Parish of Wonersh with Blackheath

To know Christ & to make Him known

Overseas Ministries Support

 Matthew 28:19-20
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Overseas Ministries Support Team (OMST)
See Photos of the OMST. 

            Chair   Keith Bateson
                        Liz Tilley
                        Helen McCommick
                        Steve Vinall
                        Ian Young

Purpose

 The PCC has an Overseas Ministries Support Team because of its responsibility under God to encourage and sacrificially support overseas mission—in partnership with local churches in the relevant countries. 

 We support mission partners by prayer and finance.  These may be UK people working through mission agencies, or local people who have special skills and work in pioneer situations where outside support allows them to devote themselves wholly to their Christian work.

 OMST is one of the “official” PCC teams; normally it has six members. Our aim is to encourage missionary support among the church fellowship, both generally and specifically for our own mission partners.  We make recommendations to the PCC, especially about financial support.

 The team would like the support of anyone with a vision for overseas ministry support – or who would just like to know more. The wider team share news of our partners, about our other mission contacts, enjoy fellowship together, and praying.  Mission support is a vital part of God’s Gospel work and we need your prayers and encouragement for all those involved, both here and overseas.  Become better informed about this work by borrowing books & literature from our library in the Selwyn Room, staying alert to international affairs, and talking to members of the OMST.

In the Notice Sheet each week we mention a different partner, to remind us all to pray for  them.  We aim to inform and challenge our own fellowship, and to inspire and encourage people to pray for overseas ministry personally - a privelege and responsibility of nearly all Christians.   Quarterly OMST lead a Sunday service to concentrate upon an aspect of our support.  In addition on the last Saturday of each month, prayers concentrate upon our Overseas Partners.

 In the Selwyn Room bookstall there are a number of videos/CD’s and other background material relating to work of OMST.  Please make use of this resource and contact any member of OMST if you would like to support this aspect of our ministry. 

 Login to see Details of Financial Support given. 

Main Partners 

The Overseas Ministries Support Team recommends to the PCC how its overseas outward giving should be distributed, representing 2/3rds of our total outward giving.  Click here to see details of the financial support given.  The bulk of the church’s giving goes to our five main partners :-

Aylings - OMF - Japan

 
Ruth and Gareth Ayling have worked in Japan since 1977, as members of mission agency OMF which was originally the China Inland Mission and has worked throughout south-east Asia for the last half-century.  Their English home is in Leicestershire, in a village quite similar to Wonersh. 

Three years out of four they are in Japan, where their role for several years has been to run the mission home at OMF’s Japan Headquarters in Tokyo.  Here they provide hospitality and spiritual support to all sorts of people who stay for short times—missionaries from other parts of Japan, visitors from abroad, and lonely people from the nearby church, the Chapel of the Adoration, especially with a group of singles the “Clay Pots”.  Ruth and Gareth have four grown-up children and three grandchildren.

See also the Japan Christian Fellowship Network website and their Prayer Items. 

Northways—Crosslinks— Tanzania  and Kenya in 2007

As we were looking for new partners to take over from Liz, the Lord led Mary and Noj Northway to us.  They are also working with Crosslinks, and also in Tanzania.  An additional tie with Wonersh is that Mary is Malcolm and Brenda Williams daughter.  See the 2006 article Introducing Mary and Noj in the Parish Magazine . They are both doctors, after 10 years developing the mission hospital at Berega Hospital , they moved, still with Crosslinks, to St Andrew’s School at Turi in Kenya, a Christian boarding school.  Noj is the Bursar and Mary the school doctor.   Their children are Joe and Sam.

Listen to the talk given 23rd Nov 2008 (including a telephone conversation with Noj & Mary) by Tim Houghton of Crosslinks at our OMST service.

 Tearfund—worldwide

Tearfund is a Christian relief and development agency, staffed by Christians and working through Christian partners overseas.  Its' work is immensely worthwhile and we have supported it for many years.  Our work with Tearfund is co-ordinated for the Parish by OMST.

Listen to the Tearfund talks given Easter 2008 by Adrian Hawthorne and Keith Bateson and in Nov 2009 by Peter Grant and Steve Vinall. 

Tulpans—Romania

Their work is pasturing a small church in central Romania. Ema Tulpan has been known to Wonersh church since she spent time staying with Revd Patsy Kettle in 1992.  Since then she spent a year studying theology in the USA, completed her studies in Romania at the Baptist University, and met and married Viorel who was training to be a pastor.  They now have two small boys, Caleb and Levi, and pastor a small church at Sadu, a town in an ex-mining area of Romania.  Romania joined the EU in January 2007 but has about a quarter of the GDP of the rest of Europe.  Bringing the gospel to this ex-communist country is a tough challenge, and we are privileged to have a small role in supporting them.  The whole family visited us in July 2007 and we greatly appreciated their contribution to our services that day.  From 2008 they are now one of our Main Mission Partners.   There are plans to take a mission group, involving young people but including some adults too, to Sadu, with an exploratory group going in May 09 and the full group in 2010.

World Horizons 

 World Horizons is an International charity that focuses on a wide variety of projects amongst the poor and least reached peoples of the world.  Much of our work is in places where there are no churches, or very few Christians and so it is pioneering and creative.   Our aim is to see praying and worshipping communities of believers living throughout these areas, and sharing the message of redemption with those around them.  Increasingly, we help new movements of mission to emerge from within countries that need to be reached with the Gospel.

Since its beginnings in the crowded living room of a terraced house, World Horizons has grown into a multi-national, multi-ethnic movement of over 300 volunteers, with the majority now coming from Latin America.  Although World Horizons began in the UK, they now live and work in more than 30 different nations.

They offer many exciting mission trips, short term placements to serve an overseas team, and Gap Year options.   Contact  www.worldhorizons.co.uk for more details at and join them to bring God's love to a needy world! 

 

Other Partners

Festus Ufulle Ga-aro—Southern Sudan

Festus works for peace in the Southern Sudan and he now works for the Government.  He was a refugee when we originally met him.  We helped him through an MA in Development Studies at Oxford Brookes University.   Because of the difficulties in Southern Sudan he has been based in Nairobi, traveling often to the Sudan.  His wife Sellina gave birth to their first child in 2008; she  has been doing a community health course in Nairobi.  Festus has had to find sponsorship where he could, and has worked with the New Sudan Council of Churches, with the American Refugee and the Mercy Corps.  He is an elder in his local Anglican church.   Festus’s work base was at Juba in Southern Sudan, the town where he grew up and he has not seen it for 20 years.   His work is about creating the kind of civil institutions needed to bring democratic and peaceful government back to the war torn region.

Diocese of Western Tanganyika (Tanzania)

 We were privileged to host Assistant Bishop Sospeter Ndenza and his wife Beteria for a week before the Lambeth Conference.  They were previously in Tabora and well known to Liz Tilley.  This is a valued and continuing link with Tanzania.

Craig Taylor - Czech republic

Craig worshippes during his time as a student and helped with our youth work.  After graduating he spent two years with the Universities & Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) as a support worker for the Christian Unions in Newcastle, and since summer 2009 has been in Prague doing similar work with IFES.  His blog is www.craigtaylorblog.wordpress.com/

 OMST Services

 Four times a year the church has services focusing on one or other of our mission partners.  Generally this applies to both morning and evening services on that Sunday, especially if we are able to have a visit from a partner. 

 

Background Post Script:-

 Liz Tilley—Crosslinks —Tanzania

Liz worked in Tanzania for over 25 years, in teaching and training local clergy.  She moved from Kongwa Theological College to Tabora diocese to set up a new Bible College, built from scratch.  She moved then to Iringa diocese to teach at Amani Bible College.  So she has taught the Bible to hundreds of Tanzanian clergy, to help equip them for their ministries all over the country.   In the summer of 2005 Liz retired from overseas work, and we are thrilled that she is now living in Wonersh, and is part of our church’s ministry team.

 Thompsons—Navigators

In the past we have supported Pete and Debbie Thompson who worked in Trujillo in northern Peru for some thirteen years.  They work with the Navigators, whose style is to focus on building up individual Christians, particularly in Bible study and knowledge.  Peru is a different kind of mission field, as the culture is nominally Christian—Roman Catholic—already.  Pete and Debbie and their children Anna and Anthony have returned to the UK in July 2007. 

Phanuel Mung’ong’o

In Summer 2006 Revd Phanuel Mung’ong’o came to the end of his time of study at St John’s theological college, Nottingham.   He returned to Tanzania to work in the Provincial Office (the central office for the Anglican Church in Tanzania).   Phanuel returned to Nottingham to complete the final stage of his MA and was present to support Liz Tilley at her ordination in July 2007.   Phanuel is Director of the Amani Christian Institute, where Liz Tilley taught. 

 

Other Financial Supportin the Parish 

 
 Blackheath (DCC) Overseas Mission Support 

Blackheath DCC separately financially support several overseas organisations.
 

 Christian Fundraising & Gap Year Students

See also Christian Fundraising, Breaks and Gap Year Students

Each year a number of young people from the church do a “gap year” with short-term mission trips both abroad and in the UK.  There are also those of more mature years who undertake mission projects or take somewhat shorter breaks.    From time to time individuals support various Christian charities or Organizations either directly of by taking part in events requiring sponsorship.   The church supports them financially and with prayer. 

 KFC & Light Factory Support Tearfund

The Children of KFC & Light Factory make regular collections and since 1994 have supported two children through Tearfund, and currently a Kenyan child through Compassion.

 

Nigeria Link -
to be revised

David Merritt was our Diocesan Representative for Nigeria Link,  managed by Rev David Minns Vicar of Ewhurst.