Early in 2020 while Home Missions was working on the final new church development steps to recommend to EFCMAYM Elders to move Living Friends to a full Friends church, our Nepali Pastor Dal Bey Tamang introduced me to a pastor friend who works with him at the Walmart Distribution Center in Ft. Worth, TX. This pastor, Elisee Mutshipayi, a native Congolese leader from Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in West Central Africa, has been leading his new congregation, a non-denominational fellowship in Hurst, TX, since 2015. Pastor Elisee and his wife, Mariam Kabasele, and their three sons reside in northwest Ft. Worth, TX.
Pastor Elisee speaks French, English, and several other African dialects, and his congregation, Adonai Evangelical Church, worships in the French language. Over the next few months, these two Pastors and their congregations traded pulpits for messages and fellowship meals and became close friends. After a time, Pastor Dal had asked Pastor Elisee if he might be interested in affiliating with EFC-MAYM by joining our movement. Pastor Elisee explained our process to his leaders at Adonai Church, and they notified HMB that they were interested in working our process.
Currently, the Adonai leaders are working on our congregational affiliation process and anyone interested in joining our Partner Church oversight team, please contact me. A Partner Advisory team of EFC-MAYM leaders and the representatives from Adonai Church have been working on our Journey Toward Maturity Affiliation process, which includes journey covenants and other Texas legal steps. We are excited now to introduce this wonderful new congregation of nearly 100 participating members as Adonai Evangelical Friends Church, now of Ft. Worth, TX, where they are worshipping in east Ft. Worth at 500 Harwood Avenue. Please send prayers and blessings to Pastor Elisee at propheteElisee15@gmail.com. Also, continue to pray for their continued outreach and ministry in the greater DFW metro area.
Thanks as always!
Randy Littlefield