Post by JEM on Oct 20, 2007 13:20:09 GMT
LIGHTHOUSE PRAYER MINISTRY NEWS
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AUTUMN 2007 UPDATE
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LIGHTHOUSE MINISTRY (MCCPF) Founded 1954.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Administrator
John E Maddams 35 Four Acres. Saffron Walden CB11 3JD UK
Editorial comment
============
As from July 2007 working on a slim budget we are just continuing the local distribution of NEW LIFE NEWS and we continue a ministry of encouragement to individuals using Gospels, RBC Booklets, tracts, poems, cards, calendars and emails.
We encourage the circulation of OUR DAILY BREAD Bible Reading devotional booklets.
We have had to discontinue all overseas contacts except for sending Christian literature and cassettes to a few remaining contacts. People keep asking for money that we don’t have. If we had it we would try to help them.
We helped this year distribute locally over 900 of their 10,000 leaflets about the new Salvation Army Centre, and to Christians leaflets about the Bible a Month scheme of the Bible Society
We continue to operate this our Web board site Lighthouse Prayer Ministry providing access to overseas prayer requests and pen pal list, inspirational messages, and verses, local Church history, news from Four Acres Community. Local Boys’ Brigade Camp Reports from 2003. The Maddams Family Tree, and lots of links with Christian Missions.
We support locally Gideons School New Testaments distribution and the Annual Vacation Bible School which reaches some 600 children for a week in August and the work of Stort Valley Schools Trust who fund part-time women Christian support workers in our secondary schools and the use of Its “Your move booklets” in 6th year Primary schools.
We supported the work of NEW FRONTIERS in the valley of the Amazon River where they, through Ray of Hope Ministry are establishing new village schools to combat the need of daily 3 hour canoe journeys to and then from school. Imagine getting up at 3am to go to school and getting home about 7pm six days a week We help provide for more children the book ”THE MOST IMPORTANT STORY EVER TOLD” in Brazilian Portuguese at £1 a copy.
TREES
####
When designated funds allow us, we continue to plant trees. We have two fine woods of 250 trees each on the Congo/Ugandan border and an olive grove in Israel. Last year we funded 500 new coffee trees to South America.
This year through CORD we have funded 750 new saplings for woods in Burundi to help defeat soil erosion. Similarly some years ago we planted trees in the Sahel region helping fight soil erosion and the spread of the Sahara Desert. We have trees in the UK helping provide wild life habitat and around the world helping combat global warming. Trees absorb large amounts of Carbon dioxide. Peat bogs even more. If you really want to save the planet help plant millions more trees,
Churches Together in Saffron Walden
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For the past 3 years while I have served as General Secretary. Lighthouse Ministry funded a series of information leaflets , a 3 panel display unit of original photographs, an illustrated annual report, produced free of charge coloured posters for various events , and circulated the Minutes of their Meetings.
However I have resigned having helped Duncan Green the retiring Chairman keep the organisation together during a difficult transitionary period during which where there have been 4 changes of Church ministers and various changes within the organisation of co-ordinators.
The new General Secretary is Mr Tim Rouse of Gold Street Evangelical Church. The new Chairman is the Revd Simon Mattholie, the Baptist Minister.
ONCE OFF HOUSE TO HOUSE DISTRIBUTION IN SAFFRON WALDEN.
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Since May 2003 I have been proceeding with a project laid upon me in the 1990’s to get an item of Christian Literature into every home in Saffron Walden that proclaims the Good News of Jesus Christ, provides testimony of changed lives and show what God is doing today as against years or centuries ago.
The only paper to meet this criteria so far is NEW LIFE NEWS but it is a Pentecostalist and Community Churches publication and not all branches of the Church like it, although those that criticise it cannot suggest anything better . It is a tabloid, and the majority of newspaper readers read tabloids, but those who read the broad sheets may not like it, and some middle class Christians take exception to it.
Since the beginning I have included a flier emphasising the ecumenical Christian Enquiry Agency for those seeking help, and encouraging interested people to send £7.50 a year to the publishers to have it monthly by post.
I’ve been recommending the www.rejesus.co.uk website, and later adding Oakington Parish Church healing ministry website.
Upon becoming General Secretary of CTSW partly to publicise CTSW and provide inquirers with local information I had been including on the flier the name, locations, morning service times, contact telephone numbers and web site addresses of the 9 local Christian congregations, but members of two objected and I deleted them and then stated that not all Christians approved of the content of NLN and that it was not distributed by CTSW.
In resigning from CTSW I did offer all the ministers to include their local information upon request but no one replied.
So now I no longer list this information but refer anyone interested in locating local Christians to go to the Tourist Information Centre who hold such information, and the Town Council web site that has a link to local church web sites. I’ve distributed to nearly two thirds of the homes and hope to finish on the basis of 100 a month in 2010.
A BIT OF LOCAL HISTORY FROM COUNCIL OF CHURCHES MINUTES
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Early in the 1990’s the then Council of Churches initiated a survey of their Sunday Schools and found that they between them reached 236 children under the age of 18, but of them above the age of 13 only 33. The number of school children in the town under 18 at that time was 3500.
That led directly to the development of a schools Ministry, with a team going into various schools to lead assembles, with the development of the Methodist Castle Puppets team, three On-Track after school clubs, only one of which now functions, the use of the “On the Move Booklet “ for year 6 students and the development of the Scripture Union Stort Valley Schools Trust putting female Christian workers into local secondary schools.
The total population at the moment is about 16,000 and rising of which an estimated 13,000 have no link with the churches.
DRUGS & DRINK
##########
Unbeknown to most people we have a huge teenage and school children drugs problem in the town from 12 year olds upwards, and as many other communities a lot binge drinking by teens and twenties.
We encourage young people when possible to access www.talktofrank.com This is a website with an A-Z Directory to most of the drugs in circulation including nicotine and alcohol, explaining where these drugs come from, what they do, their side effects and the long term consequences, and the legal prohibitions and the punishments likely for caught users, sharers and sellers.
On alcohol some advice is given on safe levels of consumption. 3-4 units per day for men over 18, and 2-3 units for women over 18. Those under 18 should be consuming less, and it is illegal to give alcohol to under 5’s. Most start from the age of 7. A unit equals 1 half pint of beer, cider or lager, or one small glass of wine, or 25 ml of spirits.
Most people forget the "small" glass bit, and many are consuming double the maximum daily to the detriment of their health and the safety of other people. The website provides a Help Line number and email contact, for worried people seeking advice.
We continue to receive prayer requests from overseas and requests for financial help that we can no longer respond to.
ETHIOPIA
========
Ayele Haliso aged about 26 cares for a 17 yearold brother and 3 younger siblings aged 8-11 they have had no schooling for years and beg for food. He has been training 3 years to become a teacher but needed money to pay his college fees and help the family group. We have managed to send what he needs and he graduated recently. He has advised us that students in private colleges were stunned in July by a new government edict that declares only teachers trained in public colleges will be able to work in public schools.
That leaves Ayele looking for a teaching post with a private school with a lot of competition and he would need 4 years teaching experience. For a poor struggling country this seem ridiculous He has been advised by his tutors to embark on a 4 year degree course from Sept 2007. For that he will need sponsorship.
We cannot help him any further. He lives in a country with a very repressive authoritarian government that governs by decree and will not easily change. The Government is largely responsible for the poverty of the majority of the people.
GHANA
**********
Anthony Aboagye
=============
aged 32 made an application to the Midwest Baptist Seminary at Kansas in the USA to train as a Baptist Minister with the support of the elders of his Church ( Victory Baptist Church Mallam- Accra) and his air fare provided for.
He planned to work in the USA to support himself while relying on scholarship grants from charitable bodies to pay for his education. His church pledged $3000 for 4 years
He still needed to be able to assure the US embassy that he would have an income of $10,500 a year for 4 years guaranteed to live on before the embassy would grant him a Visa. He would seek to get that and more from a teaching post. We felt that he needed to get support of a Baptist Church in Kansas who would help him get a job near the university.
We encouraged his pastor to seek the help of the Baptist World Alliance through the Ghana Baptist Convention and they applied to the Convention for help, He needed to get his Visa and get over there to start a four year course from August 20th Anthony has a lot of determination.
We have been helping him for years, especially when his teacher training college got flooded years ago and we received a newspaper cutting of him just a head above water and he lost all his meagre belongings which we were enabled to replace. We continue to send him THE WORD FOR TODAY and WAR CRY
His last message indicated that he had failed to obtain a visa and would have to remain in Ghana as a school teacher, and in his role as secretary of Victory Baptist Church which is becoming unbearable and he needs to renew a 2 year rent on a room. We paid that 2 years ago for £200, but it will cost more now and he thinks he may have to move out of the capital.
He needed to find money to support his elderly mother who was ill and his siblings, His future prospects are uncertain. He is clearly disappointed and confused. We have given him the address and phone number of the Salvation Army in Accra. They may be able to help him.
Robert Amuzu
===========
has been working in Togo since 2005. It is hard going as he has to work in French where his main language is English. The Church started at Mangoase in 2006 continues. We helped pay for the land on which locals built a meeting place and to have a bore hole dug for fresh drinking water.
The folk there are trying to establish a self supporting small holding run by Francis Mensah. who is also taking over as pastor from January 2008
The new brother Frederic Anim, a freelance evangelist from Kumasi joined the team there in Sept 2006 Robert was paying £80 himself to fund this pastor and 3 of our folk paid the £140 to fund another Mission by students from the colleges at Winneba there during December 2006 which resulted in 31 new people joining the congregation.
During 2007 Fred became ill with malaria and notched up debts for food and medicines amounting to £160. While Robert had to fly to India for specialist eye treatment and was unable to continue his support. We provided a wheel chair to the congregation for a brother suffering from polio but were unable to help Fred further.
Robbie has since paid £50 of the debt and is working overtime in Togo to help reduce it, and a neighbour there has volunteered to help. The debt is down to £85 to be cleared by Dec.
Ebenezer Cobbina
=============
the teenager who sought our help now has his self propelled wheelchair and a pair of special boots to enable him to travel to school and he has now successfully completed his school life.
Now he asks for sponsorship help to enable him to learn a trade in leather work and making and repairing shoes. He is praying for £160 by Christmas. This has now been forwarded to him.
MALAWI
######
We support the Christian Resources Centre run in Blantyre by Pastor Enock M Dimba. We have sent him posters, books, cassettes, and other literature, and we have provided during 2007 fifteen Bibles in Shona for pastors in new churches in Mozambique.. Their 15 congregations had no Bibles and the pastors were preaching from the content of Christian tracts. We hope to be able to supply more Christian books and Bibles for use in both countries if more funds become available to us.
TOGO
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Where Robert Amuzo works in Togo (see Ghana above) , he has been hosting a Sunday Morning School of Jesus and had a dozen young men attending it during the hour before he went to worship. 7 have suddenly decided they don't want to attend any more, which is disappointing and discouraging.
Pray for him as leader, for the 5 remaining that they will grow in confidence and obedience to the LORD and draw others into the group, and pray for the 7 who have left, that they will yet realise there is a God caring for them who deserves their trust and obedience that they may know Jesus Christ and yet follow him.
ZAMBIA
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Timothy Chali
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of the SOLDIERS OF THE CROSS P. O. Box 760078 Mwense. Zambia lives on an island in the large Lake Mweru.. Timothy could use any amount of English tracts, modern English testaments, Gospels, Bibles, and Christian books, gospel songs and ministry cassettes. Please send direct by air or sea at small packet Rate with PO Customs labels on marked as a GIFT. We will be sending more.
Joseph S Musonda
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We have been able to supply him rechargeable batteries for a second cassette player in Kabwe Prison and send cassettes from time to time and supplied a Bible commentary. We have also supplied books and a storage box for them. We have established a reliable person to convey money to his son Humphrey’s school. He was expelled from school just before his final year because his uncle who had been paying his fees had died. Joseph has sold his meagre furniture to get the boy back into school this term .
We have money to assist for the last 2 terms next year but need the phone number and email address of the school. We are waiting to hear from his guardian, a widow woman who looks after a number of orphans.
We also need £40 to pay the expenses of the man to take the money on a 250 mile round trip with accommodation for 1 night. We hope Humphrey will be able to resume his last 2 terms from January.
Elder Chanda Jackson
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of PO Box 740009 Nchelenge Luapula ZAMBIA sent this picture of the Bore Hole well some us provided in 2005 for an orphanage that he visits to give Christian teaching to the boys and girls. In addition he looks after 10 orphan children himself. He needs £300 a year to put them all through school each year that is £10 a term for each of the 10 of 3 terms a year but he has also been asking for £25 each as well to fit them out with school uniforms.
The Head Teacher is insisting that all children in the school must wear school Uniform. We find that for small sums bank notes get through if hidden in booklets but the Post office here declines to send bank notes by registered mail so for large sums we use MoneyGram but whether there is a centre near Chanda he can collect from we don’t yet know.
Adam Tembe
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is another prison link to whom we can send cassettes from time to time working in a different area of the prison from Joseph.
Betty Phiri
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writes from Lusaka she is single a 29 yearold Roman Catholic Her father died in 1998, a sister died in 2000. Her mother is 51 and has HIV/AIDS, Mother with other sons and daughter lives in a remote village although she has persuaded her to go on medication but she needs a better diet. The young woman has a part time job in the capital Lusaka, but she has a Drier and would like to buy another and start a salon and bring her Mum to the city where she could get better medical care.
She has also asked for Christian Literature for her family. So Gospel Literature Worldwide have agreed to send their gospel sheet SOON 3 times a year to her and to her family, and maybe get one at least on a Bible Study course and I’ll send some material.
Unable to raise the £150 she needed to start a business she has now settled for £35 to enable her to take a final exam in December so this has been sent to her.
SOUTH AFRICA
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Phil and Amie Brown
===============
are on a 2 year mid-term assignment for the Baptist Missionary Society at Wibsey near Johannesburg to set up a centre where BMS Youth Action Teams of young people from Britain can stay while serving there, and are assisting administratively students of the South Africa Baptist Convention College, and helping assist it’s transfer to a new site. They are also learning Zulu and are assisting Moroka Baptist Church in Soweto Township which has 40-50 members with ongoing children’s and youth work.
ESTONIA
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Mrs Laine Piirimaee
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of Johvi, a middle aged widow, whose parents were Lutheran, and one aunt was a Baptist. An agnostic for many years Laine is now a Christian who uses “War Cry” and “The WORD for TODAY” in her English teaching.
Her recent private student a young Christian woman Annelie has graduated.
Continue to pray for the children of Laine’s nephew Ullar who heads up a 40 strong Medical Health Team, and for his wife Sirge, a specialist herself and her mother, Kai (20) and their sons Henri 18 who expects to begin medical training this Autumn and Karl 15 who wants to become an engineer. Ullar has a long standing friend Hannes who has 3 children Kart, Raif, and Kaarel let’s pray for them too.
Pray too for Laine’s niece Piret a geography teacher, and her daughter Kadri a teacher in England with her boy friend Chris..
For her friends we introduced Laine to some years ago through a contact in Pakistan, Silvi who recently made a commitment to Christ) and Jake. Both physically handicapped but of very practical help to Laine, for their son Raul who has been training to be a lawyer and his wife Juliet and their 2½ yearold baby Elin, and daughter Runa who married a year ago to a German man Thomas Now they have a daughter. Silvi has a friend Aino, whose daughter Olga after 2 years marriage with an 18 month old baby Juliet-Alline has been left by her husband 30 years her senior.
Now Laine has a new young male student learning English, Albert, aged 16 And his brother Allan. Laine also has a disabled 12 yearold girl Maret learning English, from a broken marriage she lives with a younger sister Marit aged 10, and they live with an aunt Helju who is the sister to the girl’s father. Their mother has gone off with another man who has 5 children. They all need to learn more about Jesus & how to follow him.
PICTURE POSTCARDS.
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Do you have any second hand postcards Mission Aviation Fellowship can sell them to raise funds. Send to Mrs Heather Yule 10 Calverden Road RAMSGATE Kent CT12 6JU
PASTORS TRAINING INTERNATIONAL
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have sent packs of books to a number of our Pastor contacts in Africa who have no books
Used Overseas and British pictorial postage stamps
=================================
We pass on to Christian Witness to Israel. in support for their work amongst Jews in the UK, South Africa, Australia, France, and in Israel itself. mission agencies.
.
Your Prayers
########
are appreciated for all, or any, of those requesting our help or anything stated that we support. We also appreciate all gifts of cash, books of postage stamps, second hand A5 and A4 paper sized envelopes, jiffy bags. and second hand Bible Reading notes. (Cheques make out to John E Maddams”)
Bible Famine.
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The need to provide subsidised and free Bibles around the world rises as the planets population rises. Whole villages in war ravaged Congo share but 1 Bible and in many parts of the world there are no Bibles.
For over a billion people a Bible is a luxury they cannot afford. 4500 languages still wait for even 1 book of the Bible. Someone goes blind every 5 seconds but the Bible in Braille exists only in 30 languages.
International Evangelist Luis Palau has said “If you have to cut out every ministry and keep one, printing and distributing the Bible has to be number one”.
BOOK AID will accept them. If you have a quantity, contact Mr & Mrs Barrett of Histon 01223 233063 Book Aid’s Regional Representative in East Anglia. They may be able to collect them or tell you where to deliver them to be picked up. Outside East Anglia contact 020 8857 7794 or office@book-aid.org...
PROPHECY is not just centuries old.
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In the turbulent years before the 1917 revolution in Russia a young aristocratic woman ( later to become Mother Barbara, abbess of the Russian Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem) with her father used to visit Bishop Aristocoli in the Kremlin .
He prophesied many things about the end times in Europe, in England and in Russia.
He foretold that Europe would be laid waste and Germany be divided in two.
That England would lose her empire and colonies, and be on the verge of collapse but be saved in the last hours by praying women.
Then he prophesied that England would have a Queen and she will be very good, and she must be prayed for. It will be very difficult for her and she will weep a lot. An evil will shortly take over Russia and where ever this evil comes rivers of blood will flow. It is not of the Russian soul. But it is a spirit from Hell ( This was fulfilled as Communism. Marx, Lenin, Stalin,)
Finally Russia will be free and out of Russia believers will go forth and turn many nations to God. From the earliest centuries we have heard prophecies that rays of Gospel light will come from the east The light over the whole world will be from Russia, who suffered more than anybody. Russia will be completely reborn!”.
The largest churches in Europe today are in Ukraine, where the capital Kiev was originally the capital of Russia and they now have a free democratic republic, and in recent weeks the General Election of 2007 has brought to power a government which is looking westwards and hopes to join the European Union. So this prophecy is being literally fulfilled from 10 years ago in 1997 Revival has begun and is widening across the land of Russia, and in Russia’s former Soviet satellite territories There are churches where there were none before even in Mongolia where there are a string of Baptist Churches.
With kind regards
John
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AUTUMN 2007 UPDATE
###############
LIGHTHOUSE MINISTRY (MCCPF) Founded 1954.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Administrator
John E Maddams 35 Four Acres. Saffron Walden CB11 3JD UK
Editorial comment
============
As from July 2007 working on a slim budget we are just continuing the local distribution of NEW LIFE NEWS and we continue a ministry of encouragement to individuals using Gospels, RBC Booklets, tracts, poems, cards, calendars and emails.
We encourage the circulation of OUR DAILY BREAD Bible Reading devotional booklets.
We have had to discontinue all overseas contacts except for sending Christian literature and cassettes to a few remaining contacts. People keep asking for money that we don’t have. If we had it we would try to help them.
We helped this year distribute locally over 900 of their 10,000 leaflets about the new Salvation Army Centre, and to Christians leaflets about the Bible a Month scheme of the Bible Society
We continue to operate this our Web board site Lighthouse Prayer Ministry providing access to overseas prayer requests and pen pal list, inspirational messages, and verses, local Church history, news from Four Acres Community. Local Boys’ Brigade Camp Reports from 2003. The Maddams Family Tree, and lots of links with Christian Missions.
We support locally Gideons School New Testaments distribution and the Annual Vacation Bible School which reaches some 600 children for a week in August and the work of Stort Valley Schools Trust who fund part-time women Christian support workers in our secondary schools and the use of Its “Your move booklets” in 6th year Primary schools.
We supported the work of NEW FRONTIERS in the valley of the Amazon River where they, through Ray of Hope Ministry are establishing new village schools to combat the need of daily 3 hour canoe journeys to and then from school. Imagine getting up at 3am to go to school and getting home about 7pm six days a week We help provide for more children the book ”THE MOST IMPORTANT STORY EVER TOLD” in Brazilian Portuguese at £1 a copy.
TREES
####
When designated funds allow us, we continue to plant trees. We have two fine woods of 250 trees each on the Congo/Ugandan border and an olive grove in Israel. Last year we funded 500 new coffee trees to South America.
This year through CORD we have funded 750 new saplings for woods in Burundi to help defeat soil erosion. Similarly some years ago we planted trees in the Sahel region helping fight soil erosion and the spread of the Sahara Desert. We have trees in the UK helping provide wild life habitat and around the world helping combat global warming. Trees absorb large amounts of Carbon dioxide. Peat bogs even more. If you really want to save the planet help plant millions more trees,
Churches Together in Saffron Walden
########################
For the past 3 years while I have served as General Secretary. Lighthouse Ministry funded a series of information leaflets , a 3 panel display unit of original photographs, an illustrated annual report, produced free of charge coloured posters for various events , and circulated the Minutes of their Meetings.
However I have resigned having helped Duncan Green the retiring Chairman keep the organisation together during a difficult transitionary period during which where there have been 4 changes of Church ministers and various changes within the organisation of co-ordinators.
The new General Secretary is Mr Tim Rouse of Gold Street Evangelical Church. The new Chairman is the Revd Simon Mattholie, the Baptist Minister.
ONCE OFF HOUSE TO HOUSE DISTRIBUTION IN SAFFRON WALDEN.
#########################################
Since May 2003 I have been proceeding with a project laid upon me in the 1990’s to get an item of Christian Literature into every home in Saffron Walden that proclaims the Good News of Jesus Christ, provides testimony of changed lives and show what God is doing today as against years or centuries ago.
The only paper to meet this criteria so far is NEW LIFE NEWS but it is a Pentecostalist and Community Churches publication and not all branches of the Church like it, although those that criticise it cannot suggest anything better . It is a tabloid, and the majority of newspaper readers read tabloids, but those who read the broad sheets may not like it, and some middle class Christians take exception to it.
Since the beginning I have included a flier emphasising the ecumenical Christian Enquiry Agency for those seeking help, and encouraging interested people to send £7.50 a year to the publishers to have it monthly by post.
I’ve been recommending the www.rejesus.co.uk website, and later adding Oakington Parish Church healing ministry website.
Upon becoming General Secretary of CTSW partly to publicise CTSW and provide inquirers with local information I had been including on the flier the name, locations, morning service times, contact telephone numbers and web site addresses of the 9 local Christian congregations, but members of two objected and I deleted them and then stated that not all Christians approved of the content of NLN and that it was not distributed by CTSW.
In resigning from CTSW I did offer all the ministers to include their local information upon request but no one replied.
So now I no longer list this information but refer anyone interested in locating local Christians to go to the Tourist Information Centre who hold such information, and the Town Council web site that has a link to local church web sites. I’ve distributed to nearly two thirds of the homes and hope to finish on the basis of 100 a month in 2010.
A BIT OF LOCAL HISTORY FROM COUNCIL OF CHURCHES MINUTES
#########################################
Early in the 1990’s the then Council of Churches initiated a survey of their Sunday Schools and found that they between them reached 236 children under the age of 18, but of them above the age of 13 only 33. The number of school children in the town under 18 at that time was 3500.
That led directly to the development of a schools Ministry, with a team going into various schools to lead assembles, with the development of the Methodist Castle Puppets team, three On-Track after school clubs, only one of which now functions, the use of the “On the Move Booklet “ for year 6 students and the development of the Scripture Union Stort Valley Schools Trust putting female Christian workers into local secondary schools.
The total population at the moment is about 16,000 and rising of which an estimated 13,000 have no link with the churches.
DRUGS & DRINK
##########
Unbeknown to most people we have a huge teenage and school children drugs problem in the town from 12 year olds upwards, and as many other communities a lot binge drinking by teens and twenties.
We encourage young people when possible to access www.talktofrank.com This is a website with an A-Z Directory to most of the drugs in circulation including nicotine and alcohol, explaining where these drugs come from, what they do, their side effects and the long term consequences, and the legal prohibitions and the punishments likely for caught users, sharers and sellers.
On alcohol some advice is given on safe levels of consumption. 3-4 units per day for men over 18, and 2-3 units for women over 18. Those under 18 should be consuming less, and it is illegal to give alcohol to under 5’s. Most start from the age of 7. A unit equals 1 half pint of beer, cider or lager, or one small glass of wine, or 25 ml of spirits.
Most people forget the "small" glass bit, and many are consuming double the maximum daily to the detriment of their health and the safety of other people. The website provides a Help Line number and email contact, for worried people seeking advice.
We continue to receive prayer requests from overseas and requests for financial help that we can no longer respond to.
ETHIOPIA
========
Ayele Haliso aged about 26 cares for a 17 yearold brother and 3 younger siblings aged 8-11 they have had no schooling for years and beg for food. He has been training 3 years to become a teacher but needed money to pay his college fees and help the family group. We have managed to send what he needs and he graduated recently. He has advised us that students in private colleges were stunned in July by a new government edict that declares only teachers trained in public colleges will be able to work in public schools.
That leaves Ayele looking for a teaching post with a private school with a lot of competition and he would need 4 years teaching experience. For a poor struggling country this seem ridiculous He has been advised by his tutors to embark on a 4 year degree course from Sept 2007. For that he will need sponsorship.
We cannot help him any further. He lives in a country with a very repressive authoritarian government that governs by decree and will not easily change. The Government is largely responsible for the poverty of the majority of the people.
GHANA
**********
Anthony Aboagye
=============
aged 32 made an application to the Midwest Baptist Seminary at Kansas in the USA to train as a Baptist Minister with the support of the elders of his Church ( Victory Baptist Church Mallam- Accra) and his air fare provided for.
He planned to work in the USA to support himself while relying on scholarship grants from charitable bodies to pay for his education. His church pledged $3000 for 4 years
He still needed to be able to assure the US embassy that he would have an income of $10,500 a year for 4 years guaranteed to live on before the embassy would grant him a Visa. He would seek to get that and more from a teaching post. We felt that he needed to get support of a Baptist Church in Kansas who would help him get a job near the university.
We encouraged his pastor to seek the help of the Baptist World Alliance through the Ghana Baptist Convention and they applied to the Convention for help, He needed to get his Visa and get over there to start a four year course from August 20th Anthony has a lot of determination.
We have been helping him for years, especially when his teacher training college got flooded years ago and we received a newspaper cutting of him just a head above water and he lost all his meagre belongings which we were enabled to replace. We continue to send him THE WORD FOR TODAY and WAR CRY
His last message indicated that he had failed to obtain a visa and would have to remain in Ghana as a school teacher, and in his role as secretary of Victory Baptist Church which is becoming unbearable and he needs to renew a 2 year rent on a room. We paid that 2 years ago for £200, but it will cost more now and he thinks he may have to move out of the capital.
He needed to find money to support his elderly mother who was ill and his siblings, His future prospects are uncertain. He is clearly disappointed and confused. We have given him the address and phone number of the Salvation Army in Accra. They may be able to help him.
Robert Amuzu
===========
has been working in Togo since 2005. It is hard going as he has to work in French where his main language is English. The Church started at Mangoase in 2006 continues. We helped pay for the land on which locals built a meeting place and to have a bore hole dug for fresh drinking water.
The folk there are trying to establish a self supporting small holding run by Francis Mensah. who is also taking over as pastor from January 2008
The new brother Frederic Anim, a freelance evangelist from Kumasi joined the team there in Sept 2006 Robert was paying £80 himself to fund this pastor and 3 of our folk paid the £140 to fund another Mission by students from the colleges at Winneba there during December 2006 which resulted in 31 new people joining the congregation.
During 2007 Fred became ill with malaria and notched up debts for food and medicines amounting to £160. While Robert had to fly to India for specialist eye treatment and was unable to continue his support. We provided a wheel chair to the congregation for a brother suffering from polio but were unable to help Fred further.
Robbie has since paid £50 of the debt and is working overtime in Togo to help reduce it, and a neighbour there has volunteered to help. The debt is down to £85 to be cleared by Dec.
Ebenezer Cobbina
=============
the teenager who sought our help now has his self propelled wheelchair and a pair of special boots to enable him to travel to school and he has now successfully completed his school life.
Now he asks for sponsorship help to enable him to learn a trade in leather work and making and repairing shoes. He is praying for £160 by Christmas. This has now been forwarded to him.
MALAWI
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We support the Christian Resources Centre run in Blantyre by Pastor Enock M Dimba. We have sent him posters, books, cassettes, and other literature, and we have provided during 2007 fifteen Bibles in Shona for pastors in new churches in Mozambique.. Their 15 congregations had no Bibles and the pastors were preaching from the content of Christian tracts. We hope to be able to supply more Christian books and Bibles for use in both countries if more funds become available to us.
TOGO
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Where Robert Amuzo works in Togo (see Ghana above) , he has been hosting a Sunday Morning School of Jesus and had a dozen young men attending it during the hour before he went to worship. 7 have suddenly decided they don't want to attend any more, which is disappointing and discouraging.
Pray for him as leader, for the 5 remaining that they will grow in confidence and obedience to the LORD and draw others into the group, and pray for the 7 who have left, that they will yet realise there is a God caring for them who deserves their trust and obedience that they may know Jesus Christ and yet follow him.
ZAMBIA
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Timothy Chali
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of the SOLDIERS OF THE CROSS P. O. Box 760078 Mwense. Zambia lives on an island in the large Lake Mweru.. Timothy could use any amount of English tracts, modern English testaments, Gospels, Bibles, and Christian books, gospel songs and ministry cassettes. Please send direct by air or sea at small packet Rate with PO Customs labels on marked as a GIFT. We will be sending more.
Joseph S Musonda
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We have been able to supply him rechargeable batteries for a second cassette player in Kabwe Prison and send cassettes from time to time and supplied a Bible commentary. We have also supplied books and a storage box for them. We have established a reliable person to convey money to his son Humphrey’s school. He was expelled from school just before his final year because his uncle who had been paying his fees had died. Joseph has sold his meagre furniture to get the boy back into school this term .
We have money to assist for the last 2 terms next year but need the phone number and email address of the school. We are waiting to hear from his guardian, a widow woman who looks after a number of orphans.
We also need £40 to pay the expenses of the man to take the money on a 250 mile round trip with accommodation for 1 night. We hope Humphrey will be able to resume his last 2 terms from January.
Elder Chanda Jackson
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of PO Box 740009 Nchelenge Luapula ZAMBIA sent this picture of the Bore Hole well some us provided in 2005 for an orphanage that he visits to give Christian teaching to the boys and girls. In addition he looks after 10 orphan children himself. He needs £300 a year to put them all through school each year that is £10 a term for each of the 10 of 3 terms a year but he has also been asking for £25 each as well to fit them out with school uniforms.
The Head Teacher is insisting that all children in the school must wear school Uniform. We find that for small sums bank notes get through if hidden in booklets but the Post office here declines to send bank notes by registered mail so for large sums we use MoneyGram but whether there is a centre near Chanda he can collect from we don’t yet know.
Adam Tembe
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is another prison link to whom we can send cassettes from time to time working in a different area of the prison from Joseph.
Betty Phiri
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writes from Lusaka she is single a 29 yearold Roman Catholic Her father died in 1998, a sister died in 2000. Her mother is 51 and has HIV/AIDS, Mother with other sons and daughter lives in a remote village although she has persuaded her to go on medication but she needs a better diet. The young woman has a part time job in the capital Lusaka, but she has a Drier and would like to buy another and start a salon and bring her Mum to the city where she could get better medical care.
She has also asked for Christian Literature for her family. So Gospel Literature Worldwide have agreed to send their gospel sheet SOON 3 times a year to her and to her family, and maybe get one at least on a Bible Study course and I’ll send some material.
Unable to raise the £150 she needed to start a business she has now settled for £35 to enable her to take a final exam in December so this has been sent to her.
SOUTH AFRICA
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Phil and Amie Brown
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are on a 2 year mid-term assignment for the Baptist Missionary Society at Wibsey near Johannesburg to set up a centre where BMS Youth Action Teams of young people from Britain can stay while serving there, and are assisting administratively students of the South Africa Baptist Convention College, and helping assist it’s transfer to a new site. They are also learning Zulu and are assisting Moroka Baptist Church in Soweto Township which has 40-50 members with ongoing children’s and youth work.
ESTONIA
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Mrs Laine Piirimaee
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of Johvi, a middle aged widow, whose parents were Lutheran, and one aunt was a Baptist. An agnostic for many years Laine is now a Christian who uses “War Cry” and “The WORD for TODAY” in her English teaching.
Her recent private student a young Christian woman Annelie has graduated.
Continue to pray for the children of Laine’s nephew Ullar who heads up a 40 strong Medical Health Team, and for his wife Sirge, a specialist herself and her mother, Kai (20) and their sons Henri 18 who expects to begin medical training this Autumn and Karl 15 who wants to become an engineer. Ullar has a long standing friend Hannes who has 3 children Kart, Raif, and Kaarel let’s pray for them too.
Pray too for Laine’s niece Piret a geography teacher, and her daughter Kadri a teacher in England with her boy friend Chris..
For her friends we introduced Laine to some years ago through a contact in Pakistan, Silvi who recently made a commitment to Christ) and Jake. Both physically handicapped but of very practical help to Laine, for their son Raul who has been training to be a lawyer and his wife Juliet and their 2½ yearold baby Elin, and daughter Runa who married a year ago to a German man Thomas Now they have a daughter. Silvi has a friend Aino, whose daughter Olga after 2 years marriage with an 18 month old baby Juliet-Alline has been left by her husband 30 years her senior.
Now Laine has a new young male student learning English, Albert, aged 16 And his brother Allan. Laine also has a disabled 12 yearold girl Maret learning English, from a broken marriage she lives with a younger sister Marit aged 10, and they live with an aunt Helju who is the sister to the girl’s father. Their mother has gone off with another man who has 5 children. They all need to learn more about Jesus & how to follow him.
PICTURE POSTCARDS.
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Do you have any second hand postcards Mission Aviation Fellowship can sell them to raise funds. Send to Mrs Heather Yule 10 Calverden Road RAMSGATE Kent CT12 6JU
PASTORS TRAINING INTERNATIONAL
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have sent packs of books to a number of our Pastor contacts in Africa who have no books
Used Overseas and British pictorial postage stamps
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We pass on to Christian Witness to Israel. in support for their work amongst Jews in the UK, South Africa, Australia, France, and in Israel itself. mission agencies.
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Your Prayers
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are appreciated for all, or any, of those requesting our help or anything stated that we support. We also appreciate all gifts of cash, books of postage stamps, second hand A5 and A4 paper sized envelopes, jiffy bags. and second hand Bible Reading notes. (Cheques make out to John E Maddams”)
Bible Famine.
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The need to provide subsidised and free Bibles around the world rises as the planets population rises. Whole villages in war ravaged Congo share but 1 Bible and in many parts of the world there are no Bibles.
For over a billion people a Bible is a luxury they cannot afford. 4500 languages still wait for even 1 book of the Bible. Someone goes blind every 5 seconds but the Bible in Braille exists only in 30 languages.
International Evangelist Luis Palau has said “If you have to cut out every ministry and keep one, printing and distributing the Bible has to be number one”.
BOOK AID will accept them. If you have a quantity, contact Mr & Mrs Barrett of Histon 01223 233063 Book Aid’s Regional Representative in East Anglia. They may be able to collect them or tell you where to deliver them to be picked up. Outside East Anglia contact 020 8857 7794 or office@book-aid.org...
PROPHECY is not just centuries old.
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In the turbulent years before the 1917 revolution in Russia a young aristocratic woman ( later to become Mother Barbara, abbess of the Russian Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem) with her father used to visit Bishop Aristocoli in the Kremlin .
He prophesied many things about the end times in Europe, in England and in Russia.
He foretold that Europe would be laid waste and Germany be divided in two.
That England would lose her empire and colonies, and be on the verge of collapse but be saved in the last hours by praying women.
Then he prophesied that England would have a Queen and she will be very good, and she must be prayed for. It will be very difficult for her and she will weep a lot. An evil will shortly take over Russia and where ever this evil comes rivers of blood will flow. It is not of the Russian soul. But it is a spirit from Hell ( This was fulfilled as Communism. Marx, Lenin, Stalin,)
Finally Russia will be free and out of Russia believers will go forth and turn many nations to God. From the earliest centuries we have heard prophecies that rays of Gospel light will come from the east The light over the whole world will be from Russia, who suffered more than anybody. Russia will be completely reborn!”.
The largest churches in Europe today are in Ukraine, where the capital Kiev was originally the capital of Russia and they now have a free democratic republic, and in recent weeks the General Election of 2007 has brought to power a government which is looking westwards and hopes to join the European Union. So this prophecy is being literally fulfilled from 10 years ago in 1997 Revival has begun and is widening across the land of Russia, and in Russia’s former Soviet satellite territories There are churches where there were none before even in Mongolia where there are a string of Baptist Churches.
With kind regards
John