The entertainment at a children's party

In July we asked you to pray for the Soapbox short-term trip to Brazil which was being led by Tim.  Five very full but successful weeks later we’re happy to thank you for your prayers which made a huge contribution to this trip.

Two separate groups totalling 16 people, most of them teenagers, had an excellent mission experience, most of them for the first time, which will have a significant impact on their lives.  Discovering genuine poverty for the first time, taking responsibility for activities, and relating responsibly to underprivileged children were some of the positive outcomes.

Building under way

The teams were working in a home for children who have been removed from their families for their own safety or protection, which is run entirely by local Christians with very little outside support.  Although the children are housed, fed, clothed and educated, they do not have much else, so were really appreciative of the interest shown in them by others from overseas, who played with them, taught them some English, and took them out on trips.  Some of us also formed lasting supportive relationships with the children which will continue now we are back in England.

Also, the teams accomplished an immense amount of practical work:

• Built, plastered (with professional help) and painted a wall to prevent children falling off the patio
• Paid for a builder to complete the final section of the perimeter wall and concrete an area of waste ground so that the children can play on it safely
• Painted the main hall of the building
• Built a set of sturdy steps to give children safe access to the upper play area
• Repaired damaged perimeter walls and cracks in the patio paving
• Replaced the lock on the main door which wouldn’t easily open when shut, or vice versa
• Replaced broken glass in windows
• Fitted locks and handles to many doors and cupboards
• Made numerous repairs to plumbing, furniture and lighting
• Provided new furniture for the bedrooms
• Provided new cups, plates and cutlery for the children
• Bought a new DVD player and some dvds
• Took out an amazing quantity of sports equipment, games, craft materials and clothes

Painters at work

Happily there were no cases of accident, tummy upsets, serious injuries, culture shock or homesickness, so praise God for watching over us!

This was in many respects the highlight of the year for these children who, while being well-cared for, lack people to take an ongoing interest in them, play with them, and help them develop.  The shelter at which they stay runs a ‘godparent’ scheme whereby local people are partnered with a child and take them out, give them presents, and potentially work towards adopting them.  However many children don’t have godparents to help them, and some are too old (12 or over) to be attractive to potential godparents, who generally seek younger ones.  Please pray that more godparents will be found.

We cannot publish any photos of the children, for their own protection.

Please continue to pray for the children, who will miss us as their lives go back to normal  routine until next summer when another team will visit, and for us too as we settle back into our UK lifestyles (or not!).

My host for my week-long trip to Ndola was my good friend Lene Pedersen, who many will know following her speaking tour in Britain last year, and it was great to spend time with her, get to know her fiancé Dale, and help them prepare for their wedding next month.  Lene continues to be one of the three directors at Lifeline in Zambia – a ministry which we featured last August which provides home-based care and support for people suffering from AIDS/HIV.  LiZ continues to develop and it was an encouragement to visit premises which I had not been to before and see how well suited they are to managing the work and training the volunteers.  There is also a commitment to take on more highly qualified staff which is already having benefits for the work.

I returned for the first time in seven years to Kaniki Bible College, which trains church leaders for the Apostolic Church in Zambia.  There has been a lot of staff turnover since then, and only the Zambian workers whom I knew remain there.  All the overseas staff have changed, and the college is led by a new Zambian Principal supported by two other African faculty members.  There are currently 55 students and there is also a new BA course.  There are plans to build a new classroom block to meet the increased number of students.

Also on the Kaniki campus is African Quest, a missions training and discipleship programme for young people with which I have been involved since its beginning 15 years ago.  Many fine young people have been through this programme and gone on to be involved in missions in a variety of ways, and AQ is currently led by two of its former students, Tim & Gemma Mills.  This six month gap course is currently recruiting for next year and I will feature it in more detail later this summer.

I also spent some time with the new leaders of School Mission for Christ International This fantastic ministry employs Zambian pastors to go into schools and preach the gospel.  Thousands of students have met Jesus in this way, and teachers testify to the return of stolen property, decline in the use of drugs, and falling pregnancy rates as a result.  This powerful witness leads many teachers also to give their lives to Christ.  SMFCI is looking to expand both within Zambia and to neighbouring countries.

Near to Kaniki is Jabulani Children’s Village, where Tom & Ruth Dufke took over an abandoned farm 13 years ago with a view to developing a home for needy children.  There are currently 18 children living at the site, in small, ‘family’-type cottages.  With a view to maintaining financial independence, the village is partly funded by a huge sawmill operation, which now employs 65 local people, thereby keeping them out of poverty and providing food and education for their children.  There are also training facilities for the community on site, such as a sewing college, and there is a clinic to meet the needs of the local community.

While visiting these various ministries and catching up with old friends, I was able to spend a lot of time encouraging mission workers, helping them understand the causes of stress in their lives, and planning how Syzygy can help to support them.  Like many overseas mission workers, they have a number of challenges to face, and it was a joy to be able to help them find ways of dealing with them.

Mount Everest

Until a few years ago, Nepal was proud of being the world’s only Hindu kingdom.  Now it is neither Hindu nor a kingdom.  The constitutional settlement which deposed King Gyandendra in 2008 also introduced secularism, although approximately 80% of the population is Hindu.  So now Nepal is mostly famous for its altitude, since eight of the world’s ten highest mountains are in this small landlocked country, or on its borders, including of course Mount Everest.  In sharp contrast, in the south of the country the tropical lowlands are a mere 100m above sea level.  The country’s other claim to fame is having the world’s only national flag which is not rectangular.

My recent two-week visit involved a lot of trekking in the foothills amid breathtaking scenery, but also provided some amazing ministry opportunities.  Each day I shared a message on ‘The spiritual significance of topographical features in the Bible’, and with topics like mountains, rivers, trees and rocks there was plenty of opportunity to meditate on these while walking between villages in the Annapurna foothills.  Every now and again I would meet Christians from the city, who had migrated into the hills to find employment in the hostels catering for backpackers, or I would find modest little church buildings by the wayside.  Even in the Himalayas there are believers unashamed of the gospel!  I also had the opportunity to pray with some of them, and to witness to non-Christians I met.  I even did an impromptu Bible study with a man I gave a Nepali New Testament to.  Please pray for him to read it and find Jesus through it.

Back in Kathmandu, Aanandit (= ‘rejoicing’) Church in the suburb of Imadole is one of a group of four planted under the enthusiastic leadership of Milan Adhikari, who spent a year in England training with Ichthus.  I had the privilege of preaching there and of praying for the sick.  It was exciting to find that many churches in Nepal are non-denominational, and while there can be disagreements between them, they tend to focus on what they have in common rather than what divides them.  Truly refreshing!

Christians in Nepal tend not to be seriously persecuted, although they may well be passively victimised by being passed over for promotion.  Nevertheless, in a meeting with the president of the Armed Forces Christian Association I was encouraged to find that they have some 500 members, including a major and a police inspector.  However, a significant cause for concern is the draft text of the new constitution, which will make it an offence to try to convert somebody to your religion.  Not only will this outlaw evangelism, it may affect the activities of Christian organisations which run hospitals or schools, since this may also be interpreted as evangelistic activity.

A Nepali Christian

One such organisation is the International Nepal Fellowship (http://www.inf.org/) which has a variety of projects including the Green Pastures Hospital in Pokhara which I visited.  An impressively efficient establishment, largely run by Nepali people, it was originally founded to treat leprosy patients, but as numbers have dwindled it has evolved into a spinal injuries unit as well.  Ironically, like many such establishments in the current economic climate, it has no difficulty raising large grants to build new facilities but struggles to find the money for the running costs.

I also had the opportunity to visit the highly-respected Dr Mark Zimmerman of the Nick Simons Institute (http://www.nsi.edu.np) and hear about his significant work training health workers in some of the poorest regions of a poor country.  Many of the outlying areas get neglected, and because they are remote and have poor facilities, many healthcare professionals refuse to work there.  The solution is partly to upgrade facilities like schools to make the rural areas more attractive, and partly to train the existing healthcare workers so that they are more multi-skilled.

Please pray:

• for the Christians in Nepal, that their churches would thrive and take advantage of the current peace that Christians will continue to have the legal freedom to evangelise;
• that the gospel would spread among the armed forces, and that people at senior levels of government would meet Jesus;
• that a new generation of church leaders would be bold, zealous and equipped for the task;
• that funding would continue to be available to Christian charities working in Nepal.

Visit http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=289551&id=625609602&l=12d06f0aeb for more pictures.

Missionary Paul Bennison reports on God’s incredible provision during his recent trip to Colombia….

If I’d been on my own, I’d have been loath to report this, but there were 4 of us from the UK, and two very dear friend Colombian pastors.  We’d been ministering in Buenaventura, on the coast.  On a good day, in daylight, it’s a 3 hour journey across an ‘interesting’ Andes mountain pass (!): two lanes, incredible bends and steep drops, many trucks and buses… not a road you want to drive at night!  Which is exactly what we found ourselves doing on the return to Cali!

Not only that, as we were about to leave at 10.30pm, an Andean thunder storm, with typical tropical rains, began.  We were already looking at a 4 hour journey,  now more likely to be 5+ hours.  You could hardly see out of the windscreen, even with the lights on high beam and the wipers flat out.  The roads become like rivers in an instant in such rain.

After one hour of this I was sitting in the back, beating myself up over why I have no problem in saying to sickness ‘Get out!’ or ‘Be healed in the Name of Jesus!’, but had a problem with saying ‘Peace be still!’…. so I decided to try and beat my mental battle by saying just that.  Within moments the storm seemed to move away from the car – we could still see it, hear it, and see the rain, but it had moved away from us!

At 12.20am, we were getting out of the car at our apartment block in Cali…. it took just 50 minutes to drive what should have taken over 4 hours!  It took some time to sink in: not only did God quieten the storm around us, but we know we missed large chunks of the journey home, or reaching landmarks much, much quicker than we should have done.  Maybe this is nothing unusual for you: perhaps being transported is more common than I know, but I have to confess it is the first time I recall it ever happening to me.

Moreover, the rain began again with its relentless hostility within 10 minutes of our getting back into Cali.  I’m now looking forward to missing out on some long haul airline flights, and just arriving in different countries!  It does happen – I just would like the air miles, too!!!

Paul Bennison is an itinerant missionary who regularly sees God’s miraculous provision in his ministry, particularly in healing.  You can read more about his exciting adventures in many countries at www.paulbennison.com

Praying with a school girl at St. Johns Secondary School

On one of our first days in Kampala, the team visited a secondary school and attended the Christian Union meeting. Here we experienced the most vibrant of worship celebrations, led by the children themselves. After this the Soapbox team presented a medley of songs/ drama and testimonies, at the end of which an appeal was made for any who needed prayer. We were privileged to pray for some really needy situations in the lives of these children, many of whom had a relationship with the Lord, but were otherwise destitute. The girl in the photo was facing eviction from school because of not being able to pay the school fees. We could offer prayer and fellowship, but little else in the context where the need is so great. We had to remind ourselves of the ability of our God to meet the needs of all his children, and to trust in his unfailing love. In such a difficult context, the joy and delight in praising the Lord challenged our own worship. With so little, they were able to offer so much heartfelt thanks- how much more should we, in the comparative comfort of our Western lifestyles unreservedly worship the Lord with all that we have!

Coaching children at Shalom Primary School
We worked in association with Nakawa Baptist Church, situated in a slum area just outside Kampala. The Church here has set up a school at which around 150 children from the surrounding areas come to receive education. Most of these children are funded through Compassion and Soapbox Child Sponsorship Schemes, without which they would not have access to any formal education. The team spent several mornings with the children teaching them songs, bible stories and games. Here in this picture Roger is using his training as a football coach to conduct a basic ball skills exercise. The children loved the opportunity to train and to compete in these events. When the team left Nakawa, the coaching kit was donated to the church and several of the young Ugandan Christian men expressed their intention of continuing the activities with the children in an attempt to promote physical fitness and also as a bridge to building relationships with the children, from which foundation the gospel could be explained.

Visit to Mwana Primary School
The Soapbox team visited several different schools during the 2-week trip. Each time we would receive the warmest of welcomes, followed by a selection of activities aimed at sharing the Gospel message in a culturally appropriate way. On this occasion the school assembled all their classes in the covered courtyard area and we performed a series of presentation items based around the story of Noah’s Ark. Along with some moments of hilarity in some of the sketches we performed, on each occasion the Gospel of God’s love was presented and an opportunity to accept Jesus as saviour was given. We were very encouraged by the levels of responses and as well as sowing many seeds, we witnessed several lives changed by the acceptance of Jesus as Lord.

Door-to-door evangelism in Nakawa District
On a couple of occasions the team spent a morning visiting the local area around the church. We found the local residents very welcoming and ready to hear our message. Often we would sit down on the doorstep of the house and explain the message of God’s love from the bible. Sometimes quite a crowd would form, and a surprisingly large number of people came to accept Jesus as Lord. We also held an evangelistic event towards the end of our second week, at which many people came forward for prayer and to accept the free offer of salvation. Nakawa Baptist Church are well organised in terms of follow-up, and many of those who confessed Christ were given a bible at the following Sunday service. Our team had been privileged to sow the seeds, and we left with every confidence that our brothers and sisters in Nakawa would carry out the regular watering. As for the increase, we know that only God himself can save people and we continue to trust Him for that!