The Holmes Family: March/April '21

Our ministry was happy to welcome in March a guest preacher for the first time since January of last year. Pastor Dan Callaghan of First Baptist Church of Yuba City, California, preached Truth Baptist Church’s 6th Spirit Renewal Meeting. The revival services included a greatly needed and well-attended Saturday teaching, soul-winning, and testimony time; Grace & Glory Baptist hosted the Sunday evening preaching hour, and the combined service received many of our Truth Baptist members and college students. Having kept in touch with Bro. Dan since we were bus workers together in Bible college, I was glad for our whole family and many co-laborers to finally have the chance to fellowship with my good friend.

This seems to be the smoothest transition back to the field we have ever experienced. We want to thank God for blessing our return, and we also wish to give credit to our church leaders and college staff members for skillfully handling all our ministries. A special thanks goes to Missionary Pat Hamburg [pictured in our kitchen], who stayed in our home during our time in the U.S., welcomed us with wonderful meals during the first few adjustment days, and generously put time and money into numerous thoughtful projects that put a smile on my wife’s face.

Four days after our arrival in February, Merci Cepeda and Kristin Muldrow landed in Abuja for a nearly six-week visit. Our oldest son and daughter, Joseph and Victoria, were traveling partners with them in Louisiana on a Bible club blitz team for a few weeks last summer. Merci and Kristin conducted Bible clubs [pictured], helped in children’s church and Sunday school classes, sang specials, participated in our school ministry, brought gifts for a visit to an orphanage, and helped to fund a widows’ meeting hosted by one of our deacons. Two weeks of their trip were spent at A Place Of Hope Africa, a large orphanage home in the East.

I had imagined that adding the second floor for our seminary dormitory would be the only big project for this year, but the Lord has seen fit to put the following additional new works on our ministry plate over the last twelve months: a continuing television ministry with Christian Media International, a fully-sponsored prisoner discipleship ministry, a new day school at Truth Baptist Church, the Friends of the Deaf ministry that just celebrated its first anniversary in April, and the growth of our last church plant (Liberty Baptist of Azunu) which Truth has adopted as its own like no other new church before. We are blessed beyond imagination!

Who We Are

Mark Joseph Holmes was called to the ministry at the age of fifteen, five years after he was saved. He went to Hyles-Anderson College to receive his training and graduated summa cum laude in 2000 with a degree in Pastoral Theology. During Mark’s senior year, God placed on his heart the desire to reach the people of Nigeria, so he spent an extra year in preparation by taking missions courses. Mark served on the same bus route each college year, as captain for three years.

Sabrina Michelle (Hopkins) was saved at the age of eight and surrendered her life to God five years later. While at Hyles-Anderson College studying music education, she served in the Bible Club and deaf ministry and also traveled one summer with a tour group. After graduation with a Music Education degree, during the year before their wedding, Sabrina taught fourth grade at her home church’s Christian school—Central Baptist in Baton Rouge.

As newlyweds, Mark and Sabrina served at their sending church where Mark oversaw the bus ministry and helped in the youth department, Sunday schools, and junior churches. He was privileged to start a children's church and young adult class during his two years of service, and he also regularly preached at a prison ministry and taught for a local Bible institute. Sabrina taught private piano for two Christian schools; she played often in the church services and also taught the beginner Sunday school class. Mark and Sabrina started full-time deputation at the end of May, 2003. Mark Joseph, Junior was born on December 4th of the same year.

In June of 2005, the Holmes family began their first term as Fundamental Baptist Missions International missionaries in Nigeria. Soon, Truth Baptist Church along with Temple Baptist Institute was started, the church now averaging 220 on Sundays with 42 graduates from the ministry training school. Property with buildings was purchased, and Providence Baptist College & Seminary opened its doors in August 2009 and has now produced 30 graduates. 35 churches have been started by those who have been trained or ordained by their ministry, including one of the most recent, Grace & Glory Baptist Church in Abuja, in which the Holmes family is also involved. Mark and Sabrina have returned to the U.S. for the birth of: Victoria Noel 12/14/05
Brian Michael 8/20/07
Noah Preston 2/3/12

LaDonna Elizabeth 7/3/14
For nearly a decade, Truth Baptist Church has been the home of a national pastors' conference, an annual youth camp, a full curriculum DVD correspondence college, and the City of Refuge recently became their newest ministry.

Where We Are

The Niger River is Nigeria’s most remarkable physical feature, as well as the source of its name. Formerly a British colony, Nigeria gained its independence in 1960 and became an independent nation of three culturally distinctive regions and at least 250 different language groups—more than any other African country. Home of the world’s largest black population, it is estimated that almost one out of every six Africans resides in Nigeria.

Upon independence, Nigeria inherited a currency that was more valuable than the U.S. dollar at the time. Yet the country has consumed itself with the sell of oil and other natural resources and all but abandoned its agricultural sector, leading to Nigeria’s diminished currency value and heightened reliance upon imports and aide from other countries. Military coups, ethnic tensions, a thirty month “civil war” that claimed over a million lives, and economic corruption have been the driving forces behind Nigeria’s instability of the last forty years. In 1998 a democracy was established, ending fifteen years of military rule.

Baptists have enjoyed a presence in the country for over 150 years with the Southern Baptists growing their own national convention and an estimated Baptist population numbering more than 3.5 million people; the former President of Nigeria was a claimed Baptist. However, Muslim influences are growing greater, indigenous beliefs are still popular, and many existing Baptist churches have abandoned biblical doctrines. There is a great need to reach the rest of the more than 170 million people of Africa’s most populous and possibly most influential nation.

The Holmes Family

March/April '21

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