Matthew, Rebecca, Luke and David Armstrong, Malawi

We were sent from Woodhouse Christian Fellowship in Leeds to serve the Lord in Malawi in October 2001.  Matt’s degree was in medical microbiology and Bec worked as a florist and then as a dispensing technician in a community pharmacy; so far the pharmacy training has been the most useful.  We were married in 1999 and our elder son Luke was born two years later, four months before we left; our younger son David was born two years after this in Blantyre, Malawi.

Matt’s first few years were spent overseeing the construction of the I.M.P. house in Blantyre, and in building relationships.  Since finishing he has joined the staff at the Evangelical Bible College of Malawi (EBCoM).  Some of his subjects have been Amos, Jeremiah, Psalms, John, 1 John, angels, demons and spiritual warfare.  He also acts as maintenance supervisor at the college and directs I.M.P. here in Blantyre.  Bec is home schooling Luke and will do so for David when he is old enough.  She also manages the accommodation/guesthouses on the I.M.P. site, helps organise teams that come through and does everything else that a wife and mother does.  We are also involved with some rural churches around us, Matt more so than Bec. 

There is a lot to do and a lot more that could be done: co-workers would be wonderful!

Working alongside Lucy and Gordon Hayes

Child2Child (Matt and Michelle Barrow)
Nairobi, Kenya

This work involving a home for street children has been through some major changes.

The management has passed to those Kenyans who were on the governing board, so that all the development work is now under their control.

Matt & Michelle continue supporting the children in the home, which is on the outskirts of Nairobi.

Olaf, Manuela, Stephanie, John and Miriam Brellenthin, Thailand
 
We are from Germany and in April 1991 moved to the UK with our six-month-old daughter Stephanie.  We studied English at the English for Christian Service course facilitated by Lyndhurst Christian Fellowship in Worthing and became members of the Fellowship family there.  We moved to Reading for the first six months of 1992 to attend the Church Life School run by Earley Christian Fellowship.  Our son John was born during this time. We then moved to France to spend four months at La Maison Blanche in Dinan.  We felt led by the Lord to extend our stay in England and deepen our roots with Lyndhurst Christian Fellowship and stayed from August 1992 to June 2000. In March 1995 our third child Miriam was born.  We were sent as missionaries from Lyndhurst Christian Fellowship and Homeless Children International Inc. to Thailand.

Simon, Heloise, Jack and Corin Brereton
Estonia

Simon & Heloise Brereton

We are Simon and Heloise Brereton. We live with our two children, Jack (3) and Corin (1), in a small town called Võhma in central Estonia which is the smallest of the three Baltic states. We came here in 2003 with a calling to start a church in this town of 1700 people. There is currently no established church work here.
We have started a weekly Bible study which has around 15 regular members.

Most people have grown up with little if any concept of God or Christianity due to communist rule for so many years. As with most Christian groups in Estonia our Bible study comprises mostly women with the exception of one elderly man.

It will take a real move of God to see the men of this country raised up to new life. Alcoholism is a major problem throughout the country for both men and women. We are encouraged by the small steps that our Bible study members are making but it is still very early days for most of them. In addition to the Bible study we have a childrens club every second Sunday and youth work every week. We have the beginnings of a mother and toddlers group and have started a weekly prayer meeting.

As in any pioneer situation it is slow, hard work and we look to God for an outpouring of His Holy Spirit.
One area that is a constant frustration for us is the language. Estonian is a Finno-Ugric language which makes it one of the hardest languages to learn. We have been studying since we arrived here but still have a long way to go before we are proficient enough to minister without translators.

We are very thankful for God’s provision in our friend Tiina who comes every week from another town half an hour away to translate for the Bible study. We have no other co-workers.

Keith and Cynthia Greener
Moshi, Tanzania

Keith and Cynthia are working with the Streets in the Moshi area. They have particular responsibility for a church in Narumu, a small village in the foothills of Kilimanjaro.

There has been opposition, including stone throwing and loud music etc., but they are encouraged in what the Lord has been doing.

They are present at the meetings and also do some visiting. Language lessons, which Keith finds more difficult than Cynthia, are continuing.

Working alongside Steve and Anne Street

Lucy and Gordon Hayes
Blantyre, Malawi

We are living in Malawi, where we have the pleasure and privilege of serving those whom God so loves – the materially wealthy and those so desperately poor.  Our home is a place where people stay while ministering in Malawi or a place just to find friendship.  In receiving and hosting guests we are always encouraged by how our Lord blesses His people so that they are able to bless others.  Lucy at present helps administer the Forget-Me-Not child sponsorship programme for I.M.P., and both of us are actively involved in teaching and imparting knowledge as well as channelling donations and aid to individuals, orphanages and schools.  We assist in the administrative and practical works of The Mwana wa Mulungu Project (The GOD’S CHILD Project Malawi), an international humanitarian aid organization which works toward breaking the bitter chains of poverty through education.  It is for us a life of fulfilling those needs which God directs us to fulfil, and our life in Malawi finds us involved in a variety of areas, some for a season and others for longer, but almost never stagnant. As we live by the Lord’s guidance He stretches as well as sustains us.

Working alongside Matt & Rebecca Armstrong

Fineke Janssen, Bolivia

In 1989 I left Holland, where I worked with school dropouts, to begin my first term as a missionary in La Paz, Bolivia.  I first worked alongside a programme for addicted men, and evangelized in police cells.
During the early years I became aware of the Lord showing me the needs of young addicted people on the streets and leading me to work with them in 1994.  Eventually, this resulted in the registering of the Adulam Mission, which in 2007 became the Adulam Foundation, working to this day with street gangs in La Paz and El Alto and aiming to see youth set free from dependency so that they can live in dignity.

In 1997 Adulam, a home for addicted teenage boys, was opened.  In 2002 Talita Cumi, a home for addicted young women, was opened, and subsequently further houses aiding in the work among addicted young people were added.  A challenging programme is Jesed, a home for couples struggling with different sorts of addictive behaviour.  The team of Bolivians and I are constantly learning to grow both in the Lord as well as in the ministry.

Steve and Joy Pegg
Philippines

Our children Andy, Jamie and Kathy, are grown up and following the Lord and we rejoice in being re-cycled missionaries! We work in the Philippines with New Testament Assemblies of God, an indigenous Pentecostal Church, which was started about thirty years ago. After several short visits, we moved here in November 2003.

We are based at their Crossroads Bible Institute in northern Luzon about 285 kilometres north of the capital Manila. We are involved in teaching young men and women on a three year course to prepare them for ministry in the NTAG Churches. Many of them are from different mountain groups that are regarded as ‘ethnic minorities’ by the government. This means their families are poor and their education has been of a low standard.

At weekends we join the staff and students and help in local churches, and in semester breaks we travel to some of the remote mountain churches for conferences or outreaches. There is a great need everywhere for people to be established in their faith so that they can resist the false teachings that abound and become effective witnesses.

Perhaps the corruption and misrule that affect every level of society are the birth-pangs of the national revival that has been prayed for so much, and was so widely prophesied about in the early nineties. In the meantime we feel the Lord directing us to work on the principle of 2 Timothy 2:2, and invest extra time in individual students.

Julia Pring
Kenya

Julia is working with children in Kisumu.

She has been away for a few months to gain her bearings and wait on the Lord but is back now and was pleased to see that the work had prospered in her absence.

Sahib
Algeria

“We have a dream!” – Sahib, Algeria

I am a North African Berber from a Muslim background. What an agenda! What riches, too! My wife is English, from the Midlands and has her rich inheritance, likewise. We live in Algeria and share the same passion: to worship and serve God and our joint prayer is that of John 17v21.

Faced with growing intolerance and fundamentalism in its many forms on both sides of the Mediterranean, the church has a primordial role to play at international level. Given the current situation, action is urgently required. Along with my wife we have become involved in two areas of work.

Firstly, we have set up a web site, “Project Samuel” (www.projetsamuel.com) with the help of a number of friends, which aims to facilitate exchanges of information and the organisation of joint projects; intercession, humanitarian aid, teaching, social projects, adoption, trips, exchanges and conferences.

Secondly, we share our testimony through the production of audiovisuals with a North African bias. Our world needs to see the reality of Christian living notwithstanding cultural, language and economic barriers. What an ideal location the Mediterranean Basin provides for this work!

You can participate in either project in a number of ways:

• Prayer (let us know as we like to know who prays for us)
  
  
• Financial contributions in the form of one-off or regular gifts for a particular ministry or towards our living costs
  
  
• Contributing financially towards the production of audiovisuals for diffusion by satellite
  
  
• Visiting to help or advise with the running of the web site
  
  
• Adopting an individual, a family or a church on an individual, church or organisational basis
  
  
• Becoming a member of the web site

If you would like to know more or wish to participate in our ministry, please contact “Sahib” via I.M.P or log onto the at www.projetsamuel.com

John and Tabitha Salter, Kenya

We were married only quite recently.  John was sent out as a single man in November 2004 to Nakuru, Kenya.  Tabitha is Kenyan and now supports John’s ministry; we attend a local church together.  Prior to coming to Kenya John was a care worker in Devon and worshipped with the Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Newton Abbot. 

Nakuru is Kenya’s third largest city and is a through-town to other parts of the country; it lies 120km northeast of Nairobi.  John is asked to preach at crusades and supports a number of churches in the Nakuru area.  He has an office in the city where he meets pastors to encourage them by providing resources such as a library and study books, along with computer facilities.

Steve and Ali Sharp
YWAM, England

Steve and Ali will be joining Youth With a Mission (YWAM) England in October 2005, and they will start with five months practical training and outreach in South America.

They will then return to the head office in Harpenden, where Ali will be working in pastoral care/hospitality and Steve will be working in the Accounts Department.

Peter and Peggy Skinner, Manna Publications

We were formerly at Longcroft Fellowship, but are now based near Derby, England, and partner in a worldwide literature ministry called Manna Publications.  Small Bible commentaries written by Fred Morris (USA) and edited in easy English by David Page (UK) are marketed in some 20 different developing countries.  We gained experience in literature ministry while working at SOON Ministries, and dealing with worldwide responses to their easy-English newspaper.  In Manna we deal with dozens of emails every week as well as the bi-monthly newsletter, database and accounts.  The purpose is to provide basic Bible teaching to developing countries.

Peter has a special interest in Africa to where he travels from time to time.  Last December he was in Nigeria, where he met Pastor Timothy Osinlu.  Since that visit Timothy has been encouraged to sell Manna books to schools, pastors’ meetings, church members and a theological college.  Peter seeks to encourage all the Manna reps to be pro-active in distributing books.

Ray and Sylvia Skinner, Solomon Islands

We were married in 1978 and first went from England to Solomon Islands in 1986 for seven years.  After 2–3 years back in the UK, we were released from Worthing Fellowship to join Bethany Fellowship in Perth, Australia.  Having visited SI on several ministry trips from there, we were invited to go back full time in 2002 and were sent directly from Perth, though always keeping our link with the UK.

We attend and work with Bible Way Centre (BWC) at the Emmaus Campus in Honiara. BWC has many outreach ministries, some of which we organise and support directly. BWC’s range of activities includes Christian teaching programmes on the national radio, the vocational groups at the LightHouse rehab/training centre, the ordinary congregational work, short-term Bible training schools, and prison visiting with post-release rehab support.

We were instrumental in building and operating in 2005 the new Emmaus Christian School. Sylvia is the BWC Director of Education and is the Emmaus School Principal, as well as the Prep-class Teacher and the Teacher-trainer.  Ray’s work has been mainly with the SI Health Department as the Government Chief Pharmacist, with opportunities to reach out around the country, and in the Pacific region.  He shares in the Bible Way local church leadership, preaching and teaching.  Sylvia has also worked with LightHouse vocational training for special groups like ex-militants, ex-prisoners, unschooled youth, and local women’s groups.  This work also opens doors to outreach in various village communities across the islands for us.

Graham and Lisa Stevenson, Tanzania

We moved to Arusha, Northern Tanzania in 1997 from Exeter.  We have three children, Bethia, Hannah and Jack, who have completed their education and are now independent.  We are involved in a number of different things. Primarily, we work with the Maasai people, currently supporting two indigenous churches with preaching, teaching and general church life. Our desire is to see a truly independent Maasai church free of Western influence and culture.  We run a cow project for the benefit of disadvantaged Maasai women and assist a number of children through the Forget-Me-Not programme. We are also involved with aid – mostly health and food, where necessary, and some education.  Another aspect of our work involves teaching on marriage. This is either in churches or with couples as marriage preparation.  We are both marriage counsellors, working with expats and nationals. Lisa is doing further study in counselling with a view to helping people, especially women, with more general difficulties.

Steve and Anne Street
Moshi, Tanzania

Steve's teaching post with the International School was terminated after 20 years; he was, however, already advanced in the planning stage for retirement from the education world, so plans were accelerated!

They had bought a house and were renovating it when the news came, and both Steve and Anne felt the Lord's hand in it all. The change will mean that they can take up even more opportunities to preach and teach about the Lord than they already do.

Working alongside Keith and Cynthia Greener

The Deckers

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