AloThank you for praying for us over the past week. We were conscious that God was helping us when the devil was making life very difficult. Our office in Nairobi has now moved location and we thank God for opening this door for us. An amount of money is still owing to the previous landlords and we would ask you to pray that this is provided as soon as possible and if you can help in anyway that would be greatly appreciated. We have had many decisions to make over these past days and still more that we need God's guidance on. At times our heads spin and we can feel overwhelmed with the responsibility God has placed upon us and the amount of work which needs done over the next few weeks, but we thank God for the timely reminder He has given us to "Be still". On Thursday evening at a meeting the message preached was to "stand still and see the salvation of the Lord....sit still and see how the matter will fall....and be still and know that I am God." The following day in a daily reading book, I read the words "Keep still and let God work". Then, on Saturday, I received a text from a friend which again brought the verse, "Be still and know that I am God." Certainly these words have been precious to us over these past few days when the temptation to try and sort things out ourselves has been strong and the feeling that we must be doing something has impressed itself upon us. We thank God that He is in control and He is never late. He will work everything out for our good if we continue to have faith and trust Him. Also this past week we have registered for the Worldwide Missionary Convention which will be held in Bangor in August. After attending for a number of years, we gave it a miss last year, but are looking forward to returning. We will have our stand there every evening from Monday to Friday inclusive and have lots of new literature there to promote and raise awareness of the different ministries of FML. Apart from a few days holiday, we have a very full programme between now and then so please pray that we will continue to know the Lord's help. This week we are also preparing for an event with some dear Kenyan people who live here in Northern Ireland. There is a lot to do but we are looking forward to the day very much. Thank you for your continued prayers.
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Thank you to those who prayed for William's Graduation Service on Wednesday past. We had a good night and we appreciated those who came along to support him as well as those who remembered him in prayer and showed an interest over the past 3 years.
Please continue to remember the Nairobi office situation. We have to vacate by the end of the month. We thank God for how He has been working in this situation but we continue to value prayer for all that this week will hold. We are working on a prayer letter at the minute. We have wanted to issue it for some time but it seems that only now are details confirmed. Please continue to remember us in the coming days. We thank God for His help over another week.
We were responsible for taking a meeting yesterday afternoon and thank the Lord for His help. It was such a blessing to share the Gospel. We continue to appreciate your ongoing prayers regarding the situation with our office in Nairobi. The Lord has answered prayer in some issues and has been directing and make the way clear in other issues. However, there are still some big decisions to make over the next week and we appreciate prayer for wisdom, direction and provision to enable the work to move forward. For us personally this is a very special, long awaited and much anticipated week as we will attend William's Graduation from the Irish Baptist College. William passes on his personal thanks to all of those who prayed for him over the past 3 years and appreciates you remembering him at this special service. We are encouraged that two new students of our email course have returned their first assignments. This is a course for adults working with children. We also have a few others who have indicated they would like to begin the course. Have a look here for more details.
We also have had another application from a ministry who would like to promote their ministry on our project page. Have a look here to see those already included. This morning we have heard from Pastor Samuel in Uganda. He helps Joyce with marking and has been a great help to her. He has also introduced the ministry to many. Over the weekend he has visited a ministry who wanted their children to use our Bible Lessons. 74 children have been enrolled and we give thanks for this. Have a look here to find our more about our lessons. The situation concerning our Nairobi is now quite urgent. We desperately need new premises as we have to vacate the current property by the end of May. A substantial amount of money is also needed. Please pray that God will clearly open up the way before us. Thank you for your ongoing prayers. This past week much of our time has been taken up with the office situation in Nairobi. We have tried negotiating, some people have agreed to speak to the landlords on our behalf and we have, more importantly, been praying and asking God to work on our behalf. So far things remain unchanged and the deadline for vacating the office is the end of May.
I have spent a considerable amount of time searching the web for suitable premises and communicating with contacts we have in Kenya who we think may be able to assist in finding somewhere for us to go. Eunice has been searching and William has been working out the practicalities in regard to size, transportation, storage etc. It is fair to say we have felt the pressure this past week which has sometimes caused us both to feel unwell. We are learning to lean this week! We do very much appreciate your ongoing prayers for the situation and for us personally as we try to deal with the issue and sort everything out. It is one of those times when it would be easier to be in Kenya. Pray also for Eunice as she searches and tries to begin packing. Pray for those who are assisting us to search and who may assist in transportation. Pray for Joyce, as some of the changes may affect her even though she is many miles away. Pray also for the finances needed. A large amount is owed to the current landlords and in regard to new premises, we will need normal rent plus a deposit which will most likely be the equivalent of two or three month's rent. We really need ongoing commitments from individuals, Churches and companies to pay monthly amounts, no matter how small; towards this need which would really help us in planning and in convincing any potential new landlord that we can pay! Due to these circumstances we have had to make some changes to our prayer letter which we have been trying to print for some time now but different circumstances have delayed it. Pray this can soon be completed and circulated. Finally, we do thank God for a new opportunity which has opened up for us. We are excited and looking forward to sharing more with you regarding this quite soon. Thank you for your ongoing prayers. I started to write the blog yesterday, as I normally do on a Monday...but I didn't really know how to word it, so left it until today.
Many of you have been following our updates regarding our office and how God answered prayer in that our time there was being extended until 2018. Well, things have changed again and not for good. We have received notification that we have to vacate the office by the end of May and it seems this is final. We would ask you to pray very much for wisdom. We are unsure what our next move is. Please do pray that God will guide and direct. We are thanking God for His help over another week.
We received a report from Joyce regarding some of the ministry issues in Uganda. She had a really good time as she travelled a few weeks ago to some areas in the border area of Uganda and also Western Kenya. It was a long, tiring journey which was hindered somewhat because of heavy rain, however the Lord really helped and there was much excitement as she introduced the lessons to children in different venues. There is a great hunger for the Word of God. Joyce is now in need of more lessons. She has also been asked to visit some Schools to teach the children. She is considering taking one week each month to evangelise in this way. This will require additional transport. We would also like to send her more teaching visuals from Nairobi to help her in this ministry. It will most likely cost around £50 to transport everything she needs from Nairobi. Pray that God will work everything out. I had previously mentioned a possible change regarding the electricity supply to the office. The landlord wants individual meters installed and so we will have to pay around £40 for this. However, it should work out cheaper for us in the long run. Registration of our NGO in Uganda is a slow, difficult and expensive process and something which we would like to see moving quicker. Please pray that this can be sorted out. We have had disappointing news from the organisation in Uganda who supplied us with Bibles. They have increased their prices by £2 per Bible. This is frustrating as our supplier in Kenya recently did something similar. This means that we are currently back to one supplier here in Northern Ireland but the problem there is that it can take many months for the Bibles to actually reach our people in Africa. Pray that we can find another local supplier and/or that we can find a quicker, yet cheap, way of transporting the Bibles from here in the UK to Africa. The need for Bibles is of big concern to us. We have asked for up to date figures of Bibles needed for both Kenya and Uganda. We are waiting on the final figure from Kenya, but in so far as Uganda is concerned the figure needed is 1048. We estimate that even more will be needed for Kenya. Please pray for Eunice as she tallies up the final number of Bibles needed. She is very busy at present trying to keep up with the marking of lessons and dealing with visitors to the office. She is also currently taking some exams in regard to the computer course she has been completing. We thank God for the benefit this has been to the work already. Pray that she will continue to know help. Please pray that God will continue to provide for allowances for these two ladies. Without them the work in Africa would not continue. Both could do with more help. Pray regarding this. We also need to pay some small allowance to the one who is developing our child protection policy. This is a responsible position. Pray also for the need of a good reliable accountant in Kenya. We have been let down so many times in this regard. Accountants have taken on the work, get so far, decide they can't finish after all but still expect to be paid. We really need someone reliable who will complete the task they have been taken on to do. Some of these issues take up a considerable amount of time as we try to keep on top of things from the other side of the world. William and I have had another busy week but we thank God for the privilege of serving Him. Yesterday, Sunday, was a good but tiring day when we drove for 5 hours! We had 3 meetings to either attend or take and we thank God for His help as we shared God's Word. We travelled from home in Portadown to Omagh, then back home for dinner. It was then quickly on to Lisburn in the afternoon to take a meeting. It was then back to Portadown again for a quick tea before travelling again to Magherafelt for the final meeting of the day. Needless to say we were very tired by the time we arrived back home again last night. We appreciate prayer as we go through the many tasks of this week. Over the past few weeks I have spent more time than normal out of the office which means I am a bit behind in some of the work mentioned in previous posts. If you waiting for correspondence from me, please accept my apologies for the delay. I hope you can be patient a little longer. Hopefully this week will get me up to date. I am also working in and out of the house as I am having a problem with the internet signal in the office. Hopefully this will be sorted this week. Pray for these very practical issues. We thank God for His goodness to us. A couple of times over the weekend we have been asked if the work is still going on. We found that to be a very strange question....yes!!! This is God's work and it is still very much ongoing and we are still very much called to His service. Please pray on for us as we pray and discuss many issues. Pray that we will have guidance and wisdom in every issue. On Saturday evening we spoke at our last Feed my Lambs booking for a little while. We absolutely love sharing about the work, but we are thankful; and ready; for a little break. Since Christmas we have had many meetings to raise awareness and prayer support for the work and have been very encouraged by the interest shown. We are especially encouraged that so many of those meetings have been new openings for us. We continue to accept bookings; for the immediate future or long term. Please feel free to contact us any time. We already have a booking for 2017.
Thanks also for your prayers for William as he was responsible for speaking at a meeting on Sunday evening. The Lord really helped and blessed. Although we now have a space of time without "promotional" meetings for FML, we do have other meetings to take and other commitments. This coming week William will once again lead a meeting and I will play. In addition to this we will be taking another meeting. On this occasion, William will lead, I will play and I will also bring a short word. Please pray for the Lord's leading in preparation. Praying that even the picking of hymns will be led of the Lord. We need to prepare and print a hymn sheet for one of the meetings, so that is another task for this week. This week William also has other commitments and I will be attending a committee meeting for another project we are involved with. We will share more in our prayer letter. The prayer letter is indeed another project we have started work on. We had really wanted to have it issued sooner, but we have been waiting on confirmation of something quite important which we wanted to include in it. Pray that we will have this very soon and can get the prayer letter out. At the start of this new financial year, we are also developing a new computerised database for accounts. Pray for help in setting this up. It is obviously easier if it is done now at the start of the new financial year so pray that we will have time to work on it. We had mentioned before that we were also developing a new child protection policy. This had to be postponed for a short time but we are hoping now to resume this important project. We are working alongside a very experienced child protection worker from Kenya who is very aware of procedures there. He has agreed to be the child protection worker with FML also. Pray for us as we liaise with him over the coming weeks to complete this project and also to develop more training etc. Meantime, we do offer a basic child protection email course. Quite a number of people have taken this course in the past. Normally groups worked at the same pace in that assignments had to be completed and returned by certain dates. At times this was very difficult for some students, as they often needed to use the internet cafes/cyber to do the course and the failure of electricity also made it difficult at times to keep to the deadline. We are now enrolling again, but this time we are trying a different format in that each student can work individually and return each assignment as they are able with no deadlines. We can see advantages and disadvantages of this method in comparison to how we worked before, but thought we would give it a try. This means that I can't plan ahead just as easily and allow time for marking as I don't know when the courses will arrive with me. Please pray that I will be able to fit marking into my schedule as and when the assignments are returned. We thank God for two Pastors in Uganda who have enrolled in the past week. Pray that the course will be a help to them. This update has been mostly about the work in Northern Ireland this week, but please do continue to pray for Joyce and Eunice as they are equally as busy in the ministry. Finally, please do make our financial needs a priority for prayer. We have quite substantial arrears in our office rent which need paid as a matter of urgency and also a large number of Bibles needed. Please pray that God will step in and provide the need. Thank you for praying. Monthly prayer update being emailed out today. Please contact us to be added to our mailing list and encourage us by standing with us in prayer. Thanks
We trust you had a lovely Easter. What a wonderful reality to know that we serve a risen and living Saviour. After a few days holiday, all of our bases in Africa and the UK are open again.
Joyce was ministering in Jinja, Uganda just over a week ago and was planning to travel to Narok in Kenya this weekend past to bring lessons to those there who had requested them; however the Narok trip was postponed as Joyce was unwell. We have personally been to both of these areas so we are excited to hear of the work developing. We hope to share an update with you in due course. Meanwhile, please pray that Joyce will soon feel better. Eunice had a few days off as well and we ask you to continue praying for her as she resumes work in the office and at her course. In Uganda, Joyce also has the help of a Pastor called Samuel. We have also met him and communicate regularly with him. He has been sharing recently with local Pastors regarding our email course and there has been some interest with a few Pastors wishing to begin studying. We thank God for this. William and I also enjoyed a few days off over the Easter period. We are now back to work and ministry and have two meetings between now and the weekend. Do pray that we will know the Lord's help in preparation and wisdom in decisions. May the Lord continue to bless you in the coming days. Do please continue to pray for the work amongst the boys and girls. |
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August 2022
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