Update from Ron and Angie Onks in Australia

This update came in from Ron and Angie Onks, missionaries to Australia where Ron ministers to middle school and high school students. Ron is a gifted Evangelist and has a passion for the full Gospel and preaching it to kids. His ministry is fruitful and they are a hard working family.

September 20, 2008

Dear Pastor Kuvakas & Saints of Warrenton Bible Fellowship,

Yesterday as Ron was finishing a school class where he had just taught religious education, a male student said to Ron, “I have asked Jesus Christ to come into my life, but how can I know that I really am saved?” The entire class listened to Ron’s answer to this question; this is because many of the students in that class have told Ron they have trusted in Jesus Christ as their Saviour. We have given to the students who ask, information concerning how they can know they are saved. We are delighted to share with you that about two dozen more students have trusted in Jesus Christ in Ron’s 16 classes. In the past few weeks two more students also have asked where they can get a Bible. Our church is buying more Bibles to give as a gift when the students enquire about getting a Bible: the students are thrilled to get their own Bible as a gift. We have been faithfully sharing with the students the truth of God’s love, but also about His judgment. We have found that using the “10 Commandments” to convict the students of their constant sin, makes a big difference as they turn to the Lord for forgiveness with a heart of repentance. Many other students recently have been asking Ron how they should pray to ask Jesus Christ to come into their lives to forgive them. How wonderful it will be one day in the future to see in Heaven so many Australian souls because you have cared to make an eternal impact in their lives by supporting this ministry with your prayers and finances: we thank you so much.

Teachers and students in Ron’s classes continue listening and asking questions. Yesterday another secular school teacher was thrilled to learn from Ron that we don’t have to ‘only’ eat fish as a meat on Fridays; she had always been taught that. Ron gets all sorts of questions that the previous years’ religious education teachers would never answer. The most common questions asked are about dinosaurs, Heaven, Hell, the Bible, baptism and church. This past term focused on “God’s Creation” from Genesis and it has been a great opportunity to teach the students where sin came from, where Cain got his wife, about the global flood, the ark, etc. The students have been surprised to learn that the earth is young and that mankind lived very long ages only a few thousand years ago before the global flood. We see the students objections dismissed when Ron explains that dinosaurs existed with mankind, they were originally vegetarians and they were on the ark (either in eggs or as baby dinosaurs). Ron has come up with an acronym name for the “forbidden fruit” that Adam and Eve ate; the students kept calling it an apple, but Ron calls it the “Kogae” (pronounced Koh-gay) fruit; why, because it came from the tree of the Knowledge Of Good And Evil. The kids at times still call it an apple. A few students have started subscribing to “Creation” magazine and other students have been taking smaller magazines from Ron. As Ron was leaving one class recently, the students called out “we love you.” Later that morning, two students walked up to Ron and hugged him; that is always awkward because we can’t hug the students for obvious reasons. Even permission to get pictures of the classes is very difficult: we hope to have pictures of one class in the next letter. Ron’s students know he has a genuine concern for their souls.

We mentioned in our last letter how we have witnessed to Daniel; a man who said he now realizes there is no real proof for evolution and that he had been told a stack of lies by his college teachers, who never questioned what they had been taught. Daniel recently took more DVDs from us to watch. Please continue to pray for the Holy Spirit to convict him about the Word of God and its reliability; he needs to understand that his sinful conduct has separated him from God, but he can have a restored relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Some other good news is that Ron has NOT dropped any of his religious education classes at the Oxenford State School as he mentioned he might do in our last letter: their conduct was terrible when he started teaching there. However, those two classes now have greatly improved in behavior. Some trouble students are gone and others, who were misbehaving, are keenly listening: the power of prayer, PTL!

Ron mentioned the name of “Jesus Christ” to some young students at the Gaven State School and they immediately said to him, “you said a naughty word.” Wow! How sad that they only know Jesus Christ’s name as a ‘swear’ word. Furthermore at that same school, another religious education teacher is telling students that the “Adams apple” in a man’s throat is punishment because Adam sinned and ate the forbidden “apple;” this reinforces to us how poorly learned many of the other religious education teachers are. A liberal pastor of a struggling main stream denomination church here in Australia, three weeks ago told Ron that we should never tell the kids about God’s judgment, but only of God’s love. We face a battle of many fronts- false teaching, erroneous teachers who don’t believe all of God’s word, opposition from the unsaved and of course ungodly spiritual forces. We are so grateful that God has placed us in this evangelism school ministry so that we can teach students the entire truth of God’s Word. A recent study by the Barna Group, a well known Christian research group, concluded that what you believe by the time you are thirteen years old, is what you will die believing: our lifelong beliefs clearly are shaped in the early years of our development. The primary school kids are much more accepting and trusting toward God. What a responsibility we have while the door is still open to reach these young students with the gospel; we must “keep at it” as the day eventually may come when the door to such a great opportunity may be closed. We thank you for being a part of this ministry team.

Allow us please to give you a bit of miscellaneous news. Ron’s sister, Donna in Tennessee, has recovered well from her heart-attack. Angie still has constant back pain which is caused by scoliosis; she is being monitored by doctors and she has trouble sitting for long periods. Our little church is fine but we have two very sick members with their prognosis not looking good. Both of their names are Les; please pray for them and their families. Please pray for our safety and for the parsonage here: three years ago a super-cell storm did much damage to our parsonage and again such super storm-cells have been in our area this week.

We are trying to be good stewards of God’s funds: thus if you don’t mind, we are making changes in how we keep in touch with our support team. This is necessary because of high petrol and grocery (due to drought) cost and we were just informed that over the next few years our annual water cost is going to increase up to 800%; yes that is correct. Thus when possible, we are sending our letters to our support team via e-mail to help cut postage cost which has increased again; our postage cost has been well over $1200 a year; we hope to cut it to $400 per year. If you have a better e-mail address or multiple e-mail addresses, please notify us, so that we can send this letter to all of your e-mail addresses. Please DO NOT forget to inform us of any changes to your email address; we will need to know for future contact. Thank you for understanding. After reading this letter, please with a simple ‘one-line’ message, send us an email confirmation that you got this letter; we want to make sure our support team is receiving this communiqué without fail.

Please continue to pray that our Lord will supply much more needed financial support for this fruitful ministry. We are greatly encouraged by your love and we thank you for being a part of this team via your prayers and finances. May God richly bless you for your faithful support to this Australian ministry!
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Please also remember to continue praying for the following:

For other long term financial support to help replace some matured ‘home going’ supporters.

For wisdom and protection as Ron teaches in Australian schools.

For the Lord to mature in Christ some of Ron’s former students who are now Christians.

For open doors in school students’ hearts.

For our church growth and the health of the mature aged
members.

Field address: 22 Pandora Crescent Pacific Pines, QLD. 4211 Australia, 0116175561 8474

Sending Church: Grace Bible: 9115 Lorton Station Boulevard Lorton, VA. 22079 (703) 339-7292

Independent Gospel Missions: 990 Calkins Road Rochester, NY. 14623 (585) 334 9048

e-mail: raonks@aanet.com.au Your Missionaries to Australia,

e-mail: raonks2@dodo.com.au

Next Letter; approx. end of November Ron & Angie Onks