Today Janet gave me the go-ahead

Today Janet gave me the go-ahead: she said "If you want to go to Africa again to preach the gospel, if God shows you that is what he wants you to do I will back you".

"Do you really mean that" I asked. "Of course I really mean that" she replied. "If God makes it clear that it is what he wants you to do I'll back you to the hilt".

Tonight I lay awake thinking about it. When we returned from Africa in February 1995, we were brought home by 10 different reasons including having run out of money, God graciously gave us enough extra money to buy our present house and redo the wiring, plumbing and some re-decoration.

From experiences indelibly imprinted on my mind by our time in Africa I had considered putting razor wire round the garden only to discover it would be frowned upon by the law. It had taken many months to recover from the fear of dark nights and stories of hold-ups with AK47s with which we had lived in Malawi. Did I want to go through that again? I had forgotten how that felt.

Over the meal table we had discussed why I wanted to go. Statistics from World Outreach told us that in 1900 sub-saharan Africa was only 3% Christian, but is now 50% Christian with 25,000 new believers being added every day. Who is caring for them? Or are they being sidelined into cults and weird denominations rather than being liberated into the pure gospel of a loving God.

And how can we stay in the UK, growing old, knowing what gospel grace we know? when there could be opportunities to help in Africa.

Was our time in Malawi from January 1993 to February 1995 'unfinished business', or was it just an experience along the way?

Why did we both spent time most days reading the scriptures and asking the Lord to explain them to us if we weren't going to use all this knowledge somewhere?

"I didn't have a thyroid problem last time we were in Africa. Now my body can't control it's temperature properly and I can't handle hot weather, so God will need to do something if I am to cope" Janet commented.

"And I don't have any formal theological qualifications". It was Pippa who had reminded us the previous Sunday that the church group from which we came had regarded Bible school as superfluous once 'the Holy Ghost has come' and we 'have no need that any man teach us for when he is come he will lead us into all truth'.

And that is how it had been, except that graduation from a Bible School might (a) open doors and (b) provide confidence that we could accomplish what we had in our hearts to do.

But if God is putting into our hearts to return to Africa, surely he will open the way and take us where he wants us to go? "One thing is sure", I had said to Janet this afternoon, "If God does not open the way we are going nowhere. I don't have the energy any more to push doors open. By lunchtime every day I am exhausted and it's easy to get very little done in a day".

So I lay in my bed and thought about all this, and then got up to write it all down while it remained fresh in my mind.

"What timescale?" I had asked. Janet replied after some thought "August 2011 I should think. There is too much to do for it to happen any earlier, and that will give us time to get ready and put everything into place". I shall have been retired one year.

The days since I put down the work of the World Outreach office at the end of November 2009 have been thoroughly unsatisfactory. Motivating myself to do anything at all has been very difficult. Not that I have been sitting around doing nothing - far from it. But the jobs I have set myself: to clear the house of things we could manage without, and to redecorate very simply, were just not happening. It has been difficult to detach myself from the World Outreach work which I had eaten, drunk and slept since 2003 and even today I have been again adding entries to the Operations Guide in response to a request from the new Operations Director. The website is gradually dying although the design of the new one is still continuing to grow in my mind.

"Can I share our thoughts of returning to Africa with friends?" I had asked Janet. "Yes, with closer friends, but not everyone because it may cause them to become unsettled. You're going to have to begin to put out feelers and talk to people because things won't just happen by themselves. You will have to make them happen".

It was on Sunday morning that Graham and Lisa Stevenson had spoken at the morning church meeting we attend about the parable of the talents and I had felt strongly affected by his words not to bury what we had in the ground.

So after writing this, making a hot drink, and talking to the Lord about it, I returned to bed.

Don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.

Matthew 6.1-4 reads “Watch out! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. When you give to someone in need, don’t do as the hypocrites do—blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity! I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get. But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.”

Some have taken this advice from Jesus to imply that it is best if charitable giving is anonymous. But, as for everything else that Jesus said, it is important to think long and hard about it because it must always be understood in the context of godly human living.

Working in Africa
In the 1990's, we lived for a time in Central Africa and while I spoke at Christian meetings in rural areas, Janet cared for us all, took the children to school and ran the home. We had been what many would regard as somewhat naive about support; we both believed that the Lord would provide, but made no attempt to put anything into position to cooperate with Him in this. Obviously we talked to Him about it (prayed), and felt complete peace in our hearts about what we were doing. And God did provide totally faithfully, but not really as we had anticipated.

God had spoken to me about working in Africa following a visit I had made to English friends who were Bible teaching in Malawi. He said to me “You could also do this.” Independently of this, God also spoke to Janet saying “One day you will live in Africa.” Janet only told me that God had spoken to her, after I had plucked up courage and told her that God had spoken to me!

Friends had suggested that World Outreach might be willing to take us on, and after a number of interviews and consultations they accepted us. The subject of how we were going to fund ourselves came up, and I’m sure we replied that we were selling our house and looking to God to provide. So at that time, following conversation with our church leaders, the mission did not see fit to impose any conditions upon us other than that we should not expect them to bail us out should we get into financial difficulties. Note that, at the present time, they would certainly provide very careful financial counselling to any new candidate.

Our move to Malawi coincided with the middle of a recession in the UK: I was unable to find work as a contract computer programmer and house prices were falling. We had planned to buy a high ground clearance vehicle for work in rural areas but were unable to do when the money ran out and the house in Reading did not sell. Eventually we sold it, loaded a 20 foot container with a small Nissan family car, basic furnishings and supplies and left for Central Africa in January 1993.

Before we left UK, a small number of friends had asked us about our costs and offered to support us financially. We were very grateful and left it to them to make arrangements to do so. I felt that we couldn’t expect someone else to pick up the tab for what we were doing, even if we believed that God was leading us, and I had little concept of ‘raising support’.

Upon our arrival in Malawi, we stayed with our English friends, and, as soon as our effects had arrived in the container moved into a little bungalow that had been rented for us close to Bvumbwe where rents were lower through being well out of Blantyre. To rent a property in Blantyre would have cost at least £1,000 per month. In addition we paid for the children to go to school and we lived simply to keep costs down.

Over the course of the following 25 months, we estimated that we spent about £40,000 in total on airfares, school fees, rent, other travel costs, food and employment costs and received about £4,000 in gifts from generous friends. Near the end of our second year in Malawi, we became aware of instabilities that could undermine the school system, a rising cost of living, the urgent need for an off-road vehicle, and a number of other matters of serious concern which threatened our ability to continue. We decided that the ‘writing was on the wall’ and that we would have to leave. Having reached that decision we booked a container, return flights to the UK, and received clearance from the tax authorities that we were free to leave – all with amazing speed.

Arriving back in the UK in February 1995 we received just enough money from the sale of my mother’s house – she had died while we were away – to enable us to buy a semi-detached house and to fund essential repairs to it. So began the difficult business of adapting again to living in the UK.

We saw God's hand in all our financial dealings despite the fact that we had not made any sensible arrangements for our own support. This became a major reason why we had to return although our work was going well. Through this I began to seriously question what it actually meant to 'believe God' for our needs. I also saw how easily we accept what we are told, and can blithely ‘skate across the surface’ without really understanding much about what we are doing.

Our time in Malawi proved to be utterly life-changing and the experience proved to be invaluable. We were there during the change from one-party rule to multi-party democracy and life was very uncertain. One Saturday morning, while driving to a seminar to be held in Zomba, we had to divert to a back road to avoid becoming involved in a gunfight that we could hear taking place between government troops and the Malawi Young Pioneers, a paramilitary group run as a private army by one of the government.

Trustee of World Outreach
Some while after our return, I was contacted by a friend who asked whether I would like to become a trustee of the World Outreach UK trust. I responded positively to the offer and served as a trustee for several years and in 2003 was invited to take on the responsibility of UK Operations Director. World Outreach has 250 to 300 missionaries around the world, all of whom look to God to supply their needs and none of whom are paid. So gradually I was introduced to the concept of raising one's own support in addition to praying about it.

I began to realise that there were many people who, for a multitude of reasons, were unable to go abroad, but who wanted to become involved in the great commission. And I saw that, just as it says in Romans 10.14 “And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” how can anyone get involved unless someone tells them of the opportunities to become involved.

I saw also that to fail to offer this opportunity to others to become involved is to rob them of the blessing that they could receive. Involvement would mean that they could pray, they could visit and become involved as we had in Malawi, and they could give financially too if they wished.

Let me add, at this point, that there are always plenty of opportunities to serve within the UK, and there is no need to go abroad to become involved in the work of God. Indeed all Christians should be involved, through prayer and other activities.

During my time as Operations Director, the organisation received gifts as small as 27p and as large as £50,000 from people who wanted to partner with us. We thanked each supporter equally, God knowing their hearts, sending them information to encourage their involvement. Where a gift was for a specific missionary or project we would put them into contact with the personnel on the field, encouraging information exchange and involvement at every level to maximize the blessing to the supporter and missionary alike.

There were only one or two supporters who gave anonymously and this was because they were satisfied to receive basic information and did not want deeper involvement perhaps because they were elderly. But as time passed I discovered that many supporters had actually visited the people they were supporting and knew a lot more about what they were doing than I did.

So then, what was the Lord Jesus driving at? If we read the context of his words we learn that he was concerned about people who gave so that they could broadcast their generosity and receive adulation from people. There is no reason to believe that he was advocating giving to people secretly.

Visit to south-east Asia
Following a visit to Thailand to take part in a regional meeting of World Outreach missionaries I travelled on to see a missionary living in extreme circumstances in a nearby country, a land of rivers and mud, primitive, unpleasant and very uncomfortable. I felt that he was a hero and decided to express my warm regard for what he was doing by sending a gift to him through intermediaries who also sent regular gifts from their church.

Over a period of months I did not hear from him to confirm that he had received the money, so I contacted the intermediaries to check that everything was ok. “Oh yes,” they said, “but we always send anonymously.” I realised then that the missionary would assume that the gift was from the church, and possibly that I had no interest in what he was doing because I had not contacted him again after my visit, and that my protestations of interest while I was with him had just been politeness. I must admit that I was very saddened by it and felt that it was too late to try to retrieve the situation. God knew that I cared about him, but he needed to know as well, and he didn’t.

Another aspect
Another aspect of “let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing” is “make your needs known by prayer to God alone”. When I thought about this concept I began to see that it would be highly attractive to God-centred people who desired to love God with all their heart and who wanted only His highest and best for their lives.

However you will not find it stated anywhere in scripture. But how can it be wrong to tell God about everything? You should tell God about everything, though sometimes you should tell God and someone else too.

• If your car breaks down in the UK, would you tell God alone, or would you also call the AA or RAC?
• If you had toothache in the UK, would you tell God alone or would you also visit a dentist?
• If you were sick in the UK, would you tell God alone or would you also contact a doctor?
• If you were facing a financial crisis would you tell God alone, or would you also consider consulting trusted friends?

What is so different about the last example that you suddenly don't want to involve anyone apart from God? What about other members of Christ's body? Are they not part of you? Why this sudden independence?

Have you considered that it may be a very clever attack by the enemy to isolate you and to prevent you involving others who could and should help. The evidence is that many excellent people have had to return from the mission field and to cope with an overwhelming sense of failure because they were unable to meet their financial needs, believing that they had to keep their financial needs secret and to ‘look to God alone to supply’.

Does it not strike you as strange that the God who wants you to tell other people the good news of Jesus Christ apparently does not want you to enlist the financial help of friends to help you to do it? And yet I know a number of truly godly people who apparently will not tell others of their needs even if sensitively asked. “God has always supplied” they reply. But is it possible that God has supplied because he loves them and would always supply what they need?

When a person tells me “God supplies my need through prayer alone”, who am I to question their basis of believing God? Romans 14.4 states “Who are you that judge another man's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Yes, he shall be held up: for God is able to make him stand.” But that doesn’t stop you from thinking about it all.

It is clear that the enemy will always work against a missionary’s advance into his territory, and therefore will do all that he can to restrict his lines of supply.

Book review – Funding the Family Business

Christmas 2009 News

How wonderful to receive Newsletters from dear friends at and around Christmas. And how grateful we are that they have not given up when we have failed to reciprocate!

Mike
Although he was supposed to hand over responsibility for the UK World Outreach office at the start of October, six and a half years of development work takes time to document, especially since development continued right up to the end. So it was on December 17 that the final version of the 180 page Operations Manual was sent to the new Operations Director in Market Harborough.

Christmas was a peculiar time for Mike; a massive anticlimax with plenty to do but no energy to do it. Janet said 'Relax, and enjoy having some time', but it's not so easy when all you've been doing has suddenly stopped.

• No longer is he waking up in the middle of the night and writing a list of jobs to do the next day.
• No longer does he suddenly realise a better way to program something and go out to the office to bury himself for hours till the changes are made.
• No longer will he wake up at 4.30 in the morning with a brilliant idea that prohibits further sleep so he starts work that day at 5am.
• No longer will he still be out in the office at 9pm because 'there's still something he must finish'.
• No longer will he have to be in the office for several days over month-end to ensure that all financial transactions are up to date and all month-end transfers to missionaries have been made. It has meant that holidays and trips always had to kept away from the end of the month so as not to impact office schedules.

Janet serving the meal

Much of the work has had nothing to do with processing donations or liaising with supporters, but much more to do with development work, something that will not need to be repeated by those who come after. It would have been a doddle if there had been no development. But that's how it was, and he's completed it now.

Janet
Always supportive and understanding; always gentle and kind. Her father is 83 and doing very well. We try to go to see him at regular intervals, but our visits have not been as frequent as we would have liked, although Janet rings every week.

Tim
Continues to share a house with a number of other young professions a mile or two from home and calls in for a meal at least once a week. He is doing well working for the Civil Service and is no stranger to hard work. He enjoys regular visits to the gym and football twice a week with friends.

Ben
Has returned to enjoy the pleasures of home life for a season, though we realise that next time he moves out it will be permanent. He is working hard for an American company in Bracknell after suffering for a while in a post that seemed to be going nowhere. When Ben is motivated, nothing can stand in his way and he is doing well.

Kik, Ben and Tim enjoying a
traditional Christmas meal

We enjoy watching our sons, now 27 and 25 respectively, growing up into fine young men and pray that God will make them well-pleasing to Him.

Kik
Our Japanese friend Kikuyo joined us again in the middle of December to our great pleasure. She had stayed with us before for 5 years from about 2002 to 2007 so the whole family know her well.

Since this is going on a blog, there is no need to tell you about other events that have taken place during the year. These will be the subject of other entries.

The end of the (World Outreach) line

Early in October 2009 I hand all the work of World Outreach UK Operations Director over to John Ball, one of the other WOUK trustees. I think it would be hard to find a more suitable man than John. As an ex-Publishing Manager of Scripture Union with links to Bible Society, he will bring valuable expertise to the job in areas of management, publicity and much more.

Now that what I began to do in 2003 is complete, that is developing and documenting office systems for World Outreach, it is clearly the right time to hand over.

Janet, my wife, reminds me that beginning in Summer 2003 when I began the initial work to take over the administration of World Outreach UK from the office in Dorchester, which employed 3 people, I had to work very hard to get everything going. The aim was to take all the records that were needed for the continuance of the trust from the 3-storey office in Dorchester, and to compress them into a form that could be held by a PC and filing cabinet in a small office in Reading.

During June 2003 I had made a whistle-stop visit to World Outreach offices in Singapore, Brisbane and Auckland to evaluate their computer systems and had learnt that none of them could be utilised to provide accounting and office systems for the UK office. Researching the software market in the UK also revealed that there was nothing available that was not either simplistic or over-complex for the task we faced. It seemed remarkable to me that with thousands of UK charities with similar requirements (or so I imagined), there should be nothing suitable for us in the marketplace.

So, apart from having to convert existing supporter records into a form that we could use, it was necessary to write a fair amount of software to interface to the hybrid QuickBooks package that was providing core accounting. As the months went by, the software expanded and generated work because we able to do more with the data than we had ever done before. We began to discover which supporters were interested in what and to write to them to keep them informed about their interests.

In time the World Outreach UK website was developed and it became difficult to keep all the balls in the air, especially because the office system continually developed as my understanding of VB6 programming and web systems increased. We moved to web platforms for forex transfers which greatly reduced the cost of sending money to missionaries. This development was spurred on by the comment made by one forex bureau that banks made 60% of their profits from foreign exchange. I don't know how true this is.

So while this was all going on, a lot of normal living had to be on hold. Although we managed to take holidays away at least once a year, it did mean that for 6 years the house did not get painted and the garden did not get dug, all the jobs that a man's muscles do better! Janet proved her mettle in allowing me to get on with the job and supporting me in manic working while onlookers sometimes assumed that because she didn't go out to work time must weigh heavily on her hands.

So it is going to be a great relief to pass the responsibility on to someone else. The office routines are set up, all systems are now frozen, and it only remains to complete the online documentation for 'those that shall come after', because John will eventually pass the work on to someone else.

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

Christmas 2005 News

All this year Mike has continued to work as the 'Operations Director' for World Outreach, a job that he enjoys but spends too much time doing. The problem is that he is always thinking of better ways to do things, and so the job expands to overfill available time. He is trying to get a final grip on things as the paint drops off the house, and the garden continues to grow even when it isn't attended to.

In February, normally a quieter time for the UK office, Mike and Janet went to Thailand to see some of the World Outreach projects.

We began in Bangkok meeting up with Patricia Green the founder of Rahab Ministries who operate among prostitutes in Patpong, the red-light district of Bangkok. By daytime the area looked innocuous, but in the late afternoon as the stalls come out onto the street in readiness for the night market, we no longer wanted to be in the area.

We also visited the Good News team who, working from a three-floor townhouse in as suburb of Bangkok, run a bible correspondence course for 100,000 Buddhist Thai schoolchildren. They publish their own material and also go into schools all around the country taking assemblies, and placing Christian literature in school libraries. They have also worked among children affected by the tsunami, encouraging them to play and to laugh again.

From Bangkok we travelled to Chiang Mae in the north-west of the country. Chiang Mae is home to the largest concentration of Christian missionaries in Asia, because of it's proximity to Burma, Cambodia, Laos and, of course, China.

From there we visited two Children's Hostels for hill tribes run by World Outreach, one in Doi Sacket, and one in Mae Chaem where we happened on the annual festival and enjoyed the flower-covered floats as they came through the town, with youngsters playing all kinds of instruments, and dressed in traditional tribal costumes.

We also met up with the Brellenthins who run another Children’s' Home in Chiang Mai, and the McKnight’s who also live there.

Our last few days we spent down at Hua Hin at the Juniper Tree, a rest house for missionaries in need of recuperation. Unfortunately, by that time, we were both under the weather and couldn't wait to catch the flight home.

During our time in Thailand we were very impressed with the quality and dedication of the missionaries we spent time with and the quality of the job that thy were doing.

At Easter, we joined our church at Moorlands Bible College near Bournemouth for our traditional Easter house-party, a time of exercise in the New Forest, visiting National Trust piles, and eating well. About half our party were from overseas and we had an excellent time.

In June we collected Ben from Coventry at the end of his first year studying German and French and playing computer games. By general consensus it was agreed to call it quits and Ben began an intensive process of job hunting. He was told everywhere he looked that they needed someone with experience - at least not the experience that he had, so it was with considerable relief that he finally landed a job in a call-centre in central Reading answering the phone to elderly people who were interested in the 'Stay Warm' scheme to cap the cost of their electricity and gas supply. He has stuck this humble pursuit and won a number of rewards for good results.

In August we made our annual pilgrimage to Devon to participate in the conference that is held in the grounds of Rora House each year. Mike was particularly encouraged to follow through on a series of creationist talks by Arthur Jones, and, having now read more widely rejoices in believing that the account of creation in Genesis is literal and that the days were days as we know them now. A great weight has slipped from his mind and a quantity of other biblical truth is also beginning to slot into place.

At the end of August, Mike had his 60th birthday, a time to reflect on the goodness of God over the years, and to seek to ensure that whatever time is left should be lived to His glory.

Tim continues to work in Basingstoke at Computer 2000 which buys computer parts and software from manufacturers and sells on a low margin to the likes of PC World and E-Buyer. He normally leaves the house at 7am and doesn't return until 7pm, so it's a long day, and he works hard. Mike asked him one evening if he was undervalued, and he replied that he would work hard whether they paid him well or not. A good attitude we think.

Christmas 2004 News

We didn’t manage to write a newsletter last year because there never seemed to be time. So we need to cover two years in this one.

You’ll remember that we lived in Malawi from January 1993 until January 1995, working as missionaries under the cover of World Outreach, an international mission recommended to us by Keith and Christine Kelly. Back in the UK, in 2001 Mike was invited to become a trustee of World Outreach, and in 2003 the trustees decided to completely regenerate the UK operation.

At the beginning of 2003, Mike was continuing his self-employed work, fixing customer's computers, and teaching secondary school maths as a private tutor, but felt to offer his services to World Outreach to set up the new administration that the UK branch of the mission required. So in June 2003, Mike visited the international World Outreach office in Singapore, and national offices in Brisbane and Auckland to learn the ropes. He then set up shop in a chalet in the garden, complete with telephones and broadband, evaluating office software and importing the donor list.

From September 2003 he became Operations Director to World Outreach in the UK, responding to letters and donations, emailing missionaries, writing new software to interface with the database, and all the 101 tasks that needed doing. Intended to be a 3-day-a-week job, it kept Mike going all the time including evenings and weekends.

Meanwhile at the end of August 2003, Janet stopped working as a Practice Nurse for the Christian GP Practice in Lower Earley. She had continued her research into producing greetings cards, visiting trade fairs from time to time, and keeping up with craft magazines and new materials. She developed beautiful designs - Mike was amazed by her talents in this direction - and sold a few cards, but knew that the whole thing could not take off without a lot more input from Mike in producing a website from which to sell the cards. ‘Mary J Cards’ was started to secure income because Mike felt that tutoring and PC repair would not provide enough to live on.

Janet also became involved with an outreach to overseas ladies every Tuesday morning that alternated bible study and craft or cooking, and she sought to be a friend to these ladies.

In February 2004, responding to a kind invitation from the Sheats family in Florida, we visited all around West Palm Beach. Hiring a car we were able to visit Janet’s aunt Kate and cousin Simon, Cape Canaveral Space Centre, numerous shopping malls and eateries, and sample the obligatory Ben and Jerry’s ice-creams. The whole Sheats family could not have been more kind.

In May we enjoyed a short break with Peter and Jane Richards in Cornwall, visiting around the Lost Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project.

In August we relaxed for a few days of spiritual refreshment at Summer Conference at Rora House in Devon.

In November we travelled up to Scotland, visiting our old stamping ground of Edinburgh on the east and Glasgow and Auchenheath on the west, with a visit to the Myerscough cottage under construction in Aberfeldy. It was great to stay with Alec and Angela Workman in Carluke, and to visit all our other friends of long-standing.

Tim completed his three years at Keele University in Staffordshire with an English and Economics degree, and eventually moved into a job with Computer 2000 in Basingstoke where he sells PCs and PC supplies to the likes of PC World, Dixons, Staples, Comet, etc. He is very motivated by the work leaving the house at 7am and not returning until 7pm.

Ben spent a gap year working as a lifeguard at the Loddon Valley Leisure Centre a mile away, and from October has been settling in to the Coventry Business School, Coventry University to study German and French. In February he went to Tanzania while we were away.

Kik, our Japanese friend continued to stay with us for the fourth year. We enjoy her company very much.

Whiteknights International Church continues to prosper and grow slowly, and Sunday evening meetings still attract overseas students from the university, some of whom are responding to the gospel.

We’re all getting older – Mike is now 59 – and we are starting to ask the question: Where do we go from here?

We have just booked flights to visit World Outreach missionaries and other friends in Thailand in February 2005, and we remain open to the possibility of new horizons. The Lord holds our future in His hands and will lead us on. Of that we are sure.

A weekend near Nsanje in the Shire Valley

Today I returned with Alan and Marion Turnbull from a weekend at a village near Nsanje in the far south of Malawi. We had left home on Friday morning for the journey south, first dropping almost three thousand feet as we negotiated the z-bends of the road that winds down the escarpment into the Great Rift Valley and then following the level main road for the remainder of the 125 miles, passing through the Sucoma sugar cane plantations beside the Shire river, and then the cotton plantations until eventually we arrived after a gruelling five hour journey at our destination in a village a few miles off the main road.

The main road had once been quite good, but now the surface had degenerated for much of the distance to a state only passable by commercial and other high-clearance vehicles. I travelled in the canopy at the back of Alan's Ford Courier pickup with Peter Makupe, a pastor and smallholder from Bvumbwe, and Elias Chisale who had recently returned from Ameva Bible School in Zimbabwe. They would be acting as interpreters at the meetings.

All around us were packed suitcases for the weekend, sleeping bags, a camping table and gas stove, a pressure lamp for light at night, bottles of drinking water, loaves of bread for us, and maize flour and cabbages for our hosts. As the pickup negotiated the bumps, with Alan steering from one side of the road to the other to miss the larger potholes, and even going off the road to miss particular trouble spots, we spent an appreciable proportion of our time suspended midway between our seat and the roof of the canopy.

We stopped for lunch and I sampled everyone else's since my contribution, lovingly prepared by Janet, was still in the fridge at home. At Bangula we stopped long enough to stretch our legs and to pour ice-cold drinks from the fridge at the petrol station down our parched throats. My current favourite is cherry-plum.

Mr Molensen, a pastor for the Independent Assemblies of God welcomed us when we arrived, and showed us to a dwelling just across from the church where we were to stay for the weekend. The house belonged to his son, who was away from home and very happy that we should use it. In the mud-brick dwelling which had an earth floor and thatched roof, there was a main room where we could cook and eat, and two adjoining bedrooms with "This is a gift from the people of the USA"  maize sacks over the doorways to provide privacy. The windows which were holes in the wall, could be covered with roll-down bamboo mats for privacy at night. Over some, the ancient mosquito netting was efficient in keeping the flies in. A layer of brown dust blown in by the warm breeze covered everything we touched.

In each bedroom there was a bamboo bed-base upon which we spread our blow-up mattresses and sleeping bags. Alan and Marion had one bedroom, and I the other, Elias sleeping in the main room, and Peter in the church with other visiting pastors. Alan's bed-base sloped to one side where the supports had sunk into the floor, but a few bricks found lying around outside corrected the list.

We made ourselves comfortable and put the kettle on for a cup of tea. By now it was 5pm and getting dark so Alan lit the Tilley paraffin lamp and hung it under the thatch. Janet had supplied a sponge cake, a large pizza and sauce, and some rock buns, to add to the things that Marion had provided, so we had a buffer from purely African fare during the weekend.

During the weekend, the ladies of the village fed us well with rice porridge for breakfast, and rice, nsima (a stodge made from maize flour much beloved by Malawians), stewed cabbage and a little beef, chicken or fish for the other meals. They were very generous to us, because they commonly live on only one meal a day.

We had a short meeting on the Friday night to which about 40 people came; Marion told a story using flannelgraph, and I spoke for a little while too.

At about 9pm we went to bed, the others lighting mosquito coils and I using my safari net. I woke up after a little while to discover a cockroach about three quarters of an inch across walking across my face. I removed it, tucked my net in better and went back to sleep. In the morning, as I surfaced, I became aware that the chicken noises that had been distant were now very loud. As I opened my eyes, the hen that had been been searching for a good place to lay it's egg, went scuttling past my bed and headed for the doorway, ducking under the sack on its way out.

Four goats had made their way in through the back door during the night and were polluting the atmosphere beside the sack that hung over the doorway into the room where Alan and Marion were ensconsed. The hen tried each room in turn, ending up on a old bookshelf next to the goats.

We rose to face the day, and one by one went out to the bamboo fenced cubicles in the open where a bucket of warm water and a tin mug had been made available for washing purposes. The water has to be carried from a well and heated over an open fire in a bucket, so we were very grateful for the luxury of a warm wash or shower.  During breakfast Alan remarked that a cockroach he had seen by the light of his torch in the toilet the previous night had been fully 2 inches long so I had got off lightly with such a small one. God is good!

Following breakfast, the cows that should have been overnight in the enclosure next to the house appeared with their flies, having spent the night by the Shire river a mile away because, after they had drunk from the river, it was too dark to bring them home. God's grace operates in wonderful and mysterious ways.

The meeting, scheduled for 9am began properly at about 10.30 with much joyful singing of hymns and choruses accompanied by a drum and other instruments of torture, and was followed by three other meetings that day. Alan spoke very clearly and well from Ephesians, bringing in relevant cross-references from other books, and the people, many of whom were pastors, scribbled furiously in their notebooks lest they miss any detail. The people listened attentively and seriously. Many were from Mozambique, just 15 miles further south, and at least one of them had walked 25 miles the previous day to be with us.

The Mozambicans in the refugee camps are beginning to return to their own country, and there are an increasing number of invitations to visit them once they are established.

Marion and I also contributed during the day. Her use of flannelgraph in telling old testament stories to put over the new testament message is graphic and very powerful, capturing the imagination and appealing to people of all ages.

About 4pm, we walked the mile or so to the Shire river, crossing the fields which until the last drought were marsh. The river, about 12 feet below us, 100 yards wide at this point and obviously very deep, flowed rapidly carrying numerous small islands of water hyacinth on its way to join the Zambezi. Over on the far bank there were a couple of small houses in use by the Renamo soldiers that occupy that part of Mozambique to guard the border with Malawi.

A dugout canoe plied across from one side to the other, the fare just 5 tambala (there are about 6 tambala to the penny), carrying local people with firewood, or baskets of tomatoes, or other crops on their way back to their villages. Peter and Elias had been across the ferry earlier in the day to talk to the soldiers about the Lord.

We watched the boatman make several journeys, going far upstream before crossing, because of the strength of the current, and then it was time to return for tea. The forty or so children and adults that had joined us by the river trailed along behind as we went back through the fields. It was just like a warm peaceful summer's afternoon in the south of England. I wished that Janet had been there to share it.

That evening we went to bed again at 9pm and slept better, although Alan was bitten twice by mosquitoes because his inferior mosquito coils had gone out during the night. However the goats didn't seem to smell so bad and the hen had turned her attentions elsewhere.

The next morning, Sunday morning, after a wash and breakfast, we packed our belongings and presented ourselves at 9am for the meeting. At 9.30 we went for a coffee and returned at 10am when the increased volume of the singing has signalled that everyone else were ready to begin. Marion spoke again, I continued with Ephesians 4 and the time disappeared. After the meeting we dined from a chicken to which we had been introduced the previous day as it walked around. We were told it was one of the progeny of a chicken that Alan and Marion had given Mr Molensen some months before. As Alan said "Cast your bread upon the waters..."

We left at 2pm for the long ride home, after much talking and hand-shaking, taking two of the ladies with children who had travelled down to the weekend from the Tengani refugee camp that lay close to the road on our way back, and arrived back in Bvumbwe four hours later after a good journey, the weather being pleasantly cooler.

My clothes smelt of wood smoke, and my pillow of smoke and paraffin, so everything went out for washing, and I enjoyed the civilisation of a comfortable bed again after a thoroughly profitable weekend.