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WMG


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The World Mission Group (WMG) Committee at All Saints, Judy Acheson (chair), Adam Thrift, Catharine Allen, Katharine Fairbairn, Janet Galt, Graham Riddall and Stephen Dennison are passionate about seeing world mission becoming central to the way the church family think and is prayerfully seeking to encourage the church as a whole to consider its role in God’s great commission and to help anyone who feels that God is calling him/her/them to serve Him overseas. Their contact details can be found on My Churchsuite.  Pathway to Mission
   The WMG appreciates the changes made by the PCC to give a percentage of the money received by the congregation as this means the whole church is involved in the support of worldwide mission through our Mission Partners and mission agencies.
   Each year, All Saints gives generously to a World Mission Appeal;  last year, enabling a Christian family from Afghanistan to make a living in Pakistan through owning a tuktuk and this year helping a church expand in Central Asia by buying an apartment. 
 

Prayer and Events:

Our Mission Partners are reaching out with the Good News of salvation in Christ.  As a result people of different nations and ages are finding peace and new life in Him. They need our prayers. Join us monthly from 12.15-1.30pm in the Picture Room on the second Monday. This is a precious time, praying for each family and individual.  We need to partner each one in this way. The prayer updates are then sent out with the newsletter that week.  Download them, pray for our faithful Mission Partners, often involved in spiritual warfare, and be encouraged to read how many of our prayers are being answered.
 

World Mission Sunday 2nd July 2023

What a special day of fellowship we enjoyed with Graeme and Bequi Innes with their three children, Iona, Josh and Ella as the family were interviewed and Graeme preached in the evening.  The children shared at ASK!  We were excited to hear how God has used Graeme on his visits to Ukraine, how He has used the family in their reception of Ukrainian families in their home and in the church as well as their ministry in Moldova.  Even Iona played her part by giving up her bedroom.  We were challenged.  What are we doing to share this amazing Good News?  Should some of us be responding to God’s call to go?  We had a great lunch together with them and our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.  
 Pray for this family to have a restful summer, Iona to be blessed in camp before they all return. Read below where you will find their photo about an exciting development to their ministry.
 

Mission Partners 2023

family

Graeme and Bequi Innes (Iona, Joshua and Ella), Preaching and Outreach, Moldovia https://www.crosslinks.org/mission-personnel/graeme-and-bequi-innes
Over the past six years God has richly blessed Graeme and Bequi’s involvement with the Oastea Domnului Church, Chisinau. Increasingly Graeme has had a major role, training and mentoring a number of pastors who have discovered Reformed theology, realising it is by grace alone that we are saved. Last autumn, with some of these pastors, he founded the Reformed Evangelical Alliance of Moldova (“Alianta Evanghelica Reformata”). There are now 10 churches in the Alliance, which is very exciting, with many of the church leaders hungry for good, deep Bible teaching. 
  From September, Graeme will be devoting more of his time to mentoring and training these pastors; preaching in their churches and giving them sermon feedback. Bequi will be getting alongside the women. Together, they will be involved in organising national conferences for church leaders and those in their churches. From September, they will become members of the Reformed Baptist Church in Chisinau called Imago Dei Church. The Pastor is an incredibly gifted man called Pastor Mihai. Graeme has been mentoring Mihai for the past five years, and he is one of the Crosslinks study partners studying the online theological training course Crosslands. Pray for God to lead them in the way they should serve amongst this new church family and the opportunities He gives to disciple believers and share the Gospel with unbelievers. 


MihI and faculty

Dr Mihai Malancea, Director of the Research Centre, a department the University of Divitia Gratiae (UDG) Chisinau, Moldova. 
Dr Iurie Malancea has taken over as Rector of UDG. This has freed up Dr Mihai to focus on the development of an exciting programme of research, organization of scientific conferences and doctoral colloquia in collaboration with other institutions of social and theological education, as well as post-graduate programmes and organization of the local and international mission department of UDG.
  Dr Mihai’s intimate knowledge of the needs of the countries throughout the area will enable the centre to select and train students at UDG in international mission in partnership with mission agencies and prepare them for cross-culture ministry. 
  Pray for wisdom for Mihai and his colleagues as this centre grows, supports other Institutes and equips an increasing number of graduates to be sent out across the region, often into difficult situations.


family-g91ce32a57 640

A family from Central Asia. Both graduates from University Divitia Gratiae (UDG) in Moldova, this family serves the Lord back in their home country. God has opened many different ministries to help meet some of the many needs amongst the Muslim-majority population. As Christians they reach out to children, many of whom are orphaned, to women and widows, to those caught up in sex trafficking, to prisoners and Bible ministry and church planting, all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. A tough, challenging ministry! Spiritual warfare is real.


Ron and Nan

Ron and Nan George, Teaching and outreach in Central Asia  https://www.eurasia.org.uk
For over 50 years Ron and Nan have worked in different countries, sharing their love of Christ with Muslims. Based in the UK, Ron continues in partnership with the University of Divitia Gratiae, Chisinau, Moldova, in particular planning and organising the annual Summer School of Mission held at UDG for graduates and pastors and their wives to explore together ministry needs they meet in the field and to be refreshed as they study God’s Word together. They also advocate for Christian refugees and help support them in their needs.
  Eurasia Education Foundation (EEF) is helping to meet the need for relevant Christian literature to support the exciting ministry, particularly in Central Asia and more recently India. Relevant books are being translated into many of these languages and made available on-line. 




Sarah

Sarah Baldwin, Translation Team, MissionAssist  https://missionassist.org.uk/services/digitisation/bible-digitisation-project
Sarah has recently moved to her own house in Derby becoming more involved in her church and other local activities when her health and workload allow.  She works for many hours each week with WEBBS (The Worldwide Electronic Bible and Book Service) and needs our prayers and financial support to make this possible. WEBBS is a major project to produce digital text from printed documents in support of the ongoing task to translate, update and publish a version of the Bible in every spoken language on earth.  She and her team type up different portions of the Bible in a vast variety of languages using very different scripts.  She also edits (checks) other teams’ work.  A taxing job and yet such a great ministry, bringing the Bible/NT portions to so many more through modern technology, some for the very first time. Sarah is also the bookkeeper for MissionAssist (MA).  
  Sarah now also works as an MA volunteer for All the Word (https://alltheword.org). The work is very exacting and involves writing a first draft of English text (known as Phase 1) in a linguistic form so that it can be understood by TBTA (The Bible’s Translation Assistant) which is a specialised programme. The final text is developed so that translators around the world can have a basic script in whatever language they are working in, thus cutting their workload by about 40 per cent.


family photo

Harrison and Rhodah Mungai (Tim (14), Philip (12) and Chris (8)), Director of iServe Africa, Kenya
Following an apprentice here at All Saints and elsewhere, Harrison Mungai became strongly convinced that the African Church was in great need of gospel workers with a strong biblical knowledge and true servant-heartedness. To respond to this challenge, he started iServe Africa in 2007, an indigenous, gospel-driven organisation whose vision is “To entrust the Gospel to the next generation for transformation of the whole person, whole churches and whole communities in the whole world” through an apprenticeship programme for fresh graduates for 1-2 years of ministry training. https://iserveafrica.org
  Another programme called TransformD was established in 2017 as a discipleship programme for school-leavers. This seeks to equip young people with the knowledge of God’s Word, expose them to cross-cultural mission and help with basic life skills in the hope that they would follow Jesus faithfully and be dependable in society. 
  The growth of leadership for both programmes is encouraging. With over 500 people having been trained, his prayer is that this will have a generational impact in both corporate work spaces and in ministry. 
  Harrison also serves as a pastor at GracePoint Church in Kikuyu, 26kms from Nairobi City, where he seeks to model those very values he teaches at iServe Africa. 


Gerald family

Gerald and Louise Mwangi (Daniel, Jeremiah and James) Training youth and children’s workers 
Give thanks that Gerald and Louise have been able to pass on the leadership of the TransformD course with iServe Africa and now, in conjunction with the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) and The Timothy Initiative (TTI), (https://www.ttionline.org) are using their passions, skills and training by helping to meet the need for more properly-trained youth and children’s workers in Kenya. This country has a very high proportion of the population under 24 years (0-14 years: 40.87% and 15-24 years: 18.83%) which underlines the importance of these ministries. 
  The Archbishop of ACK has invited them to establish courses at St Julian’s Theological College and TTI is delighted to have support for its work in the unreached areas of Kenya, starting with the Diocese of Marsabit in the far north of the country. Relevant material needs to be written for both age groups.
  Daniel and Jeremiah attend pre-school several mornings a week but when this comes to an end in April 2024 Louise will begin home-schooling the children to allow for greater flexibility for her training courses and the freedom to take the children with them as they travel around the country; a great opportunity to broaden their education.


Bisoke

Rev Bisoke Balikenga, Provincial Youth and Children’s Worker for the Anglican Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, living in Bunia. https://churchmissionsociety.org/people-in-mission/bisoke-balikenga
Bisoke is passionate about children’s and youth ministry. He longs to see them come to faith and become active members of the Church by being taught in age-appropriate ways. This means youth and children’s workers need to be trained and encouraged and appropriate material provided.
  DR Congo is a very volatile country, particularly in the East. https://www.fidh.org/en/region/Africa/democratic-republic-of-congo/violence-in-northeast-drc-the-authorities-and-the-international  Militia groups have been active since the late ‘90s with many massacred. This has caused thousands to flee their homes and their livelihoods. Bunia has become a major centre for such people. Bisoke has established a Peace Centre on the edge of town near a big camp for the displaced. Sunday services, discipleship, practical courses, counselling and seminars on peace and reconciliation give Bisoke many opportunities to teach people about Jesus and display his love through practical service. Only in Jesus can these traumatised people find peace and the ability to forgive.
  Watch the video: Meet Our Mission Partner: Bisoke in The Democratic Republic of The Congo
Story: The plight of the displaced - Semiliki Trust  https://www.semiliki-trust.org.uk


Alice

Alice Cornes, Staff Member, evangelist and women’s worker, St Philemon’s, Toxteth, Liverpool  www.stphilemons.co.uk
Alice is part of this vibrant multi-cultural church in a deprived part of inner-city Liverpool. She gets to share how brilliant Jesus is with women and children from all sorts of countries and religious backgrounds. God gives her opportunities to lead seeker Bible studies, 121 Bible reading partnerships, assemblies, Farsi-language Bible group, Sunday club etc. She loves training up leaders to do more of the same. It's exciting seeing Christians equipped for lifetimes of serving Jesus, and particularly believers from minority groups learning to teach the Bible to their own people. 

“What an exciting list!  Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Africa, cross-cultural church outreach in the UK, work with WEBBS and TBTA to make digitised Bibles available to many – what a wonderful example to our church family of the sheer variety of ways to be involved with mission! We are grateful for our Mission Partners and are privileged to walk with them in their various ministries through prayer and financial giving.”  Adam Thrift

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