St Marks Church Utley. Serving Christ, one another and the world

St Mark's Church supports the following missions and missionaries on a regular basis: Julie Forster - SU, Tear Fund, Andrew & Val Steele - ICMC, Matt Walmsley - Agapé, HCJB World Radio, Gilgit Resource Centre, Novi Most, Mission Aviation Fellowship, Gideons International, Open Doors and The Gilgit Coaching Centre.

A sending church

St. Mark’s has been a sending church for many years. Members from our congregation have gone to serve long/short term to many different parts of the world - Argentina, USA, Pakistan, Africa, China, Bosnia Singapore, Malaysia. Some are serving from here in Keighley to wider church. Others have left family and friends venturing into uncertain situations and places, leaving everything familiar behind them to serve The Lord. There is a great need for those who go to serve in far away places to have the support of their home church whilst preparing to go/whilst out there and on their return.

The Missions’ Committees role is to serve our link partners as best we can, giving them adequate support, encouragement and care so that they can function effectively. We keep the rest of the church informed and up to date with the latest prayer requests and news from our mission partners.

A monthly prayer meeting is held, every month to pray for our mission partners (1st Tuesday morning) and prayers are said during the services on a regular basis.

Many of our church members receive prayer letters from the individual mission partners and pray for them on a regular basis. Some people give financially or in other ways to enable others to go where God is leading them.

How can WE encourage our Mission Partners?

Sometimes because our Mission Partners are living far away and often in remote areas we feel out of touch with them. Actually there are lots of ways we can keep in contact. They are only a letter, telephone call or e-mail message away! It is a real encouragement if we take the time to show we care and drop them a line, even if it`s only a couple of sentences.

Here are some practical suggestions:

1. PRAY DAILY
   Use the prayer information on this site and in the Missions edition of Re:Mark’s. Why not keep it in your Bible to remind you to pray.
2. Write letters or emails on a regular basis.
   Send birthday cards/postcards when you are on holiday news clippings, magazines/comics. Send your photo so they know who you are.
3. Support them financially on a regular basis.
   God is doing amazing things throughout the world, what part will you play? Ask God what He wants of you.

Those who go and those who send are equally important, both are involved in the fulfilment of the Great Commission.

Julie Forster - Scripture Union

Light to live by

Julie Forster’s role is to equip churches to reach out to children, young people and families in the West and South Yorkshire region.

Julie does this through leadership, training, support and helping provide resources to churches and Christians in her patch. As well as being involved in evangelism herself, Julie is keen to see the local church equipped, encouraged and released for evangelism. Julie is looking at ways of promoting local churches working together to reach their communities with the good news of Jesus Christ and is involved in national projects such as the leadership of Spring Harvest`s children`s programme.

Julie works with churches to develop strategies for children, youth and family outreach, train children`s and youth leaders, lead children`s and youth activities and holiday clubs, lead school assemblies and lessons, help churches develop safe procedures in the light of child protection and child care legislation.

There is more information on SU’s ministry at www.scriptureunion.org.uk

Tearfund

Christian action with the world’s poor

Andy Morgan is our "face" for Tear Fund, an evangelical Christian Relief and Development Agency working in 80 countries worldwide to bring help and hope to the poor.

Based at Tear Fund’s head office in Teddington, he is Projects and Desk officer responsible for the work in Coastal West Africa including countries like Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria - very poor countries of the world, many having experienced long-term civil war. His role is to support the partners that they work with, ensuring they have the resources to do their work, and training to enable them to be more effective. Andy makes three or four trips per year to the region to visit partners and their projects. These trips mean leaving his family, wife Sarah and baby son, at home.

St Mark’s participates in Tear Fund Sunday every year. Take a look at www.tearfund.org for more information.

ICMC

Partners in communication

Andrew Steele works with the International Christian Media Commission to resource Christian media around the world though:

Media Education and Training - providing a framework to allow two-thirds world believers to obtain training without having to travel to Europe or North America. Andrew leads ICMC’s training project - The International Communication Training Institute. ICTI brings Christian media training and trainers together to improve effectiveness. ICTI also promotes training for Christians who are going to train others. Andrew’s travels have most recently taken him to East and Southern Africa, North America, and the Middle-East and North Africa. Andrew maintains a blog so we can follow his activities and ministry at blog.the-steeles.me.uk

Audience Research - providing resources and leadership to allow media missions and agencies to understand their audiences and shape their programmes and activities so that they can be more effective.

Advice and Consultancy to Christians working in media - assisting ICMC members and other missions on their use of the media and incorporating new media into effective strategies for outreach.

Developing Information Resources - working with others to develop information resources to support Christian media outreach.

Facilitating partnerships between Christian media agencies and missions for effective outreach

ICMC works as a catalyst contributing to the work of Christians in the arts and media by publishing information, facilitating partnerships, coordinating research, providing consultancy, developing innovative projects and organising strategic gatherings.

ICMC’s mission can be summed up in one sentence: Christians working together for effective witness in the arts and media

ICMC’s website is at www.icmc.org and the International Communication Training Institute is at www.icti.org.uk

Matt Walmsley - Agapé

Sharing God’s love...

I work for an organisation called Agapé, which is the UK branch of Campus Crusade International. Agapé's tagline is 'turning lost students into multiplying disciples'. Basically, we want to re-evangelise Britain by influencing the student population, those who will be future leaders of both Christian and secular society. In the long term, we want to have teams on every single UK campus. Agapé has a big emphasis on multiplication; rather than have our staff try to do the job themsleves, we try to involve Christian students and local churches in everything we do. I work in a team of 6 (soon to be 9) in the North East of England. In the day-to-day, my job involves meeting Christian students and pushing them towards evangelistic lifestyles, and taking them with me to do evangelism around campus. Up to now I have been based mostly at Newcastle University, but hope to spend more time at Teesside University next year.

Matt Walmsley

Read more at: www.agape.org.uk

HCJB Global

Heralding Christ Jesus’ Blessings by radio

The UK office of HCJB Global is committed to encouraging quality Christian broadcasting in the UK and around the world. HCJB-UK missionaries are involved in radio training courses in Russia, Kiev, North Africa, Europe and across the UK.

HCJB’s Audiopot web site allows UK Christian radio producers to share quality material amongst themselves. This exciting project has recently been revamped to serve a wider audience including RE teachers and church leaders.

The UK office also supports IT and engineering projects world-wide, promotes the work of HCJB in Britain and supports British missionaries serving abroad. Several St Mark's members work with HCJB including Andrew Steele (Trustee).

Novi Most International

Turning Bosnia into a Good News story

Novi Most International, a Christian charitable organisation, has long links with St Mark’s. Novi Most’s emphasis is on work with young people in Bosnia Herzegovina: helping them to overcome the effects of the trauma of war, equipping them to enter their futures with hope and confidence, and empowering them to become instruments of transformation in their communities.

Bosnia is a nation where only 2% have had the opportunity to consider the good news of Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ is often confused with ethnic identity and hope has been crushed through the atrocities of war.

Despite this good things are happening. Over the last ten years the Evangelical Church of Bosnia has been established across the nation, there are small Christian fellowships in the most unlikely places and Klub Novi Most is making an impact amongst young Bosnian people.

Novi Most`s ministry involves youth work/sports ministry, summer camp, Klub Novi Most, workshops, Bible training and promoting intercessory prayer. There are also opportunities to serve with Novi Most in Bosnia over the summer months through refugee outreach, social action weeks, workshops, sports festivals and prayer weeks. Why not apply.

Novi Most International’s website is at www.novimost.org

Mission Aviation Fellowship UK

Flying for Life

St Mark’s links with MAF are fairly recent and we are now linked with Michael and Nicki Duncalfe, a British couple, working in Papua New Guinea (PNG)

MAF operates 150 aircraft in 30 countries. They fly aircraft so people living in remote areas can receive the help and support they require. This includes flying sick or injured people to the nearest medical centre as well as assisting mission workers.

The Duncalfes arrived in PNG in January 1994, accompanied by our four sons then aged 6 - 13. Michael is currently the Senior Captain of the 19 seat, twin-engined DHC6 Twin Otters, responsible for training pilots and supervising the Twin Otter programme. We have lived in Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province since November 2002.

MAF has served the churches and rural communities in PNG for over 50 years. Initially a support to missions bringing the Christian gospel, health care and education into the country’s mainland, MAF is still the only link to the outside world for many people.

MAF flies people for the national churches and missions, health workers, teachers, students, people on their own business, and many others. Medical evacuations are a frequent occurrence. Many tonnes of freight are flown each year: crops are taken to market from the remote villages; food, medicines, educational materials and building supplies, just about anything you can think of, are flown in. MAF also provides the only postal service for much of the highlands.

Fact file:

In 2003 MAF-PNG aircraft:

1. Flew a total of 8,616 hours, a total of 22,098 separate flights
2. Covered a total distance of 2.14 million kilometres
3. Operated into 340 different airstrips
4. Carried 63,000 passengers and 4.42 million kilogrammes (that’s 4,420 tonnes) of freight of whom 7,615 passengers were church or mission staff receiving subsidised fares and over 254 tonnes was church or mission freight carried at a subsidised rate.
5. Medical evacuations of 450 adults and 30 children were made from remote communities to a medical centre. Of these 190 were accompanying guardians, the rest patients.
6. 3,330 education, health and community development workers and 25.4 tonnes of medical supplies were carried.
7. 590 tonnes of village produce (coffee, vegetables etc) were transported to markets.

For PNG:

1. 75% of the country’s 5.25 million people live in remote areas
2. 22% of the population have an income of less than one US dollar per day.
3. Maternal mortality during childbirth is 3.7 per 1,000 women.
4. Infant mortality (below 1 year) is 14%.
5. 112 per 1,000 (11.2%) children under 5 will die, and this number is increasing. The rate in the
6. US is 7 per 1,000 (0.7%).

Literacy, human development, AIDS etc are all equally issues of concern.

More information on the Duncalfes at www.duncalfes.com and for MAF at www.maf-uk.org

Open Doors

Open Doors is an international ministry serving persecuted Christians and the suffering church worldwide. Open Doors is involved in supplying Bibles, leadership training, Scripture-based literacy programmes and livelihood projects. It also seeks to mobilise the church to serve Christians living under religious persecution.

Lucinda Smith is the church representative for Open Doors, and would be more than happy to answer questions, and give information regarding Open Doors to anyone who may be interested. It is on my heart to try and get us all to be thinking of our brothers and sisters who suffer for their faith in Jesus – we are all one body and when one suffers, we all suffer.

St Mark’s financially supports Open Doors’ Women’s ministry – martyred widows, victimised Christian women, those in polygamous marriages and poorly educated girls seeking to teach and be effective for God.

Every year one Sunday is designated as Suffering Church Sunday. Our services that day will cause us to reflect on and pray for the persecuted. I believe it is important to OUR faith to encounter the Suffering Church . It is not a one way street with Western Christians ‘helping them’. In our wealth, security and freedom, we would do well to learn from those in poverty, isolation and grief – their trust in the faithfulness of God in often horrendous situations is indeed humbling!

The Gilgit Coaching Centre

Situated in the town of Gilgit, in Northern Pakistan, this centre continues to be a beacon of success and positive Christian witness. It is run and coordinated by Mike and Robin from the US who serve God through YWAM. The coaching centre seeks to teach basic skills and literacy classes to children and English to young adults from the majority Islamic community as well as from the small Punjabi Christian community. God’s love and grace are clearly witnessed to through materials used and in the lives and commitment of all those involved in the Centre.

Alongside the coaching Centre two businesses exporting locally produced apricots have now been established and set up providing economic uplift, work for impoverished believers and opportunities to share the gospel in some of the more isolated valleys and villages of the Northern Areas.

St Mark’s church financially supports this centre in Gilgit with over £1000 a year for which they are extremely grateful. Stephen Smith visited the centre on his recent visit to Gilgit and was able to take photographs and get up-to-date news from Mike and Robin. He will be going again next year, God willing!