We can often think of the ‘needs’ on the mission field of a place like Vanuatu, being for more Bible translators. And they certainly need that, but have you ever thought about what other needs they have? For even one translation project to happen, there are loads of people needed apart from the translators themselves. I received an email this week from Lyndal Webb, sharing one of the needs Wycliffe Vanuatu currently has. Could you help them fill it?

Just wondering if anyone can help…

The Labrecque family have been working with the speakers of the Paama and South East Ambrym language to translate the New Testament for the last 10 years. The Books in both these languages could potentially be completed in the next 3 years (if that’s what God has in mind!).

But the Labrecques have run into a bit of a problem in the area of the education of their kids. The 3 of them have been home-schooled to this point.- worked well up till now but their daughter Sharyna is 15 years old and school work is no longer ‘easy’. She is following an internet based schooling from Canada but a tutor in Maths, Science and French (and a help with music, her interest) would be a huge help! Right now Sharyna is feeling pretty discouraged about school and her Mum is feeling frustrated!

If the other 2 children (Primary) had some help too, their Mum, Barbara could be free to spend more time on the translation project.

If you are interested in helping - maybe for 6 months or less drop us a line and we will tell you all the ‘conditions’ - better tell you up front that the wage is mere appreciation!!

Thanks for thinking about it….

Lyndal

This Sunday I’m preaching on the story of Zaccheaus (Luke 19:1-11).

It will be a 20 minute, well prepared, humourous (as best I can) talk designed to persuade people to become Christians.  There’ll be a prayer at the end, contact cards, the whole deal.

So bring your non-Christian family and friends if you can and pray for them and for me.

Christmas can be a tough time when you’re away from family and the traditions which you’ve grown up with. For our missionary family, Christmas can be a hard reminder of something of the cost of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.

If you’ve ever thought about emailing some of our missionary family, but not sure what to write, this time of year would be a great time! Even just getting an email saying that you’re praying for them could be a great encouragement.

Don’t forget to read their latest newsletters, including specifics of what you can be praying for them, on the Who We Are > Who We Support page or click here.

Katoomba Mens Convention is a key event on the HBC calendar.  This is a short trip away for the men in our church to experience great fellowship, hear excellent Bible teaching and to commit to growing in maturity as men.

This year the theme is ‘Life Outside the Garden’ and the speakers are David Cook and Justin Mote.

HBC will be going on weekend one which is Friday 18 and Saturday 19 of February.  We’d love you to register yourself online (http://www.mkc.kcc.org.au) and then let us know you’re coming.  James Dean and I are working on things like accommodation and transport so that your trip away is as stress free as possible.

Look forward to talking with you more about what a great weekend it will be!

What do Gingerbread Houses and Christmas have to do with one another? Who knows? But for some reason there is a worldwide tradition of making Gingerbread Houses around Christmas time!

So in November, Hunter Bible Church are running two Gingerbread House decorating events, one on Friday evening for Ladies only and then at 10am on Saturday 20 November for parents and kids and you are invited to come along to either or both!!

Ladies session - 6.45pm for 7.00pm
Friday 19 November 2010

This is an event to come to with your friend, your workmate, your mum, your aunty, your sister, cousin or niece or your mother-in-law… There will be a short talk about how Jesus is essential to a meaningful understanding of Christmas - and to our lives before we build and decorate our houses.

The Parents and Kids session - 9.45am for 10am
Saturday 20 November 2010

Lots of family fun. Mum, Dad or carers can come along with up to two kids and make a Gingerbread House together. There will be a puppet show and sing a longfor the kids explaining the good news of Jesus.

COST: $30/kit and includes gingerbread walls and roof, silver base, icing, lollies, afternoon tea, cellophane wrapping and ribbons

Register for yourself and a friend at church this Sunday!

Here are a couple of emails we’ve received from the group currently in Myanmar…

Just thought we would let you know how things are going here….

We are loving meeting all the people here we have heard so much about!
The boys have been doing a cracker job with some preaching at RBI- have the translation pauses down pat!
We are looking forward to going to Blossom tomorrow!
The team is getting along really well. It has been very confronting for most of them so there is a lot of processing going on, but the team has been really honest with all that so that really helps us know where peeps are at.
Please continue to pray for the team and for perserverence for our brothers and sisters here, they are so encouraging to hang with- you should all come meet them!

Hope things are well with you all and HBC,
talk soon
Roz and team awesome

And a couple of days later…

Binglaba (hello) from Myanmar,

First of all thanks heaps for your prayers whilst we are over here.  Its been a great trip so far in many ways.  The team have been deeply encouraged to see the perserverance of the Christians over here. Matt, Ben and myself have all had a change to teach at the college. Its been very challenging for us all to experience the poverty and conditions that they live in here.  Yesterday Lincoln shared with the team his vision for RBI which helped us see how we could be supporting them when we get back to Australia.

We visited the land that they purchased.

So far no one on team has been sick praise God even though we have been eating some suspect foods.

This morning with  Lincoln and his family we are all flying to Inlya lake for a short holiday break.  We’re all looking forward to having more good fellowship time with them.

Please pray for:

1. many of the students and teachers have eye infections… pray for healing
2. Lincoln recently bought new land in another village to build the new bible college on.. please pray for great relationships with the locals and that they would be favourable for them to build
3.  for perseverance in trusting God amongst suffering and poverty.

on behalf of the team
deats  - i would write more but internet is really really slow…and i have a plane to catch

Why is looking after the poor important?

God has abundantly poured out His generosity to us through His Son Jesus Christ. We have been justified and are heirs of God’s kingdom with Jesus. How can we not respond to this generosity by being generous ourselves and doing good works?

⁴But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, ⁵he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, ⁶whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour, ⁷so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. ⁸This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. Titus 3:4-8.

The bible says that we should particularly show this generosity by doing good works to the poor and the marginalised in our world. If we don’t, we don’t understand the gospel and are not saved. “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” 1 John 3:17.

But being “bible based” Christians do we have time for the poor? We know that proclaiming the gospel is really important, but do we neglect the poor because we are proclaiming the gospel. However do we neglect proclaiming the gospel to look after the poor? How do we find the balance?

Tim Keller sums up how proclaiming the gospel and looking after the poor work together in his article “The Gospel and the Poor”.

“Jesus calls Christians to be “witnesses,” to evangelize others, but also to be deeply concerned for the poor. He calls his disciples both to “gospel-messaging” (urging everyone to believe the gospel) and to “gospel-neighbouring” (sacrificially meeting the needs of those around them whether they believe or not!) The two absolutely go together.

1. They go together theologically. The resurrection shows us that God not only created both body and spirit but will also redeem both body and spirit. The salvation Jesus will eventually bring in its fullness will include liberation from all the effects of sin—not only spiritual but physical and material as well. Jesus came both preaching the Word and healing and feeding.

2. They go together practically. We must be ever wary of collapsing evangelism into deed ministry as the social gospel did, but loving deeds are an irreplaceable witness to the power and nature of God’s grace, an irreplaceable testimony to the truth of the gospel.”

We should be concerned for both proclaiming the gospel and looking after the poor because they go hand in hand in declaring the good news that Jesus is the Lord and Saviour.

The Northern Settlement Service

HBC has a great opportunity to put this in practise through the Northern Settlement Service.

NSS is an independent community based not for profit organisation with a diverse funding base, delivering settlement services to refugees, migrants, and other new and emerging communities in Northern New South Wales. They provide multi-lingual information and referral, casework and counselling, community education and development, consultancy, cross cultural training, migration advice, and volunteer assistance. The volunteer programs are primarily engaged with dealing with Newcastle’s growing refugee community.

What are the Needs?

There are many opportunities available where HBC could get involved. These are always changing but currently these are a few pressing issues identified by NSS:

1. Family assistance: with a large family of six children and five grandchildren (no mother). Including general home assistance (a big clean up one day and the follow up), mentoring (the four oldest girls have children under the age of two and need guidance in many practical ways), supporting the father, English literacy assistance/homework help, practical support (bus routes, how to get to shopping centres, where services are located, etc).
2. Driving assistance: A lot of these clients are ladies.
3. Adult literacy: with a mother and homework assistance for her daughter in secondary school.
4. Baby Sitting: A Mauritanian lady needs a volunteer to look after her two children for a couple of hours a week while she does the shopping with another volunteer.
5. Assisting with the all-African basketball tournament: that is involving an NSS basketball team and other teams from Sydney and Canberra.
   a. Mentoring - least one male volunteer (but preferably more) is needed to assist with the youths who are arranging the event.
   b. Event Assistance - The Tournament is on Saturday October 9^th. Assistance will be needed with general organizational jobs, running the barbeques, etc. This will allow the youths involved to fully participate with their teams on the day.

How can you be involved?

1. Contact Pip Budden for more information. See Church Family Notices for details.
2. Come to a session (either on the weekend or a Wednesday night) where people from church can do the necessary training and get the necessary information.
3. Come to a working bee to help the first family with household maintenance.
4. Join the volunteer network and receive regular emails about opportunities to help out.

On August 15 after 5pm we’re going to be having dinner together and hearing about Katie Pearson’s time in Egypt, as well as the ministry of Hope Myanmar Partnership. This is particularly an opportunity for people from 10am and 5pm congregations to come along, who haven’t had a chance to hear from Katie about her time in Egypt last year.

I wanted to share a segment of an email I received from one of our church members tonight…

“Just thought I’d let you know that I have (finally) written a letter about the Scripture/ethics classes to send to the various people on your list - I have 4 envelopes stamped and sealed and ready to post! I kept feeling a certain reluctance to sit down and actually write the thing, which I’m not sure can be wholly attributed to laziness (though I’m sure it’s a factor!). But once I did, the letter came very easily. I’m sure the devil uses our laziness and apathy. Thanks for providing the guidelines for the letter so it was really very easy once I got around to it… and be encouraged!”

I was enormously encouraged by this and I thought it might encourage those of you who have really wanted to send a letter yet have not written the letters to act!

I pray that you won’t let laziness or apathy get the better of you… why not write your letter now?

Our missionaries who we support at HBC are part of our church family, even if we don’t get to see them face to face regularly! It’s a great privilege we have to be able to partner with them in their ministry and one of the best ways we can be supporting them is by praying for them!

You can click here to hear about the changes (again!) which the Taylors have gone through and their personal African safari! Click here to hear more about Kingsley Boxes questions about the existence of God. And click here to hear about Lyndal Webb’s adventures on Epi Island running literacy workshops…