Welcome to the Southside World Missions blog site where you can find more about our mission partners around the world. We also have photos from our partners and from our trips.
Stay informed about Southside missions
Kenya Book Drive
The children of Kijabe Kenya have no access to a public library. Our mission partners there, Bryce and Mary Beth Noblitt, are working to bless their community with a children’s library.
The Missions Committee would like to thank everyone for a successful book drive. Southside members donated 1,700 books, plus a full box of crayons and colored pencils.
In addition to being donated, all these books had to be unloaded, sorted, cataloged for customs, packed into boxes, and loaded again. Many of you helped with this huge project. In combination with three other participating congregations, we now have over 6,000 books in 98 boxes ready to be delivered to Samaritans Purse on Tuesday for transportation to Kenya.
The Noblitts have reported the library space, which has been empty for decades, has been renovated with fresh paint and flooring. Construction of bookshelves begins this week. They look forward to blessing their community in a way they have not been blessed before.
You may keep up with the Noblitt’s at kenyahear.org
March report from Pedro Sanchez
Hello dear friends, I hope you are well with God’s help.
We traveled from March 7 to April 1 to the United States with the evangelist of the church of Christ the Los Nogales Masaru Guzman. I want to thank God for my dear friend Masaru. It was a great instrument and a blessing for all of us.
Read about their travels in the following file you can open and/or download:
News from Dave & Julie Eberhard
Their April newsletter includes information about future travel plans:
“…in the fall, there is a big trip to Asia where Dave is involved in 4 different projects. This will cover about 4-6 weeks, so I [Julie] will go with him. He’ll start in Penang, Malaysia with a conference where he and his colleague will present a paper on the impact and use of Bible translation in Indonesia.
During the conference he will also be meeting with his “Journey” team. They will be doing a training session for missionaries who work with endangered languages at the end of the conference. Then we’ll fly to Ku-ching, Malaysia, to do an Ethnologue workshop to update our information on minority languages there.
After that we’ll have a few free days where we hope to be able to see our son Rutti in Japan, since it’s in the “neighborhood.” Then on to Mae Sot, Thailand, on the border of Myanmar, to lead another Journey workshop with minority communities from Myanmar.
For the full April report, open or download the following:
February report from Pedro Sanchez
Hello beloved friends,
We had an unforgettable experience in the city of La Serena. My children Marcelo and Matraca invited us to their house in the fourth region of Chile, the city of La Serena to enjoy a week’s vacation with my wife Lorena and my daughter Aylin.
When we arrived at Marcelo’s house on Monday, there was a meeting of “evangelical” pastors to share a Biblical devotional and pray. The pastors gave me the opportunity to share “my testimony” of how God called me with His grace.
When I finished sharing my testimony and the transformation of Jesus in my life, one of the pastors got up from the table, walked toward me, gave me a hug, and crying told me: “Peyuco (nickname for Pedro), the bandit from Los Nogales (where I am from), I knew you and I witnessed what your old life was like and how now God has changed you to be his instrument.” There was a moment of great excitement and rejoicing with everyone present. We got up to glorify God for his great love and mercy.
To read the full report, open or download this file:
Pablo & Laura Sanchez Report for Dec, Jan, Feb 2024
Hola in Christ!
We are alive and kicking here in early 2024 even though it saw a lot of good and a lot of stretch in our physical and spiritual lives! Normally we send out the Christmas cards, the end of year emails, post on the gram and the socials but this year literally was a blur.
Over these last three months glory to God we have had 8 more baptisms. , I thank God because without the help of the church we would not be able to do a good job of evangelism, since they are the same brothers who make the contacts so that we can come to their house and talk to them about the gospel, it’s all a team effort.
But one of the best blessings was that Julio Cedeño, one of the Elders from the Northwest Church of Christ, our overseeing congregation of our mission work here, and his son also named Julio Cedeño (different middle name) an amazing man of God and fantastic brother in arms of ours from the Hollywood Church of Christ came and visited us in December and encouraged us, poured into our congregation here in Nogales and in the Church plant we serve in in the city in Antofogasta in the north of Chile. It is beyond what words can write to tell you the encouragement it is to us to have you all come and meet the people we serve and just encourage us and see the work up close. We loved getting to be blessed by their visit, their wisdom, their teaching and their love.
To read more from this report, open or download this file:
January 2024 report from Pedro Sanchez
Josh Blackmer is a missionary at the Palm Beach Lakes Church of Christ. He was working as a missionary for 5 years in Paraguay. From there has began to travel to Isla de Pascua (Easter Island) and before the pandemic he contacted us. We were planning a trip to help him with the work he was doing there but
unfortunately it was not possible due to the pandemic and they did not allow us access to the island but we kept in touch until today.
In January we sent one of our evangelists Raul Diaz to help in the work that is being done there. We agree that we will make 4 trips within the year to continue helping our brother Josh. May God bless Josh and everything he is doing.
To read more about the work of Pedro Sanchez and evangelists at Los Nogales in Santiago, open or download this file:
Report from the Bridges in Honduras
God Continues to Surprise Us
Last month we wrote about how our R.A.D.I.C.A.L. school program came about and the growth that it has experienced moving from a simple tutoring outreach to a community wide effort. What we rejoice in seeing is the impact that our school program has on our church planting efforts. This year our youth group has grown from about fourteen teens to about twenty-seven! The incredible part is that almost all of these are unchurched young people. Only seven come from the congregations in Corquín and Potrerillos.
To read more from the Bridges in Honduras, please open or download this file:
Cebu Bible College year-end update
We want to thank you for supporting us with prayer and financial support for another year. Because of what you generously give, the important work of minister training, evangelism, Church planting and discipleship continues in the Philippines. Your sacrifice for the Lord’s work here results in great things, and we are pleased to update you on what all God did this past year, through CBC and the church plants on the island of Cebu that were begun by CBC graduates.
—
Mark and Debbie VanDyke
From Pablo and Laura Sanchez
Hola Brothers and Sisters!
Yes, this report is a month behind schedule and our apologies but that is due to the fact that these past three months have been some of the busiest we have seen in yet. Thank you for your patience and we are excited to share what has been happening here since August! God has been moving in big ways and we are doing our best to keep up and raise up workers along side us.
So many of you know that the large part of our work is evangelism, edification and restoration, most of that work is done through personal bible studies in homes or visits. Laura and I sat down and counted it out and over the last 3 months I have been studying with 32 different people weekly in homes in one or more of those three areas. That number has never been so high before and not without its fruits.
In the last 3 months we have had 17 new baptisms glory to God. 2 in September, 13 in October, and 2 in November. September we celebrated our churches 27th year anniversary as a congregation with a big congregational dinner, we were so blessed to have Brian and Michelle visiting us from Ecuador, they blessed us by taking my wife and I to the Southern part of Chile for a 3 day couple get away which was a time of prayer, renewel and fun! What a blessing, we also have our Chilean National celebrations 18th of September where Chile celebrates it’s independence and the whole country goes on a 5 day holiday in honor of that! So there are a lot of barbeques and time together in family. But Church doesn’t stop and as our church continues to grow and the demand for my time and the other evangelists time is needed
more in outreach. Yet God in his provision has also brought more great young men willing to serve to the fore front. So in October, I offered a Lord’s supper and devotional preparation training for men in our congregation who are interested.
There was a great turn out, around 14 men of all ages showed up. Several have taken great initiative and are doing a wonderful job. The Congregation in La Villa also held there annual evangelistic campaign where I was again honored to be invited to be one of the speakers and that campaign resulted in 3 of the 17 baptisms I am happy to tell you about.
Laura has also been very busy working on a series in Genesis for our women’s ministry here in Nogales. She has given three classes and is set to give the fourth at the end of this month. The series is called “Us” looking at the relational nature of God and therefore the relational dynamic we were created for with each other and God as being image bearers. It is very exciting work and our ladies are loving it. She is also working very hard as a tutor for our girls home school community, teaching our own two girls and investing in women in our church one on one ministry needs of various women just by having them in our home and listening to them and praying with them. This year she has worked very hard in building up
new leaders for our children’s ministry and has a great group of ladies.
For more news from Pablo and Laura Sanchez, read or download the PDF file below. Photos are included.
Southside Church of Christ World Missions 