Christmas 2008 News

"Really!" you say. "Have we not heard from them for 5 years?" It is very likely that there has been radio silence on our part for all of that time, but we will now attempt to rectify the situation.

It was in 2003 that Mike took up the responsibility of 'Operations Director' of World Outreach, an international Christian mission. Over the last 5 years the role has grown and developed, providing continuously changing challenges, which he has generally enjoyed. He has spent a lot of time writing computer programs 'to make the work easier', and hopes to spend a good part of his Christmas 'break' moving the website www.wouk.org onto a new, easier to maintain basis..

Over the years we have visited people in foreign places like Thailand, Cambodia (Mike only), Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa, Florida, Scotland and Cornwall, and even tried a short cruise to the Bahamas from Miami! Mike has this terrible idea that every holiday has to have a purpose while Janet is very happy to enjoy a rest and change of scene.

Having been a part of Whiteknights Church in Reading for about 10 years, we have this year removed ourselves back to Earley Christian Fellowship, enjoying friendship across both situations. Mike also attends the Leaders' Prayer Meeting in town at Greyfriars Anglican Church once a week, enjoying association with the wider church.

Janet continues in the calling of a housewife, looking after Mike, and keeping the house and the food supplies running. She keeps up with friends and family around the place and spends an hour every morning in a warm corner by the French windows reading theological tomes alongside the bible. We like the little house we have owned in Reading since 1995, it's warm and dry with a pleasant outlook front and back, and we feel God has been very kind to us in providing it.

Janet enjoyed the pleasures of the NHS from the 'other side of the sheets' when, while visiting South Mimms service station on our way to visit Mike's brother and sister-in-law in Norfolk, she fell into a flower bed and heard a snapping sound on the way down. A passing St John's lady diagnosed a broken arm and the satnav took us directly to the nearest A&E where it was put into plaster. Some days later, the Royal Berkshire Hospital, discovering that the arm was not healing correctly, put 2" stainlesss nails into Janet's wrist, and it took six months for her arm to return almost to normal. The lengths we go for excitement! A month previously, Mike had tripped over a kerb-stone in Morrison's car park. As he went down, a voice said in his ear "roll into a ball". He obeyed and rolled across the car-park, sustaining no damage except slight bruising. Amazing.

Tim (26) now works for DEFRA in the town centre, awarding subsidies to qualifying farmers, and enjoys applying his quick wits to using their computer systems and helping others who work with him. He's now moved out to a bedsit a couple of miles away in a large Victorian house and is enjoying a bit more freedom carving out his own lifestyle.

Ben (24) works for Slipstream at Green Park on the edge of Reading, ringing up companies to interrogate their technical experts about their computing needs. It's been a steep learning curve for him, but he's making the grade and growing into a very socially competent chap. But they both are; it's called growing up!

So, what else can we tell you? Well Mike is 63 and Janet's a bit less, and we're both wondering what the future's going to hold. For some years we have been thinking about moving to a flat, but the time hasn't been right. We both enjoy the garden, so if we move to a flat in the future we'd like there to be a mature garden around it. Ben still lives with us, and we don't want to turf him out, so he's got to be settled before we would move.

The World Outreach position involves routine office work which Mike tires of, and computer work which is beginning to become too difficult, so the writing is on the wall to pass the work to someone younger, more energetic and hopefully with a 21st century vision. At such time as this happens, we have wondered if it might be possible to live abroad again for a while and perhaps to become involved in some kind of Gospel work until it is no longer possible. We do wonder if all the bible reading and study over the years will find this kind of outlet again. It all depends on continuing good health and the will of God.

We read your newsletters with delight and great interest, so thanks for keeping up with us.

Funding the Family Business

Myles Wilson and Stewardship

Funding the Family Business, published by Stewardship for Christian workers, is packed with 25 chapters covering almost everything you need to know to establish a support base.

Early chapters look at the principles of giving: "If you are going to receive financial support, someone needs to give it, and because you can’t receive until they give, it is important to understand what the Bible says about being a giver before exploring what it means to be a receiver". The clear message is that because "it is more blessed to give than receive", support raisers are helping others to experience God’s blessing and reticence to approach potential supporters can deny them this privilege.

Later chapters deal more with the practicalities of finding supporters and asking for their commitment: "You want to make sure that those on your support team know why you want them to be your supporters, what being a supporter will involve and how they can be the best help to you in following Gods' call on your life".

As a workbook it is packed with stories, insight and exercises that will inspire, inform and guide in the ministry journey.

Testimonies
"Our support was declining and we were considering quitting. Myles' intervention and teaching completely transformed our view of support raising and set us on a fresh course with faith and vision"

"When we started looking into serving overseas, we vowed we would never raise our own support. But God had other ideas and soon we found ourselves reluctantly doing so. We then attended a Myles Wilson seminar and our reluctance was transformed into enthusiasm. We haven't looked back since and wouldn't change from it now - even if we were given the option."

"Several years ago, my wife and I  were receiving 70% of our target annual budget. We were in a financial hole, and could see no way up and out. I'm delighted to say that, with Myles as our coach, we were able to get to 95% of our budget within 6-9 months. Myles was a wonderful "coach" with a wealth of experience in this field. He not only has a firm grasp of biblical principles that lie behind the whole area of support raising, but has the personal qualities that a coach needs - encouraging all the time, but also prepared to confront and call for change when needed. He nurtured our faith in the Lord's ability to provide, and is a great teacher. He was for us a messenger from God, and we thank God for Him.

"Our mission has benefited enormously from Myles' training of both staff and mission Partners.  We have learnt not only how to go about raising support but why we want to do it.  Our aim is to develop partnerships between ourselves and churches, mission partners and the projects and ministries in which we serve, both here and abroad, and Myles has helped us to achieve that much more effectively."

"We have published a number of Myles' articles on giving and receiving in our magazine and have received more requests to re-use these in other church and charity publications than any other resource.

"For well over a decade we have used Myles Wilson to train our candidates in support raising.  His biblical, practical and enthusiastic approach has been a great help to many new candidates who can often feel unsure if they will ever be able to raise the amounts they need to follow God's call into mission.  However, despite some members coming from small churches with very limited finances, in the years Myles has trained our staff we have never had anyone not go to the field because they couldn't raise their support.   The foundation that Myles has helped us lay is to see support raising as a genuine way of getting churches, friends and family of our members involved in mission and as a blessing to the supporters where it is more blessed to give than receive."

More information