Having recently taken over the Overseas Mission Co-ordinatior role I thought it would be good to do a ‘Who’s Who’ of the people that we support as a church.
BMS World Mission supports over 300 dedicated mission workers in countries all over the world.
As a Baptist church we give financial support to BMS (along with Baptist Home Mission which provides support to churches and individuals in this country).
We have particular BMS link missionaries who we partner with…
Paul and Sarah support BMS partner Thailand Karen Baptist Convention (TKBC). They are supporting, empowering and discipling the youth and women to be able to serve the Lord holistically. As well as the wider community, particularly those who are marginalised. Paul is assisting to build up the IT ministry and teaches English to the youth, seminary students, and leaders from the women’s department. Sarah teaches baking to the youth, women within TKBC and the community, so they can utilise the skill for a livelihood. Their home churches are New Testament Church of God, Aylesbury, and Mile End New Testament Church, London.
Benjamin Francis is BMS World Mission’s Team Leader in India, overseeing BMS work in Kolkata and beyond. His work focuses on providing practical support for the most marginalised people across India as well as reaching out with the gospel to the least evangelised through discipleship making movements. Benjamin also heads up the work of Big Life Ministries in West Bengal. They have a vision to reach people for Jesus through planting churches in villages around the region. To facilitate his work Benjamin uses the BMS boat, Peace 3, which visits the islands around West Bengal.
Compassion UK is the UK branch of Compassion International, a child development and advocacy organisation working in some of the world’s poorest countries seeking to release children from poverty. The main focus of the work is in one to one sponsorship, connecting a sponsor to an individual child and building a relationship through both financial support and letter writing.
The support that the children receive is provided by their own local churches who run projects as part of their own outreach to their local communities. Compassion provides the church with the financial resources to care for the children as well as support and a system of accountability. The project staff include a health worker and social worker and the children receive regular health and dental checks, nutritious food and educational support as well as a safe place to play and socialise.
I have visited the Compassion office in Ethiopia as well as a number of the church-run projects and have been very impressed with their love and commitment to the children.
Whilst Compassion only operate in countries where the Church can operate freely, Open Doors work in countries where it is often very dangerous to be a Christian.
Apart from giving support to Christians undergoing persecution for their faith, Open Doors are also involved in advocacy for the persecuted church. They campaign to raise awareness of persecution and publish an annual ‘World Watch List’ of countries where persecution is mostt severe. This is launched at Westminster each year and 97 MPs attended this year’s launch. Open Doors is a stakeholder of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief.
Apart from larger organisations such as BMS and Compassion who we support financially either as a church directly or from regular individual giving within the church we also have a number of connections through personal relationships…
Margaret worshipped with us at SBC for a while when she was in the UK. She and her husband Celestin work with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Chad, central Africa. Celestin is a pastor and has experience in church planting and discipleship. Margaret’s background is in community nursing in the UK before moving to Chad.
Margaret says:
“Chad is a very poor country in the heart of Africa, with a history of civil warfare. Life is not easy here but there is great potential for people to grow and develop as they meet Jesus and their thoughts and actions are transformed. We want to plant more churches, install water pumps and start schools and health posts, bringing rivers of life in villages which are otherwise forgotten and without hope.”
Gillian is the sister of church member Carolyn Wright.
Gillian is based in South Africa and works for Emmanuel Press which works in churches, schools and prisons, produces Christian teaching materials and runs courses on the Christian faith. They also work in other African countries including Mozambique.
Please pray for Gillian and the team as they seek to spread the gospel in Africa.
Dave is the son of Jenny Blabey and pastors a multicultural church in Cyprus. They partner with a local organisation to support refugees and run children’s work and various community projects.
The growing congregation have recently moved into new rented premises in a school with a hall that can accommodate 500 people. The move has also attracted new people and families.
Please pray that they will settle into the new venue and that the new people will feel at home and grow in their faith.
Meheretab is a friend of Tim and Caroline Bliss.
A former Compassion sponsored child, Meheretab is the founder and director of ‘I Care Ethiopia’ which supports single mothers who often have little choice but to beg on the streets of Addis Ababa. I Care Ethiopia run various programmes to help the mothers to find accommodation and earn a living. They also run a preschool to look after the children while the mothers go out to work.
You may remember that they were the subject of our Thank Offering a couple of years ago where we were able to provide mattresses for many of the mothers and children who previously had to sleep on dirt floors. Meheretab tells me that they have recently also begun working in the city of Adama (about 60 miles from Addis Ababa).
https://www.icareethiopiacharity.com
Please remember Meheretab and his team in your prayers.
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LAST REVIEW DATE 2019