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The New Church
This is the new church being built. Hi Folks,
Stephen here, I thought it was time for another update. It is hard to believe that today we completed week 7 of out our 10 week course! Time is going so quickly and we don’t want this experience to end. We are surrounded with great friends in our class, although just like home there are a few EGR people….Extra Grace Required!!! There have been a few student leave the class over the past few weeks because of their own work commitments etc but there is still about 18 of us left. The deadlines for our assignments are drawing near. I handed my 15 sermons in today although the deadline for those isn’t for another two weeks. Bronagh is handing hers in on Monday, it is great to have them finished, they were the biggest challenge for us both. We are being tested on our 40 memory verses next Thursday so we are frantically trying to get them into our heads!!! Our prayer diary also has to be handed in next week, we both have it finished, we just need to print it out. The prayer diary is a great idea. Everyone has their own personal A5 folder to
The New Church
This is Pastor Kumar in the new church. put in their prayer points eg, prayer for yourself, your family, your extended family, your spiritual family, your friends, your country, your short term goals, your long term goals and your ministries etc etc. It is a great way to discipline your prayer life and to keep a record of answered prayer etc.
Anyway, the classes this week were on Spiritual warfare, prayer and fasting and Children’s Ministry. The man (called Chandra) who took the children’s ministry was very interesting and enthusiastic. We had a good chat with him and made him aware of some resources that we have at home that he could use. He actually has a great interest in Metro Ministries and worked with their project in Manilla in the Phillipines. For anyone who doesn’t know about this ministry it was started by a man called Bill Wilson in New York who now runs a Sunday school in Brooklyn for 30,000 children. Chandra approached the pastor we are staying with (Pastor Kumar) and he translated Bill Wilson’s book ‘Who’s child is this?’ from English into Tamil. It was great to meet him. (It’s a great book by the way for those of you who haven’t read
New Church one week later
The boulding work 1 week later, it is ready to be painted and the electrical work needs done. it. (www.metroministries.com) Kumar has also translated ‘The Purpose driven Life’ into Tamil as well.
The house is quite full at the minute as we have been joined by a team of 12 from New Zealand for 2 weeks. They are doing street evangelism in preparation for the opening of Pastor Kumar’s 71’st church on 13th June. It is exciting to see this ministry growing so well. But just like Chandra with his children’s ministry Pastor Kumar is also facing the problem of limited finances. I am continually frustrated with seeing what all can be done out here if they had more money. I feel like I am bubbling inside to try and shake people out of their materialistic mindset. But I no from experience that some people just don’t ‘get it’. It has taken me to be in amongst people that are living on £40 - £50/ month to be inspired by the money they give away for the sake of the gospel. I have a lot of repenting to do, as well as getting converted my finances need to get converted too. (Just like Zacchaeus)
The sight of the homeless is always a challenge here as well,
New Church one week later
No building permission is needed herem The roof is asbestos and the floor is tiled. people are begging everywhere you go and I am constantly challenged about how I should respond.
1. Give them money and it will encourage their begging and in a lot of cases they will use it to get drunk. 2. A lot of them beg so that they don’t have to work so how do you determine who is genuine and who is not. 3. If you don’t give them money you feel like you are walking away from someone in need and what kind of a witness is that for a Christian to leave with someone. 4. We reckon that the best thing to do is to buy them food but this is not a long term solution to helping the poor. There is a limit to what you can do when you actually have someone on the street beside you begging but the challenge of how to respond is on every other street. But then again, it is better to be challenged than to always walk in your comfort zone!!!
We graduate from our course on 26th June then we are flying the next morning to north India where Kumar’s ministry are planting churches in unreached villages
New Church 1st Floor
The first floor is the church, it is built above 3 houses. where the gospel has NEVER been preached before. Many of the churches don’t even have a building, they meet under a tree! We are really looking forward to going there, it will be great to see the work first hand and meet the people on the front line working in the area that for many years was known as the Missionary Graveyard.
As always your prayers are much appreciated and I believe it is because of so many friends praying for us that our trip has been so fulfilling. Thank you so much for that, keep it up! Your comments on the blog are also a great encouragement, keep them coming, its nice to know who all is reading.
God Bless
Stephen
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Lynne
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Blessing
Reading the past few entries has really blessed me. I believe and agree with everything you are saying, and I share with you the certainty that God wants us to do more, give more, act more. Bronagh, you said it well, faith is not built on certainty - may God clearly shake us to move out of the box we put ourselves in and do something amazing for His Kingdom! I pray too that He would make your path straight as you begin to transition from India, to the next step!! xo