On Monday 30 June five members of our congregation (Barry
Jardine, Maureen Witheyman, Anne Maloney, Lulu Shanks and myself) as well as a
friend of mine (Tim Stanmore) will be leaving for a ten day trip to our partner
church, Noro, in the Solomon Islands.
This will be our third partnership visit to Noro. When we started this partnership we committed
to it for the long term, recognising that some of the benefits that we hoped
for would like time to come about. As
with any relationship it takes time and consistency to build up trust. As we enter our fourth year of this
relationship we are seeing the fruits our relationship. There is a greater openness in our
communication. For instance, last year
the Church Council Chairperson shared some deeply personal, church related
business, which could have put him and his church in a bad light. But because of our trust filled relationship
he shared.
In our trip this year we will be offering training in
leadership; spiritual gifts; discernment of the Spirit; evangelism; child
evangelism and preaching. Our friends in
Noro know about these topics, but have very little detailed information. They have a desire to know more and we can
help them. When we visit this year we
will meet the new Town minister, Rev Patrick Ngassi and the new pastor Benjiman
Jino. We will also renew acquaintances
with many old friends from the congregation.
The best way that you can support this visit is through your
prayers. We will be very much out of our
comfort zone in Noro and this requires that we trust the Holy Spirit more and
more. Please pray for our willingness to
wait upon his provision and our faith to see the way that he will provide for
us exactly as we need. The local
language phrase for this is Asa. Please
also pray for the strengthening of the Noro congregation and the relationships
that we continue to build. Pray for our
safety and our families as we are away.
Not everyone in our congregation is able to go to Noro, or
even wants to go to Noro. Many of you
have other mission partners that you support.
Frontier Services and Scripture Union school chaplaincy are some that
some of us find worthy of our support.
The Leprosy Mission, Christine Bryant, Watoto and Amnesty International
are some international mission partners that others find worthy of
support.
Wherever your interests and passion lie in mission I
encourage you to foster that passion. It
becomes one more way in which we grow in our discipleship and embody our faith
in service. Become involved in the organisation,
participate in their projects, attend meetings and offer constant prayers for
the leaders and workers. To do this
involves an investment of time and energy that goes beyond a monetary donation. Yet, it is only when we commit something that
we value deeply that we experience the greatest transformation in our life and
in the outcomes of the organisation that we support. It is the mystery of the incarnation, that
God came to us, that we are called to constantly live as we follow Jesus.
Grace and peace
David Fender
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