Missionary Weekend at Scrabo Hall, Newtownards

Travelling to and from Newtownards over the weekend there were a number of impressive buildings that stood out along the way. Stormont is the home of the N. Ireland Assembly. The grounds and building looked so well in the beautiful spring sunshine. Closer to Newtownards, Scrabo Tower stands high on a hill just overlooking the town, it is a well known landmark and can be seen for miles around.

Scrabo Hall is an impressive building too, modern and purpose built for a contemporary church. Much more impressive though is the work and ministry of the church that meets there. Clearly the church has a vision to reach into the local community and around the world with the Good News of Salvation in Jesus Christ.

The purpose of the missionary weekend was largely to inform the church about the future work and ministry of a young couple from the church. Paul & Cathy Wright are completing their training with New Tribes Mission in England. It’s their intention to work with New Tribes in the Philippines and they will probably go there sometime next year.

Paul & Cathy, Betsy (a Filipino girl also in training with NTM) and Bobby & I took part in the meetings starting with the Youth Fellowship on Friday night, informal fellowship on Saturday evening and services on Sunday morning and evening. Lunch was provided after the morning services. There was ministry from God’s Word and various audio/visual and spoken presentations on mission related topics.

We thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and came home encouraged by the commitment and involvement of the folks at Scrabo. Thank you for all the hard work you put in there!

March Prayer Update

‘When the Galilean boy brought his bread to the Lord, what did the Lord do with it? He broke it. God always breaks what is offered to Him. He breaks what He takes, but after breaking it He blesses and uses it to meet the needs of others. After you give yourself to the Lord, He begins to break what was offered to him. Everything seems to go wrong.’

When we take a step of faith with the Lord it is clear from scripture and from experience that we can expect spiritual battles to take place. From the words of Watchman Nee in his book ‘The Normal Christian Life’ we see that he believed that God also allows difficulty and pain so He can ‘bless and use us to meet the needs of others’.

Over the past months we have been getting to grips with our role as Short Term Mission Coordinators for New Tribes Mission. It has been a busy time organising teams, working with new field contacts and setting up different ministries for our teams to be involved in. While we have known God’s help in so many ways, there have been struggles and frustrations too and at times we have felt, with Nee that ‘Everything seemed to go wrong’. We trust that God uses these times for His glory and in turn to bring blessing to others whose lives He touches.

As we write we are encouraged that among other things, plans are well under way for the Summit teams going this summer to The Philippines and Mozambique. The Philippines team will go to Palawan Island to carry out a work project at the mission guest facilities. The team to Mozambique is going to help with the missionary field conference. Primarily they will run a Bible club for the missionaries’ children while the conference is taking place but they will also help lead singing and music in the conference itself. This is an exciting new way for us to minister to missionaries while allowing the team to experience and be challenged toward missions.

There has been a lot of interest in these trips and the teams are almost finalised. We have spent time with the team leaders and will hold an orientation weekend in early May to prepare the teams for their missions experience in the summer.

Since we started working with New Tribes Mission on a full time basis we have not had any period of ‘deputation’ where we could share about our work and seek to raise prayer and financial support. It is sometimes easier just to get on with the job but we realise if we do not actively try to involve others in our ministry we will not be able to continue for very long. With that in mind we are looking for opportunities to present our ministry to individuals or churches who may be interested. Can we ask you to pray with us about this and if you can help organise such meetings please contact us. No meeting is too far or too small if God is opening doors to share about our work or the work of the mission in general.

On 22 Jan David, Alicia and Sarah left for Peru. They were pleased that the trip went well and especially how Sarah coped with all the travel. They are living in Arequipa where they will stay until they finish language study. Sarah has started nursery school. She enjoys nursery and the little friends she has there and is particularly proud of her nursery uniform.

Allan has been busy with singing engagements since the launch of his cd. He and Judith have been asked to work with ‘Goodseed’ in Canada, writing songs and music for their children’s Bible teaching resources. They hope to start their new ministry in the autumn.

Sept Prayer Update

Sept 2006

The summer months have been busy and eventful but we can look back with thanks to the Lord for the things that have been accomplished.

In July a thirty strong team of young people came from Alabama to help our church with outreach. They were hard working and dedicated to sharing the gospel with the children and young people in the vicinity of the church. It was a joy to have them, to work and fellowship with them.

Our ‘Summit’ team to the Philippines set off at the beginning of August. There had been talk of a local volcano preparing to greet us when we arrived but it ‘held it’s peace’. However we had just got out of the UK when a major security alert was triggered. Again we were thankful we were not caught up in the disruption that followed. By the time we returned it was much easier to move through the airports again.

We had an excellent time in the Philippines. The hard work of the team and of those who had prepared for us there enabled us to see two substantial work projects brought near completion.

Our Work Projects

At the guest house/supply base in Puerto Princesa, the capital of Palawan Island, we worked on a little building that is used to house tribal people when they come to town for medical help. The building was in need of major repair. After stripping away the old decaying walls we were able to replace them with materials that will be easier to keep clean and hygienic. A little kitchen was added to the rear and the whole place was given a coat of paint. Although some work remained to be done, good progress was made with this project.

From there we travelled by NTM Aviation plane to a remote village in S. Palawan. A house was being built for a young family who are working with the Palawano tribe. The work was heavy, the weather was hot and humid, and our accommodation was basic but we had an excellent time there. As well as completing the walls both inside and out, and putting on the roof, we had continual interaction with the local Palawano people, enjoyed fellowship with the missionaries, met with the tribal church on Sunday morning and did other interesting things like swimming in the river and riding on water buffalo. Our journey to and from the village was itself an experience as we flew in the little mission plane and landed on a grass airstrip cut out of the surrounding jungle. It was a joy to worship with the Palawano believers, a challenge to see those who still need to hear the gospel and to know what it will take to bring them the Word of God in their own language.

Toward the end of our time on Palawan we spent a day at a beautiful island in Honda Bay. The beauty of the clear blue sea, the white sands and the multi-coloured fish was astounding and reminded us of our loving Creator who gave us these things to enjoy. On our way to that island we stopped at the place where Martin and Gracia Burnham were taken hostage. It was a poignant moment on our day of relaxation as we paused to pray.

Family News

While Norman was out of contact in Palawan, major events were taking place here at home. Judith whose baby was due mid-Oct went into hospital on 15th Aug. Three days later little James Petur was born, he was 4lb 6oz. It was a tense few days but both Judith and James were fine. Needless to say this was a major surprise to Norman when he eventually got the news.

Over the summer we have been phasing in to our new role as Short-Term Missions Coordinators, that transition is now complete and we have full responsibility for the Mission’s ‘Summit’ programmes. Arrangements have now been confirmed for Bobby to leave her job too, she will finish in September. We ask again that you pray with us as we feel the weight of our new responsibilities and as we look to the Lord to provide for our personal and ministry needs.

First Blog

I've enjoyed checking out the blogs of some friends and want to communicate in a similar fashion. So, if I can sort out the 'technology', here goes. What I want to do first is to post our last three 'prayer updates' for those who haven't received any news from us for a while.