November 2020 – Southside Church of Christ World Missions

We asked Pedro to send a message to the Southside congregation. As part of his update, he shares the inspiring story of his experience with COVID-19 and God’s faithfulness to him.

Chilean evangelist Pedro Sanchez sends his greetings to Southside and shares the story of God’s faithfulness through his sickness with COVID-19.

Time to empty those Coins for Christ coin banks. For the next four weeks, we will provide the normal coin depository in the Gathering Place for those who are meeting there.

For those meeting in the auditorium, a temporary collection bin will be in the front foyer (it will be light green in color and have a sign on it).

With our regular schedule being interrupted this year, the proceeds will be split between Nigeria and the Philippines.

If you are unfamiliar with the Coins For Christ program, please read this.

The need for prayer is always growing, and the needs of our missions partners are always changing. In order to keep everything in front of the Lord, our attention to being prayerful in all things needs to become more deliberate.

We are reforming a mission prayer team to focus on this extremely important need.

We will periodically send out e-mails that highlight the needs of our missions partners.

If you wish to be on this e-mail list and become a Missions Prayer Warrior, please let Alvin Cox know or simply opt-in by sending a quick e-mail to SouthsideWorldMissions@gmail.com.

Going into 2020, we had prayers and plans going on for mission trips to Nigeria, the Philippines and Croatia. We also were looking forward to having have Chi, Pedro Sanchez, and Steve Taliaferro visit Southside. While we were looking for God’s blessing for these trips and visits to take place, the Spirit had other plans.

Our missions partners have dealt with quite a few roadblocks this year. They have seen an earthquake, fundraisers canceled, mission trips put on hold, financial support lost due to job loss, quarantine and severe lockdowns around the world, travel restrictions (in country and internationally), internships canceled, church plants halted, rising food costs, new ministry development slowed down, loss of church members from the virus, and having their own health directly affected by the coronavirus.

Despite the perception that these are all negative things, God has used these as opportunity to show His faithfulness. He blessed our missions partners with badly needed funds, the creativity to take advantage of the internet to continue to spread the Gospel, with a growing faith made stronger by the trials they have faced, with prayers from around the world, with survival from this deadly virus, and with a growing desire to show that God is glorified through all this.

Southside has been blessed to be part of this. While the world has changed and stopped in many different ways, the number of prayers have grown, as have the number of answered prayers.

Families have been consoled during the loss of loved ones. Bible classes have been taught. Personal Bible study has continued. Preaching has touched more lives than every before. People have been baptized. Personal and spiritual relationships have grown. God’s faithfulness has been seen. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit have all been glorified.

We prayerfully look forward to the blessings that God will provide as a new year soon begins. We prayerfully look forward to visiting Nigeria, the Philippines, Croatia and Chile in 2021, and to having several of our mission’s partners visit Southside.

But more so, we prayerfully look forward to seeing where the Spirit is leading. – Alvin Cox, ministry leader