. When the believers arrived they found a 35 year old man who had had a hemorrhage in his brain. He couldn't talk or lift his head and as they entered the house he wasn't able to see them. He started to cry as they sang the Turkish hymns. Before long everyone was crying and the Spirit started to move in a great way. After the hymns, they gathered around this poor man's bed and started to pray to God for him. We had been going to his house for two months to sing, pray, and help this family with very few results. The unbelieving neighbors laughed and mocked as we went in and out every week. I spoke to Ralph and told him about this man and the powerful services we had there every week. He said to just hold on to him! Praise be to God, He touched him. His wife said he began to speak and sat up and wanted his shoes so he could walk outside. The believers arrived the next day to find him sitting up and he greeted them with a handshake and a "Sukur." The unbelieving neighbors were amazed and many came to the meeting. One neighbor, who was a long time family enemy, sat through the whole meeting and after wards wanted to help the family with their electricity. We have continued to go to this family week after week and we've seen miracles in this man and his family.
In the town of Harsova, we have had a meeting for around seven years. Some unbelievers came against this meeting and wanted to run this man and his family out of town. He was forced to move to the city dunghill just outside of Constanta. He and his fourteen family members lived out in the weather with makeshift houses from garbage. We tried to help this man and his family through this trial. We had weekly meetings on this dunghill throughout the summer. God met with us in great power every time we gathered. I thank God for these believers and our Lord who is not ashamed to come down to this dunghill and meet with us every time we gathered. A relative from a near by town, came to this meeting on the dunghill. As the cars passed by, we worshiped and prayed and the relative wanted us to come to his town and have a meeting in his house. We now have been going to this man's house for two months now and have seen God bless this man's faith. The people staying at the dunghill have now been able to return to their village and we thank God for taking care of them and allowing us to be able to have meetings in their home again.
In August one of our Turkish pastors was injured in a car accident going home from a Turkish meeting one Monday afternoon. He broke his back and was in great pain. He had always been faithful to the meetings and has a wonderful spirit and preaches with much power. We prayed that God would heal this man and allow him to be able to come back to the meetings. I have gone to his house and had meetings there since the accident and this man praises God the whole time we are there and prays for me and the believers as we go to the meetings everyday. He is able to walk now and I can't wait to see him back in the meetings.
October 17th we began a three day Turkish meeting with believers coming up from Bulgaria. We were able to bring around sixty Turkish believers up from Bulgaria. With the Romanian Turkish believers we had around one hundred together here on the grounds of the children's home. Bro. Ralph had always wanted to have a Turkish camp-meeting and we saw it come to pass. To experience the fruit of the Spirit in these believers as these two countries came together was more then words can say. To hear their testimonies of the last fifteen years and to watch them cry and sing and praise the Lord was truly heavenly. The meetings ran way into the morning hours and many would stay up all night singing and testifying and praying. Many of the believers here in Romania had never experienced this kind of power and were changed forever.
October 29th begins our English Camp-meeting. All the missionaries from Bulgaria will come to the children's home where we will have meetings in the morning and at night. All the missionaries look forward to these meetings. It is a time of fellowship with each other and to be able to hear preaching, singing, and praying in our own language. In the English Camp-meeting this past July the Holy Spirit touched many of the children here in the home and saved two of the missionary children. It would come in waves and the children of the home and many others would just begin to weep. The little children didn't understand why they were crying, but we knew that the Lord was working in a mighty way. As I watched the Spirit touch these little ones I could not help but believe and rejoice as He was calling the next generation of laborers to work in His fields. Praise be to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for ever and ever. Amen
Thank you all for your faithful prayers and support of this ministry. From Romania Nathan Reed and family.
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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, June 2009
Greetings once again from my family here at the home and all the believers in Romania. The meetings are going very good and the Holy Spirit is moving mightily, especially with the young people. The children are now out for summer vacation and the children here in the home are now able to travel with me to most of the nineteen weekly meetings. It is a blessing to watch the Holy Spirit move and reveal His work with these poor village people as we sing, pray and preach to these that face some of the most horrible situations imaginable.
This year we have helped one make the crossing into heaven and seen many find great victory and deliverance by the quickening of their spirits through finding God's faithfulness and love by Jesus Christ. It always amazes me to hear one of the little ones say, "daddy, are we going to the sick women's house today?" I would reply, "No, she went to heaven to be with Jesus, but we are going to the sick man's house and he is getting better". I am blessed to see both grow together in faith and knowledge of God's hand.
I have eight young Turkish people who travel with me to most of the meetings. They have all been raised on the bread and food of our feeding centers most or all of their lives. In many ways their faith is purer and stronger then some of the older believers, because they have only been under our teachings in the meetings and are educated so they can read the hymns and Bible. Two of the young men are preaching and leading the hymns in some of the meetings with me each day. Please continue to pray for all of the youth's faith and spiritual growths.
One of the young men's name is Kemal. He is twenty six and has a wife and two little girls. Kemal's father and mother were some of the first believers who started coming to our morning prayer meetings now over thirteen years. Kemal's father, Amet, was an alcoholic. His mother, Ati, started to come to our morning prayer meetings over ten years now. Amet was against her coming, but they needed the three loaves of bread we give out to each believer everyday to help feed their nine children. Ati quickly became strong in faith and soon saw the power of praying in the name of Jesus. She returned home one afternoon and found her husband at home and hungry. He wanted some food and there wasn't much. He started to talk very badly to her so she closed the door and got down on her knees with her hands out and started to pray out loud to her new found Lord. He got up and walked over to the fire and plucked out a hot coal and placed it into her hand and said something like this, "this is all your god is going to give you. "She was burned, but it only made her heart burn more to see him become a believer. She started to request prayer for him and her situation at home. Soon Amet found himself drunk, out in the dead of winter, passed out on the street. Ati found herself out in the cold looking and worried about his safety. She took a blanket and laid down beside him until morning. Amet found himself going to a meeting with her not long after that and also became a believer. Now he stands and testifies of how the Lord has delivered him from drinking and for over ten years he only drinks from God's fountain.
Kemal's wife's grandfather and grandmother were also won through a prayer meeting in another part of town. The grandfather, Ali, is one of our national pastors and he and his wife have had a church and feeding center in their house and traveled with us to most meetings for over ten years now. Ali's wife, Aisha, is now dying with cancer. She will not last the summer unless the Lord does a miracle. They are both glad they have served the Lord these years. Ali stood in the meeting in his house and testified at how Aisha was going to the meeting just down the road every morning and could see a change in her. He was very jealous of her and didn't want her to go, but they also needed the bread to feed there four children. She would ask him to go, but he was so proud he wouldn't go. He use to go to the train station to sell bootlegged cigarettes every morning. One morning after his wife ask him to go he had a thought on his long walk to the station. He remembered, sometime before Aisha had started to get the bread every morning, they got up and had nothing to feed their children. He started to cry as his testified and said, "I looked at my children and said I can do with out, but I can't stand to see them hungry. These are my children". He left his house upset and started to pray for God to help him. He started back to his house and passed by some trash cans and there in a bag beside the cans was a bag that had four loaves of bread someone had left. He went to the meeting with his wife because he had remembered this. He reached the meeting and was afraid to go in, but found everyone so happy to see him, he sat down. When he heard the hymns he said it was like a warm tub of water had been poured on his soul. He has been a believer ever since. I can't even began to tell you the things they have gone through since that day, but I can tell you they know who Jesus Christ is. Please pray for them and his wife as we help her make the crossing.
Kemal has just this year really started to have a burden for his people. He is very musical and can start any of the hymns from memory and has a very good knowledge of the New Testament. After he was own the street for two days and two nights the Lord helped me to find him a place for him and his family to live and it has really put me back financially every month of this year. He has become a very big help to me and we are gone sometimes ten hours a day trying to supply the needs of his people. Please pray I can supply all his needs financially so we together can supply the spiritual needs of these people.
I must ask of you one more thing. As I was writing this prayer letter to you I received a phone call informing me that our only van was in a accident today. It is still drivable, but will need some repair in the rear end. It is my only way of getting the food and believers to the feeding centers and meetings weekly. I have received some help for a new one, but still need some more money. I spoke about this in my last prayer letter and I thank you, the ones who have responded. I know it is no mistake it happen now as I was writing to you and I pray to you and my God for help. I don't know what else to say.
May God richly bless you is my prayer. From Romania. Nathan Reed
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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, July 2002
We Pray this finds
you well and trust you are having a good camp meeting. We have had a blessed
day and want to thank the Lord for all his blessings over here. Last night,
Teresa and I stayed with a young man who is dying. He is eighteen years old,
but because of his sickness he only looks like he is eight or nine. His mother
and father are both dead and has only one sister who is very poor. At one of
the courtyards where we have a church we have fixed him a room to stay in until
he dies. His sister told me last night that she only has two beds in her house
to sleep ten people. Every time he would come to stay with her he always had to
sleep on the floor and she didn't believe he had ever had a bed of his own.
Even in the hospital he had to share a room with four other men and every time I
went to see him he would cry because he didn't want to die there with cold
strangers. I thank God we have been able to provide a room and a nice bed for
him die on. It was truly a blessing to see everyone come together to take care
of this orphan boy. Today, Tracy Blalock cut his hair and he was so weak he
could hardly hold his head up from all the blood he is losing and infection he
has in his body. Unless God touches him he will die soon, so please remember
him when you pray. I will leave after I write this letter and stay the night
with him and the other believers.
We had a very good meeting in the village tonight. Before we
left I was able to hold the newest addition to the children's home, one week old
Niki. She is so small, but beautiful. She has more hair than I do, but that's
not saying much anymore. Keith told me on the way to the meeting her mother is
a prostitute and it made him mad when she brought her to the van and just handed
her to them and turned around like it was nothing. Truly these babies would
have no other place in this world without the New Children's Home. We now have
six and are expecting two more new babies anytime. Please pray for this mighty
work.
I thank God for the meeting tonight. Everyone seemed to be tied upon
arrival, but once we got to singing the Holy Spirit took over. People started
to cry as God moved on his children in that little room. We had our first
prayer and it was very strong. Then the people were given a chance to give
testimonies. Many testified. The woman of the house testified of how thankful
she was for the first time she came to the meeting. She didn't want to come,
but was very curious. She listened to the hymns and her heart began to hurt and
when the believers prayed it was like a bird came and took her fear away. She
is so thankful to have the church in her house and when we leave the meeting she
can only stand at the gate with wide eyes waiting for our return. Then one of
the young ladies who is taking care of the dying boy stood and weeping praised
God that there is a place like heaven where this poor boy can go to when he
dies. He has had nothing but pain and trouble all his life, but soon it will
all end and he will finally be at rest. Then another one of the teens stood to
thank God for all he is able to do when you pray. She feeds 25 to 30 children a
day and was having problems with some of the neighbors. She went into her house
and got down on her knees and prayed to her Heavenly Father for help. Not long
after I came around to give out the food for that week. Then without me knowing
anything about what she had done, I began to preach to all of them to not
forsake the house of God. That God only wanted us to come and meet together and
thank Him for the things he had given us. She testified of how this had taken
care of the problem and there was no way I could have known. I told her to keep
praying for me!
Then a lady from Joe's meeting stood and testified of how her husband use
to get drunk and want to beat her for going to the meetings. He wouldn't help
her with anything and he didn't care if she and the children starved to death.
She prayed for him and he became a believer. He was there and not only him, but
also two of his sons and you just can't believe what God has done for this
family. The husband testified and confirmed that everything that his wife had
told was the truth and that he found that when he prayed there was a strength
that came and now his whole family are believers. They feed 35 - 40 children
everyday. Brother Keith Blalock stood and told them that when he had left for
the meeting he was filling really sick and weak, but the Lord had helped him in
the meeting. He has been fasting for three days because there was only $380
that had come in for the running of the children's home this month. Please pray
about this. Then one of our national pastors preached about one of the hymns
that is in the Turkish hymn book. It is from 1 Cor.13. on charity. It was
great. We then sang the song and before it was over just about everyone in the
room was up on their feet with hands in the air singing praises to the Heavenly
Father. It was one of those services where you didn't want to leave. They sang
after the service and all the way back to Constanta. Well we thank God for what
he is doing over here and for you the faithful ones who support us through your
prayers. May God Richly Bless You.
Because of Calvary, Nathan, Teresa, Jacob & Rachel Reed
And now
abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity”.
1 Cor. 13:13