Last week I received this email from Ross & Lyndal Webb, some of our mission partners, who work with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Vanuatu. The email is to all of our church.

“Dear friends at HBC,

Please pass on our thanks to all in the congregations for encouraging us as 2012 gets underway with your generous gift.

We know you have many demands on your money and that your ministry in your local area is very important and bearing fruit. But thank you for branching out and including us across the ocean as another part of your ministry.

We have many things lined up for this year - a course for local translators starting next week, the national conference for local translators, a celebration of 30 years of SIL’s work here, and a New Testament dedication in May for starters. Thanks for your contribution to all these events and for helping ni-Vanuatu have a chance to know God more through His Word.

We really enjoyed visiting with many of you at the end of last year - that seems a long time ago now. Thanks for your welcome and interest in our work.

God bless you richly,

In Him,

Lyndal and Ross“

Ever find yourself wanting to pray for our missionaries, but not really sure what to pray? Check out their profiles under the ‘who we support’ section here and you can see what they’ve asked us to pray for, and pray!

HBC mission partners, Rob and Jen Alley joined us at RENEW on Souper Sunday to share personal insights into their life and ministry with Australian Indigenous Ministries and to gee up unichurch for our upcoming tour to the outback.

Rob and Jen made a special effort to be with us at unichurch, traveling from Sydney for one night only. Though some unichurchers were preoccupied in the soup-cycle (thank you, your sacrifice was acceptable in our stomachs) 15 or-so were able to join us for what was a wonderful start to the quality 5-hour marathon that was Souper Sunday.

I spoke with Rob during the week to arrange what we might do at RENEW on the night. He was pretty relaxed, preferring a laid-back ‘natural’ style of gathering. Interview questions practised, he said, are not really questions at all.

Each week at RENEW we kick-off by looking at the Bible. We want to know the God we’re speaking to, so we can speak appropriately and say the right kinds of things! It’s usually easier to chat to someone you know.

Rob led us through John 4:27-38 and Matthew 9:35-38, focusing us on a point that has really been encouraging to him and Jen through challenging times. God’s good harvesting work is screaming in front of us to be done. We must remember the job as a whole and trust God in our patch with our small part.

It can be discouraging in your patch when you’re investing in seeds and burying them in the ground, when someone else is bringing home boxes of weetbix.

For some missionaries in central Australia, only a handful of people have come to trust in Jesus over 20 hard years of planting.

Rob and Jen run mission awareness tours. They’re passionate about opening people’s eyes to the harvest field - in our own nation - and encouraging workers who are already slaving out in the blazing sun. They pick tourists up on a bus, drive to remote communities and show them the field. It’s an amazing two weeks of tight fellowship, real encouragement, rugged adventure, indescribable creation, solid time in Scripture, getting uncomfortable, feeling tired, eating unknown items, spotting kangaroos… experiencing God’s enormity and responding in prayer: “Your Kingdom Come”.

Then they get back in the bus and go home.

It’s hard for Rob and Jen to see the fruit of their ministry - most of it is in the lives of the people getting off the bus. A couple of their tours planned for this year have been cancelled because numbers haven’t been there. Unfortunately, it’s much harder to encourage people before they get on the bus.

At RENEW we prayed for them. What an encouragement that Rob would choose to share these verses at a time like this. They are considering their future - what God might like them to do in the coming years. We were all really challenged with our job in the field too - seeing that the work is there to be done.

HBC is going on a tour of our Indigenous harvest-field from September 23-October 3 with Rob and Jen. What an opportunity! Spots are filling up, and we’re praying that the trip will be a sell-out so that hearts are stirred for the glory of God in Australia. If you’re interested, email kelly@hunterbiblechurch.org

Members of unichurch meet each week at 6pm on a Sunday for RENEW Prayer. I often describe RENEW as happening before church, but I’m reminded that RENEW is church. It’s so central to what the church, God’s people, do. We pray because we are fellow-workers with God in the world! We pray that God will use us, his people, to change the hearts of Novocastrians (and all peoples of the world) by his word.

One of the marvelous joys of meeting for RENEW is hearing the stories of how God answers these prayers. Each week we hear of friends, family, housemates and strangers who are engaging with the gospel through our relationships with them. If you need to be reminded of the benefits of prayer, come to RENEW and praise God for his work.

One such place we can see this work being done is the family of Dene and Rachel Hughes.

A couple of weeks ago at RENEW we caught up with our friends and their boys, Eliott and Simeon, via Skype. What a story! Up ’til last year these guys were working among us in Newcastle at the uni with the FOCUS International Christian Student group. The family were quite enjoying their time here: aware of the work they could see God doing, and really appreciating life in Newcastle. A time of noticeable growth and blessing is reason to thank God, but never to necessarily settle. God had different plans for the Hughes. Now 2011 for them is a year of training and preparing to move to Japan! They’ll be involved with Christian student work over there from 2012.

Many personal friends of the family came to RENEW that night, it was a pleasure to experience shared joy in catching up. In typical Hughes fashion, their 6 months of training in Melbourne has included lessons learned from the Bible, growth in the family, enjoyment from their surroundings (bike rides, coffee, markets) and some interesting variations on the English language from Simeon’s developing tongue.

Dene and Rachel shared some points that we can raise with God:

• Rachel’s computer died and they’ve been planning on doing lots of digital stuff over the next six months. Pray they can replace it and/or get by ok.
• Pray for somewhere to live in Brisbane or somewhere to house-stay
• They’d love to get some quality time with their family in Brisbane before they leave
• Deputation - that the boys would be settled while they’re moving around

• The country is in shock and there’s been intense suffering and despair
  • Dene has heard of lots of opportunities for conversations in Japan
  • Pray that the Christians there might have lots of opportunities to tell people about the hope they have in Jesus

Another wonderful story to share is with the Harrisons - also leaving our gathering here in Newcastle! One of them will be joining us at unichurch’s RENEW Prayer session this week, their last weekend with us before leaving for Melbourne. Be there, GP Theatre at 6pm.

What would be your response if you heard of someone offering a miracle cure for something which countless of your countrymen had died from? Check out Mike and Katie Taylor’s latest newsletter here to hear of their response to this current situation in Tanzania…

photo credit: NatUlrich

Have you checked out our “who we support” page lately? It’s been updated… Why don’t you take a look here and check out who we support as a church…

I just received the email below from Kate Wick’s as it’s O-day on Curtin Uni campus. Why don’t you stop and pray for the ministry of Curtin Christian Union now?

I’ve just been uploading some of the newsletters from our missionary family. You can read some updates from the Boxes here and the Alley’s news here including some exciting news…

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.

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