June 2008 Letter
June 8, 2008 by Dan
Later this month, fifteen members of our congregation will be off to Mtunthama with Medic Malawi to work in the school, hospital, orphanage and feeding programme set up there of the last few years. A second group departs in mid-July further deepening our links with the church’s mission in a needy part of rural Africa.
One encouraging feature of our church’s life has been the increased interest in and commitment to overseas mission. Each of the homegroups supports a mission partner financially and in prayer, and as they tell us when they visit, this means an enormous amount to those working often in difficult and isolated situations. Last year we were able to channel over £38,000 through the Mission Partnership scheme to a range of mission initiatives, from Central Asia to Kenya and from Senegal to the Shekinah Mission.
One family we particularly enjoy supporting are the Dryes, who we hope to see more of this month as Alistair takes part of his sabbatical in Torquay. We look forward to commenting on how Ella, Jonah, Rhiannon and Boaz have grown – and how Naomi looks as young as ever! Bishop John Ellison has now retired from Paraguay, Katy has arrived safely in India, and we are glad also to take on support for a former member of our congregation, Sarah Leedham, who works for the Christian environmental organisation A Rocha. It will be good to hear more in due course about what Sarah is up to. And we hope to have an update on Marine Reach from Brian and Ann Sloan after the evening service on 13th July.
All of this is to say that support for mission activity is not an optional extra but central to church life. “From those to whom much is given, much will be required,” and we do have a great deal in terms of resources compared to the church in many parts of the world. But we can also learn a lot from those who serve Christ in difficult situations. The prayer diary gives us a weekly mission initiative to pray for, and we look forward to plenty of intrepid tales once our Malawian parties return!