Post by JEM on Feb 16, 2008 17:52:35 GMT
LIGHTHOUSE PRAYER MINISTRY NEWS
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LIGHTHOUSE MINISTRY (MCCPF) Founded 1954.
SPRING ( MAY) 2008 UPDATE
From :Administrator John E Maddams 35 Four Acres. Saffron Walden CB11 3JD UK
The object of Lighthouse Prayer Ministry (MCCPF) is “The Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom into all the world
2008 for Lighthouse Prayer Ministry (MCCPF) marks the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the
OVERSEAS EVANGELISM AUXILLARY the beginning of our sending material overseas.
It began in 1958 with sending specific magazines to Baptist Missionaries through the Missionaries Literature Association and later about 1964 to missionaries of the Ministry of Evangelism, part of the Evangelical Preachers Association.
From that we have through a series of programmes, projects and with different teams of people sent the Good News of Jesus Christ to just under 20,000 individual people across 191 countries beyond the UK.
From some of those people we never heard, through others many more were reached. Often I had thought this work had ended only to have it flare up again and lots more be reached. What began with magazines and tracts went on to include Bibles, New Testaments, Scripture portions, Calendars, Books, Bible Reading notes, Bible Study course material, Sunday School Teaching materials, filmstrips, hymnals, a battery operated projector, cassettes, cassette players, typewriter spare parts, and ribbons, videos and CD’s..
Then there were hundreds of small grants of money to help educational and training projects, colleges, schools, students, and schoolchildren. and grants supporting Radio evangelism, TV evangelism, Christian film productions. More recently has been outreach on the Internet with our Proboards site, networking, and putting articles on other message boards on various sites based in the UK or the USA. Then there are the 29 tree planting projects we have supported since 1991 planting 5380 trees across 14 countries and various aid projects..
Our work continues these days mainly to contacts in Estonia, Ukraine, Ghana, Malawi. Mozambique and Zambia. We are now a small group of elderly retired people.
Those that began this work were teenagers, and it began out of the Young Peoples Fellowship of Saffron Walden Baptist Church and Saffron Walden District Youth for Christ.
It is a ministry rather than an organisation. There is no committee. We have never had a bank account because we’ve never kept money long enough and all money passes through my account. ( cheques payable to John E Maddams).
This year we are also associating our work with HOPE 08 ministry This challenges the churches of the UK” to demonstrate hope in our villages, towns and cities and to do it more, do it together and do it in words and actions”
What Lighthouse Ministry has been trying to do for decades as have many other churches, and groups and organisations. Now we are urged to go on, and do more and unite more in doing it. Access their web site www.hope08.com. Below are examples of the way we have been asked to pray and to help in these days
ESTONIA
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For 14 years we have communicated with LAINE the widowed English teacher who was not a committed Christian when we began but is now. through her we have been able to pray for a score of folk and help some. We continue to send her WAR CRY, The WORD for TODAY and GOSPEL GEM CALENDARS for her and for friends.. Laine was recently burgled. She has lived in her house for 50 years and often left her key in the lock on the outside. She did it once too often. She finished up in hospital injured and traumatised, she cannot understand why the world has changed so much and for the worst,
ETHIOPIA
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AYELE HALISSO of PO Box 2532 NAZERETH. ETHIOPIA whom last year we enabled to complete his 3 year teacher training course is now bewildered as are many other teachers that a government edict requires that they must all have science degrees from a 4 year course in government colleges and 4 years teaching experience. So he is without work with 4 siblings aged 11-17 in his care reduced to begging and their future uncertain again. he now has an idea of going to South Africa to live and be a teacher.
He hopes with God’s help to go in July. He has a problem though, one that has plagued all his dreams for years, he has no job, he has never had a job outside his family..
After the family farm died, his parents died and his family was scattered he has served unpaid as a lay evangelist, and done a 3 year diploma course in teaching, but all the way he and the siblings in his care have survived by begging.
To go to South Africa the transport alone will be £2800. I call it a pipe dream, a mirage but who knows what God has planned for him. That he has thought to go anywhere is progress. He believes God will answer his prayers. If it is God's will then I believe He will too, he has kept them alive to this point , 4 years ago we thought they'd starve to death.
He has now had a passport donated by his Pastor and he says everything is increasing in prices,and they are hungry and his sister is ill.
GHANA
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ROBERT AMUSU spent Christmas at Bawjiase in Ghana on company leave from Togo, Robert better known as Robbie, works in Togo where he leads a Young Men’s Sunday Morning Bible Class for young Ghanaians and Togolese workers. While at Bawjiase he helped lead another Christmas Mission at the nearby village of Mangoase that we have helped these past 2 years.
Disabled EBENEZER COBBINA in Ghana has commenced his apprenticeship in shoe making and leather work from January 2008 by the grant we sent.
Keep praying for the evangelistic ministry at Agona Swedru of head master / preacher FRANCIS GORMAN
ANTHONY ABOAGYE Secretary of Victory Baptist Church PO Box 119 Accra Ghana is continuing to work localy as a teacher and serve that Church and is considering taking on an execurive roll in the Accra Baptist Youth Association.
MALAWI and MOZAMBIQUE
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In the past few years through PASTOR ENOCK M DIMBA of Christian Resource Ministries, PO Box 883, Blantyre, MALAWI we have provided GNB Bibles for Pastors and Orphans in Malawi, and in 2007, Bibles in the Shona language for pastors of 15 new Churches established in the past 12 months in nearby Mozambique.
We have also sent Enoch some world maps, some picture cards and BB Gazettes for the teaching material in them for use in schools. Pictures of schools across Africa often show notice boards without maps or pictures. If you have such material or unused out of date Sunday school teaching materials he could find it a home.
Please send direct to him, not to me, send by surface mail at Small Packet Rate with a signed Customs Declaration Label CN 22 obtainable at your post office on the front with your signature and date, indicating what’s in the package, giving an approximate value and ticking the gift box.
Enock asked for help to replace 100 Bibles lost by individuals in severe flooding that has devastated 14 provinces of Malawi. Christian Resource Ministries, is registered as a charity in Britain. Charity Number SCO 30806 .
We were enabled to fund these Bibles through
Christian Resource Ministries's British Rep.
Mr Jim Figgis,
Christian Resource Ministries
The Bible Shop,
168 King Street,
Castle Douglas,
Kirkcudbrightshire.
DG7 1DA
Scotland.
Jim distributed some of them on a recent visit
Jim is also a trustee of another charity supporting work caring for orphans in Kenya, India, South Africa and Mozambique and at his own expense has visited Africa 12 times.
Christian Resource Ministries was founded by Enock's farther
the director of the Ministry, Bishop Morris Dimba
They are engaged in
Evangelism to remote areas of the country
Pastor Training
Literature Distribution
Church plantin and growth
Care of Orphans
They look after 200 0rphans,
SPAIN
####
Our supporter JEAN ROBERTSON of Avenida Castuera 42, San Luis, 03184 Tarrevieja, Alicante, Spain asks whether we know of a source
from which her church there could obtain a portable individual communion set, as they would like to take Communion into hospitals for patients there. The church has about 98 members, and are seeking a new pastor.
UKRAINE
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SERGIE IVANIUK from Zaporozhye in Ukraine sent us an image as a Christmas Greeting. He drew this and then painted it in water colour or several friends, he will then be painting it in oils as a mural at his Church. He has done previous murals there. His mother also attends this Church led by a Korean Pastor. Last autumn a South Korean evangelist led an evangelistic mission there. Sergie after his serious accident in 2006 falling from scaffolding has been forced to return to book selling. His arm is still painful and he suffers too from arthritis and rheumatism. We still send him books from time to time which he much appreciates and “WORD for TODAY” and “WAR CRY”
ZAMBIA
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EVANS KATONGA of Lusaka Central Prison, P.O. Box 30133 Chimbokaila Zambia is 32, and is on remand awaiting trial for aggravated burglary from 2004. His wife has separated from him and married another man and refuses to look after their 5 yearold daughter who is being brought up by Evans 70 yearold ailing mother. Evans has leg mobility problems. He became a Christian after arrest . At his request we sent him a “New Living Bible” and inspirational books.
MULENGA KATETE OSCAR, LEVY HAMWANZA AND DAVIES PHIRI, are all at Maximum Security Prison, Death Row Section, P O Box 80915, Kabwe Zambia. Mulenga is aged 39 a widower with 3 destitute children, Levy ‘s wife has left him and he is 33 and has 3 destitute children. Both have become Christians since entering prison although on Death Row they will probably be sentence to life imprisonment as the death penalty no longer operates.
I know from long experience of the prison system in Zambia that conditions are poor due to under-funding, although in the last 2 years there has been less overcrowding and more movement of prisoners around the country but prisoners depend on relatives visiting them to take in food additional to the meagre rations the prison authorities can provide with limited and delayed funding.
The prisoners also need personal toiletries We have recently sent Mulenga , Davies, and Levy “Help Parcels” [ a towel, a flannel, a tooth brush, tooth paste, soap, disposable razors, pants and socks]. These particular prisoners are incarcerated hundreds of miles from their home villages and their relatives have disowned them anyway. but if we are realistic they really need that twice or thrice a year.
These three prisoners all express concern about a sense of loneliness and neglect Earlier I sent Mulenga & Davies Gospel Gem calendars and RBC Bible teaching booklets. These they much appreciated and Bibles will be going to them shortly. If anyone feels constrained to help them do so. If we could find a UK Christian for each prisoner on our books to send some toiletries 2 or 3 times a year with a letter of encouragement that would be a great help but we need to avoid overloading ourselves, Kabwe has 1800 male prisoners and as news gets round we could be inundated with requests.
I try to reply to all letters from prisoners and put their address and details on a Pen Pal Register on my web site. If they ask for a Bible I send one by surface mail as small packet rate and sometimes I send other books but there are limits beyond which I cannot or will not go. Some suggest helping them with lawyers fees. Don’t do it. It only lines the pockets of lawyers and it does not free prisoners. Anyway we are not supposed to send currency notes or postal orders to Zambia now.
INNOCENT MUMBA writes to say that he is 28 married with 2 children. They struggle to survive with their Mum who has no stable income. He has found my address and says that he sighed and thought maybe this man can help. He knows I am not a charity nor an organisation but wonders whether I can locate relevant organisations and individuals who could rescue his family from poverty. When he thinks of their need and his state he feels as though the whole world has fallen to pieces and he does not know what to do. Well I don’t know either but I know someone who understands and may have the answer, Jesus Christ, but how He is going to do it is a mystery.
KAYI CHITALU from P O Box 70277 Ndola, Zambia writes that she is 24, the second of seven children of her family, born at the Kambawa Centre for the Blind on the outskirts of Ndola, to parents both of whom were blind. They live now in a dilapidated house which is in danger of collapse and her Dad has died. She is responsible for the care of her blind mum, and frail granny and all they can do is beg. She wants me to build them a new house. Why me?.
Well this may be because a couple of years ago we sent several hundred pounds to put a new roof on the home of a destitute family at Kabwe, whose head of household was a member of the Men’s Fellowship of Kabwe United Church of Zambia. The secretary of which church is the wife of MOSES ZULU the Protestant chaplain of the Maximum Security Prison who we have dealt with in the past. The minister of that church who acted as go-between surveying the job, has since moved to Ndola I have no idea how to reply or what to do.
DAVID DIMUNA SHIBALIKA
He writes to tell us that another CASSETTE TAPE RECORDER / PLAYER is needed at the Maximum Security Prison at Kabwe. We sent one there 3 years ago to a prisoner who has moved on to another prison and taken it with him. We provided batteries to power another in another part of the prison.. They had the machine but no means of powering it.
If someone has one that could be sent we can continue to supply both Bible teaching cassettes and gospel music cassettes. Failing that, one or two now unwanted cassette playing Walkman machines could be useful, even a CD Walkman might be useful as we may be able supply Gospel CD’s. Rather than post a machine to me send direct to David Dimuna Shibalika Maximum Security Prisons’ c/o Revd. Bernard Bohan, Bwacha Parish Church, P O Box 80613, Kabwe ,Zambia. David has been ill quite a long time with malaria. We are hoping shortly to send him a mosquito net.
LAKE MWERU PROJECT ZAMBIA
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At the moment there is one new project for which we don’t have any funding and which may cost several hundred pounds but which I would like to complete in 2008 in thanksgiving for my 70th birthday in December to provide 70 Modern English Bibles preferably Good News Bibles to a new young Church at Mwense on the island in Lake Mweru in Northern Zambia.
Various ideas for doing this having failed we are looking out for Bibles in this country as gifts or bought if necessary from second hand stalls and posting direct So far we have sent 23 to ELDER CHANDA JACKSON in Nchelenge who would take them by boat to the island presumeably to TIMOTHY CHALI of the SOLDIERS OF THE CROSS P. O. Box 760078
Mwense.
To whom we send Gospel cassettes and Christian literature.. The island is just a few kilometres from the boundary with the Democratic Republic of Congo. We have been sending Church Service and Gospel Music cassettes there for a couple
of years.
If anyone would like to help fund this project please contact me, I reckon we need another £150 to complete posting 70 as they come to us,
ON GOING LOCAL ACTIVITY
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Having had to cut back a lot during 2007, from our very limited guaranteed budget we continue to send “WAR CRY” to Laine in Estonia and “SALVATIONIST“ to Anthony in Ghana and to both of them, plus Joseph in Zambia, Sergie and Thomas Tonti Ba’ah the eye specialist in Ghana, we send “The WORD for TODAY”.
We also continue to distribute monthly 100 copies of NEW LIFE NEWSPAPER to the homes across Saffron Walden, and send cassettes to 5 locations overseas. As most years since the 1960’s we continue to distribute to a number of people in and around Walden the Gospel Gems Calendars which have again been much appreciated.. I would hope to increase the circulation for the 2009 edition. They cost 75p each.
We continue to exercise a ministry of encouragement using emails, greeting cards, various tracts, leaflets, cassettes, booklets and OUR DAILY BREAD devotional booklets with encouraging responses.. I am producing tracts to fix on the back of postcards and greeting cards. These can be useful in Malawi, Zambia and Ghana.
AWAITING POSTAGE
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We still have four cardboard boxes full of Christian books to post overseas and quite a lot of Gospel music cassettes when we get money for postage.
Several years ago I produced 70 A4 tract titles entitled the VOICE series and another called THE TARGET and used some locally with a nil response but sent others to Africa where they were appreciated . if we ever get sufficient money further of these can be printed off or photocopied and sent to Africa. Each VOICE tract covers one side of A4. Sent abroad I use 2 back to back. I also use 1 to print on the back of single side letters both abroad r in the UK.
USEFULLY DISPOSING OF FOREIGN STAMPS
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During the year with scores of letters arriving here from overseas we collect a lot of foreign stamps. These are sent once a year to Christian Witness to Israel who support missioners and missionaries amongst the Jews in various parts of Britain, in France, Spain, Australia, Israel etc. If you get foreign stamps you otherwise throw away you can pass them on to me or send them direct to CWI Stamp Bureau William Cumming 76 Oakfield Road Lobley Hill, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. NE11 OAE
SECOND HAND POSTCARDS
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for sale to raise money to keep Mission Aviation Fellowship Aircraft in the air are still acceptable by Mrs Heather Yule 10 Calverden Road RAMSGATE Kent CT12 6JU
AV BIBLES,or any other translation, BOOK AID will accept them.
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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
TEACH YOURSELF PAPERS
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We also have a 10 page A4 Green Booklet of Bible based articles in simplified English we photocopy and send overseas to specific people who show interest called TEACH YOURSELF PAPERS which deal with “Speaking to God”, “How God speaks to us through the Bible”, ”God’s Holy Spirit and how he can help us”, “The True Christian Church, how it organises, how it works, how to belong to it” and “What is true Christian teaching”. There is a lot of ignorance abroad amongst Christians due to revival raising up more converts that the organised churches can cope with and such a booklet is useful,
PASTORS TRAINING INTERNATIONAL
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have agreed to send packs of books to a number of our Pastor contacts in Africa who have no books. They also hold fortnight pastor training courses in various African countries sending out Bible College tutors to lead 7 instruct who volunteer their services free.
DRUGS, BOOZE and PORN
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Unbeknown to most people we have a huge teenage and school children drugs problem in Saffron Walden 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 about the age of 7. A unit equals ½ a 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 have that Website link on our web site and also another one run by teenagers for fellow teenagers tempted to look at pornography, to help them “kick that habit”.
As far as booze is concerned it may be better to teach people not to use it but to those who do they need to be taught how to reduce it to safe levels and it’s adverse effects, Even Jesus and his disciples drank alcohol, and in some parts of the world it is safer in moderation than the local water supply.
RAY OF HOPE MINISTRY
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We have 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.
PERSONALLY
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During 2007 it became clear to me that some doors were closing for me and I helped at what I reckon was my last BB Camp. I’ve been at 24 out of 28. I now attend and support both the Baptist and Salvation Army places of worship.
I’ve been a member of the Salvation Army CAMEO Club for 4 years, and have opportunity again to help with the Hospitals & Residential Homes ministry, and I share fortnightly in the work of The Well, the twice weekly Cafe style meeting place for people of all ages that is open Tuesdays and Thursdays 10am - 1.30pm.
I regard my main pastoral responsibility as my role of Co-ordinator / Treasurer since 1999 of the Four Acres Community,. encouraging 5 social groups and March saw me publish the 100th edition of FAN the illustrated monthly newsletter which also goes to some other elderly people about town and is also a means of sharing the Good News. I also continue to serve as Archivist as from 1983.
From February I began my 8th year as a representative for Walden’s Council Tenants on the UDC Tenants Forum which can be developed further to reach other pensioners across Uttlesford.
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LIGHTHOUSE MINISTRY (MCCPF) Founded 1954.
SPRING ( MAY) 2008 UPDATE
From :Administrator John E Maddams 35 Four Acres. Saffron Walden CB11 3JD UK
The object of Lighthouse Prayer Ministry (MCCPF) is “The Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom into all the world
2008 for Lighthouse Prayer Ministry (MCCPF) marks the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the
OVERSEAS EVANGELISM AUXILLARY the beginning of our sending material overseas.
It began in 1958 with sending specific magazines to Baptist Missionaries through the Missionaries Literature Association and later about 1964 to missionaries of the Ministry of Evangelism, part of the Evangelical Preachers Association.
From that we have through a series of programmes, projects and with different teams of people sent the Good News of Jesus Christ to just under 20,000 individual people across 191 countries beyond the UK.
From some of those people we never heard, through others many more were reached. Often I had thought this work had ended only to have it flare up again and lots more be reached. What began with magazines and tracts went on to include Bibles, New Testaments, Scripture portions, Calendars, Books, Bible Reading notes, Bible Study course material, Sunday School Teaching materials, filmstrips, hymnals, a battery operated projector, cassettes, cassette players, typewriter spare parts, and ribbons, videos and CD’s..
Then there were hundreds of small grants of money to help educational and training projects, colleges, schools, students, and schoolchildren. and grants supporting Radio evangelism, TV evangelism, Christian film productions. More recently has been outreach on the Internet with our Proboards site, networking, and putting articles on other message boards on various sites based in the UK or the USA. Then there are the 29 tree planting projects we have supported since 1991 planting 5380 trees across 14 countries and various aid projects..
Our work continues these days mainly to contacts in Estonia, Ukraine, Ghana, Malawi. Mozambique and Zambia. We are now a small group of elderly retired people.
Those that began this work were teenagers, and it began out of the Young Peoples Fellowship of Saffron Walden Baptist Church and Saffron Walden District Youth for Christ.
It is a ministry rather than an organisation. There is no committee. We have never had a bank account because we’ve never kept money long enough and all money passes through my account. ( cheques payable to John E Maddams).
This year we are also associating our work with HOPE 08 ministry This challenges the churches of the UK” to demonstrate hope in our villages, towns and cities and to do it more, do it together and do it in words and actions”
What Lighthouse Ministry has been trying to do for decades as have many other churches, and groups and organisations. Now we are urged to go on, and do more and unite more in doing it. Access their web site www.hope08.com. Below are examples of the way we have been asked to pray and to help in these days
ESTONIA
######
For 14 years we have communicated with LAINE the widowed English teacher who was not a committed Christian when we began but is now. through her we have been able to pray for a score of folk and help some. We continue to send her WAR CRY, The WORD for TODAY and GOSPEL GEM CALENDARS for her and for friends.. Laine was recently burgled. She has lived in her house for 50 years and often left her key in the lock on the outside. She did it once too often. She finished up in hospital injured and traumatised, she cannot understand why the world has changed so much and for the worst,
ETHIOPIA
#######
AYELE HALISSO of PO Box 2532 NAZERETH. ETHIOPIA whom last year we enabled to complete his 3 year teacher training course is now bewildered as are many other teachers that a government edict requires that they must all have science degrees from a 4 year course in government colleges and 4 years teaching experience. So he is without work with 4 siblings aged 11-17 in his care reduced to begging and their future uncertain again. he now has an idea of going to South Africa to live and be a teacher.
He hopes with God’s help to go in July. He has a problem though, one that has plagued all his dreams for years, he has no job, he has never had a job outside his family..
After the family farm died, his parents died and his family was scattered he has served unpaid as a lay evangelist, and done a 3 year diploma course in teaching, but all the way he and the siblings in his care have survived by begging.
To go to South Africa the transport alone will be £2800. I call it a pipe dream, a mirage but who knows what God has planned for him. That he has thought to go anywhere is progress. He believes God will answer his prayers. If it is God's will then I believe He will too, he has kept them alive to this point , 4 years ago we thought they'd starve to death.
He has now had a passport donated by his Pastor and he says everything is increasing in prices,and they are hungry and his sister is ill.
GHANA
#####
ROBERT AMUSU spent Christmas at Bawjiase in Ghana on company leave from Togo, Robert better known as Robbie, works in Togo where he leads a Young Men’s Sunday Morning Bible Class for young Ghanaians and Togolese workers. While at Bawjiase he helped lead another Christmas Mission at the nearby village of Mangoase that we have helped these past 2 years.
Disabled EBENEZER COBBINA in Ghana has commenced his apprenticeship in shoe making and leather work from January 2008 by the grant we sent.
Keep praying for the evangelistic ministry at Agona Swedru of head master / preacher FRANCIS GORMAN
ANTHONY ABOAGYE Secretary of Victory Baptist Church PO Box 119 Accra Ghana is continuing to work localy as a teacher and serve that Church and is considering taking on an execurive roll in the Accra Baptist Youth Association.
MALAWI and MOZAMBIQUE
#################
In the past few years through PASTOR ENOCK M DIMBA of Christian Resource Ministries, PO Box 883, Blantyre, MALAWI we have provided GNB Bibles for Pastors and Orphans in Malawi, and in 2007, Bibles in the Shona language for pastors of 15 new Churches established in the past 12 months in nearby Mozambique.
We have also sent Enoch some world maps, some picture cards and BB Gazettes for the teaching material in them for use in schools. Pictures of schools across Africa often show notice boards without maps or pictures. If you have such material or unused out of date Sunday school teaching materials he could find it a home.
Please send direct to him, not to me, send by surface mail at Small Packet Rate with a signed Customs Declaration Label CN 22 obtainable at your post office on the front with your signature and date, indicating what’s in the package, giving an approximate value and ticking the gift box.
Enock asked for help to replace 100 Bibles lost by individuals in severe flooding that has devastated 14 provinces of Malawi. Christian Resource Ministries, is registered as a charity in Britain. Charity Number SCO 30806 .
We were enabled to fund these Bibles through
Christian Resource Ministries's British Rep.
Mr Jim Figgis,
Christian Resource Ministries
The Bible Shop,
168 King Street,
Castle Douglas,
Kirkcudbrightshire.
DG7 1DA
Scotland.
Jim distributed some of them on a recent visit
Jim is also a trustee of another charity supporting work caring for orphans in Kenya, India, South Africa and Mozambique and at his own expense has visited Africa 12 times.
Christian Resource Ministries was founded by Enock's farther
the director of the Ministry, Bishop Morris Dimba
They are engaged in
Evangelism to remote areas of the country
Pastor Training
Literature Distribution
Church plantin and growth
Care of Orphans
They look after 200 0rphans,
SPAIN
####
Our supporter JEAN ROBERTSON of Avenida Castuera 42, San Luis, 03184 Tarrevieja, Alicante, Spain asks whether we know of a source
from which her church there could obtain a portable individual communion set, as they would like to take Communion into hospitals for patients there. The church has about 98 members, and are seeking a new pastor.
UKRAINE
######
SERGIE IVANIUK from Zaporozhye in Ukraine sent us an image as a Christmas Greeting. He drew this and then painted it in water colour or several friends, he will then be painting it in oils as a mural at his Church. He has done previous murals there. His mother also attends this Church led by a Korean Pastor. Last autumn a South Korean evangelist led an evangelistic mission there. Sergie after his serious accident in 2006 falling from scaffolding has been forced to return to book selling. His arm is still painful and he suffers too from arthritis and rheumatism. We still send him books from time to time which he much appreciates and “WORD for TODAY” and “WAR CRY”
ZAMBIA
#####
EVANS KATONGA of Lusaka Central Prison, P.O. Box 30133 Chimbokaila Zambia is 32, and is on remand awaiting trial for aggravated burglary from 2004. His wife has separated from him and married another man and refuses to look after their 5 yearold daughter who is being brought up by Evans 70 yearold ailing mother. Evans has leg mobility problems. He became a Christian after arrest . At his request we sent him a “New Living Bible” and inspirational books.
MULENGA KATETE OSCAR, LEVY HAMWANZA AND DAVIES PHIRI, are all at Maximum Security Prison, Death Row Section, P O Box 80915, Kabwe Zambia. Mulenga is aged 39 a widower with 3 destitute children, Levy ‘s wife has left him and he is 33 and has 3 destitute children. Both have become Christians since entering prison although on Death Row they will probably be sentence to life imprisonment as the death penalty no longer operates.
I know from long experience of the prison system in Zambia that conditions are poor due to under-funding, although in the last 2 years there has been less overcrowding and more movement of prisoners around the country but prisoners depend on relatives visiting them to take in food additional to the meagre rations the prison authorities can provide with limited and delayed funding.
The prisoners also need personal toiletries We have recently sent Mulenga , Davies, and Levy “Help Parcels” [ a towel, a flannel, a tooth brush, tooth paste, soap, disposable razors, pants and socks]. These particular prisoners are incarcerated hundreds of miles from their home villages and their relatives have disowned them anyway. but if we are realistic they really need that twice or thrice a year.
These three prisoners all express concern about a sense of loneliness and neglect Earlier I sent Mulenga & Davies Gospel Gem calendars and RBC Bible teaching booklets. These they much appreciated and Bibles will be going to them shortly. If anyone feels constrained to help them do so. If we could find a UK Christian for each prisoner on our books to send some toiletries 2 or 3 times a year with a letter of encouragement that would be a great help but we need to avoid overloading ourselves, Kabwe has 1800 male prisoners and as news gets round we could be inundated with requests.
I try to reply to all letters from prisoners and put their address and details on a Pen Pal Register on my web site. If they ask for a Bible I send one by surface mail as small packet rate and sometimes I send other books but there are limits beyond which I cannot or will not go. Some suggest helping them with lawyers fees. Don’t do it. It only lines the pockets of lawyers and it does not free prisoners. Anyway we are not supposed to send currency notes or postal orders to Zambia now.
INNOCENT MUMBA writes to say that he is 28 married with 2 children. They struggle to survive with their Mum who has no stable income. He has found my address and says that he sighed and thought maybe this man can help. He knows I am not a charity nor an organisation but wonders whether I can locate relevant organisations and individuals who could rescue his family from poverty. When he thinks of their need and his state he feels as though the whole world has fallen to pieces and he does not know what to do. Well I don’t know either but I know someone who understands and may have the answer, Jesus Christ, but how He is going to do it is a mystery.
KAYI CHITALU from P O Box 70277 Ndola, Zambia writes that she is 24, the second of seven children of her family, born at the Kambawa Centre for the Blind on the outskirts of Ndola, to parents both of whom were blind. They live now in a dilapidated house which is in danger of collapse and her Dad has died. She is responsible for the care of her blind mum, and frail granny and all they can do is beg. She wants me to build them a new house. Why me?.
Well this may be because a couple of years ago we sent several hundred pounds to put a new roof on the home of a destitute family at Kabwe, whose head of household was a member of the Men’s Fellowship of Kabwe United Church of Zambia. The secretary of which church is the wife of MOSES ZULU the Protestant chaplain of the Maximum Security Prison who we have dealt with in the past. The minister of that church who acted as go-between surveying the job, has since moved to Ndola I have no idea how to reply or what to do.
DAVID DIMUNA SHIBALIKA
He writes to tell us that another CASSETTE TAPE RECORDER / PLAYER is needed at the Maximum Security Prison at Kabwe. We sent one there 3 years ago to a prisoner who has moved on to another prison and taken it with him. We provided batteries to power another in another part of the prison.. They had the machine but no means of powering it.
If someone has one that could be sent we can continue to supply both Bible teaching cassettes and gospel music cassettes. Failing that, one or two now unwanted cassette playing Walkman machines could be useful, even a CD Walkman might be useful as we may be able supply Gospel CD’s. Rather than post a machine to me send direct to David Dimuna Shibalika Maximum Security Prisons’ c/o Revd. Bernard Bohan, Bwacha Parish Church, P O Box 80613, Kabwe ,Zambia. David has been ill quite a long time with malaria. We are hoping shortly to send him a mosquito net.
LAKE MWERU PROJECT ZAMBIA
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At the moment there is one new project for which we don’t have any funding and which may cost several hundred pounds but which I would like to complete in 2008 in thanksgiving for my 70th birthday in December to provide 70 Modern English Bibles preferably Good News Bibles to a new young Church at Mwense on the island in Lake Mweru in Northern Zambia.
Various ideas for doing this having failed we are looking out for Bibles in this country as gifts or bought if necessary from second hand stalls and posting direct So far we have sent 23 to ELDER CHANDA JACKSON in Nchelenge who would take them by boat to the island presumeably to TIMOTHY CHALI of the SOLDIERS OF THE CROSS P. O. Box 760078
Mwense.
To whom we send Gospel cassettes and Christian literature.. The island is just a few kilometres from the boundary with the Democratic Republic of Congo. We have been sending Church Service and Gospel Music cassettes there for a couple
of years.
If anyone would like to help fund this project please contact me, I reckon we need another £150 to complete posting 70 as they come to us,
ON GOING LOCAL ACTIVITY
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Having had to cut back a lot during 2007, from our very limited guaranteed budget we continue to send “WAR CRY” to Laine in Estonia and “SALVATIONIST“ to Anthony in Ghana and to both of them, plus Joseph in Zambia, Sergie and Thomas Tonti Ba’ah the eye specialist in Ghana, we send “The WORD for TODAY”.
We also continue to distribute monthly 100 copies of NEW LIFE NEWSPAPER to the homes across Saffron Walden, and send cassettes to 5 locations overseas. As most years since the 1960’s we continue to distribute to a number of people in and around Walden the Gospel Gems Calendars which have again been much appreciated.. I would hope to increase the circulation for the 2009 edition. They cost 75p each.
We continue to exercise a ministry of encouragement using emails, greeting cards, various tracts, leaflets, cassettes, booklets and OUR DAILY BREAD devotional booklets with encouraging responses.. I am producing tracts to fix on the back of postcards and greeting cards. These can be useful in Malawi, Zambia and Ghana.
AWAITING POSTAGE
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We still have four cardboard boxes full of Christian books to post overseas and quite a lot of Gospel music cassettes when we get money for postage.
Several years ago I produced 70 A4 tract titles entitled the VOICE series and another called THE TARGET and used some locally with a nil response but sent others to Africa where they were appreciated . if we ever get sufficient money further of these can be printed off or photocopied and sent to Africa. Each VOICE tract covers one side of A4. Sent abroad I use 2 back to back. I also use 1 to print on the back of single side letters both abroad r in the UK.
USEFULLY DISPOSING OF FOREIGN STAMPS
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During the year with scores of letters arriving here from overseas we collect a lot of foreign stamps. These are sent once a year to Christian Witness to Israel who support missioners and missionaries amongst the Jews in various parts of Britain, in France, Spain, Australia, Israel etc. If you get foreign stamps you otherwise throw away you can pass them on to me or send them direct to CWI Stamp Bureau William Cumming 76 Oakfield Road Lobley Hill, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. NE11 OAE
SECOND HAND POSTCARDS
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for sale to raise money to keep Mission Aviation Fellowship Aircraft in the air are still acceptable by Mrs Heather Yule 10 Calverden Road RAMSGATE Kent CT12 6JU
AV BIBLES,or any other translation, BOOK AID will accept them.
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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
TEACH YOURSELF PAPERS
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We also have a 10 page A4 Green Booklet of Bible based articles in simplified English we photocopy and send overseas to specific people who show interest called TEACH YOURSELF PAPERS which deal with “Speaking to God”, “How God speaks to us through the Bible”, ”God’s Holy Spirit and how he can help us”, “The True Christian Church, how it organises, how it works, how to belong to it” and “What is true Christian teaching”. There is a lot of ignorance abroad amongst Christians due to revival raising up more converts that the organised churches can cope with and such a booklet is useful,
PASTORS TRAINING INTERNATIONAL
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have agreed to send packs of books to a number of our Pastor contacts in Africa who have no books. They also hold fortnight pastor training courses in various African countries sending out Bible College tutors to lead 7 instruct who volunteer their services free.
DRUGS, BOOZE and PORN
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Unbeknown to most people we have a huge teenage and school children drugs problem in Saffron Walden 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 about the age of 7. A unit equals ½ a 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 have that Website link on our web site and also another one run by teenagers for fellow teenagers tempted to look at pornography, to help them “kick that habit”.
As far as booze is concerned it may be better to teach people not to use it but to those who do they need to be taught how to reduce it to safe levels and it’s adverse effects, Even Jesus and his disciples drank alcohol, and in some parts of the world it is safer in moderation than the local water supply.
RAY OF HOPE MINISTRY
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We have 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.
PERSONALLY
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During 2007 it became clear to me that some doors were closing for me and I helped at what I reckon was my last BB Camp. I’ve been at 24 out of 28. I now attend and support both the Baptist and Salvation Army places of worship.
I’ve been a member of the Salvation Army CAMEO Club for 4 years, and have opportunity again to help with the Hospitals & Residential Homes ministry, and I share fortnightly in the work of The Well, the twice weekly Cafe style meeting place for people of all ages that is open Tuesdays and Thursdays 10am - 1.30pm.
I regard my main pastoral responsibility as my role of Co-ordinator / Treasurer since 1999 of the Four Acres Community,. encouraging 5 social groups and March saw me publish the 100th edition of FAN the illustrated monthly newsletter which also goes to some other elderly people about town and is also a means of sharing the Good News. I also continue to serve as Archivist as from 1983.
From February I began my 8th year as a representative for Walden’s Council Tenants on the UDC Tenants Forum which can be developed further to reach other pensioners across Uttlesford.