Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
With the Christmas holiday creeping closer on our calendar, we have been busy about town laboring to make known this Christ whom we celebrate. Many celebrate with decorations, ornaments, songs, food, and dozens of other traditions. We are happy to have the open door to speak of the Lord Jesus Christ in public at this time of year with relatively little conflict. Even those who do not have faith in Christ will still listen as the story is told from God's Word. Many will attend services and pageants at local churches where the Scriptural accounts are read and songs proclaiming the birth of the Christ child.
I was reminded as we gathered to worship this past week of the song, "Joy to the world" which includes the lyrics, "Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns! Let men their songs employ. While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy" I am reminded that should we keep this message to ourselves then even the rocks will cry out! How great a privilege to serve the Lord in this mission field, where people from many nations come to vacation. What a blessing to be able to speak to the local artisans, performers, and those in varying fields of work and play, about our Savior's birth. With all this in mind, we have designed a Gospel tract for Key West. Mark took this picture and wrote the text, focusing on the town motto, "One Human Family". This was edited for us by Justin Humes and we just ordered the first shipment of 5,000 to give away as a sort of souvenir Gospel tract.
We will be putting together other materials for this outreach and
using many available from Uplook Ministries and the Good News Granary. We thank the Lord for the availability of these materials and the freedom to give God's message of salvation out in word and in print on the streets without persecution. We have been blessed to meet many folks in our Mon/Wed/Friday Bible studies on the front steps at the chapel, through the outreach at Mallory Square, and via our Open Casa Night at the chapel where we provide a free meal and time to get to know the folks of our community. We have many more plans as the Lord leads to reach out to families, children, older folks, and this whole town in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you to all who have contacted us, who pray for us regularly, and those who have given toward the work of the Lord here in Key West. We got an email today from a dear sister in Christ who labors for the Lord in Zambia. It seems Alice White was commended from this local church in 1958 and still serves the Lord in medical missions work in Zambia. We are enjoying the new insight into the Lord's work here, and the history of the Gospel Chapel testimony through the last 100+ years.
Mark and Sara Cowperthwaite
Nathaniel, Virginia, Naomi, and Samuel
