NETWORK NEWS

Comfort Rwanda Newsletter

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Widows from the Solace survivors group at Bugesera
Widows from the Solace survivors group at Bugesera prepare pineapple suckers from their fields for extending the plantation.  They said: When we came to Solace they helped us to grow pineapples.  Now everyone has their own patch and we save money in our account.  When we face problems we can go and buy what we need.  We were in a very bad mood after we lost our children but God brought the brethren and they are in the place of our husbands and children.  Now we no longer suffer much poverty like we suffered so we have hope that things will be good since God has given us a good family.


COMFORT RWANDA’S 10th ANNIVERSARY THANKSGIVING & CELEBRATION 

Comfort Rwanda began its support of survivors in 1999 but the charity was registered in April 2000.  This year will be our official 10th anniversary.  We would like to say a huge thank-you to you our supporters and to The Lord for His faithfulness and goodness at an evening of thanksgiving, worship, inspiration (we hope!) followed by a ceilidh and buffet. Everyone is welcome so please do come and enjoy a wonderful time of fellowship.  

Saturday 8th May
6.30-8.00pm Thanksgiving & Celebration
8.00-10.30pm Ceilidh and Buffet
Chryston Church, Main St, Chryston, G69 9LA 

 

PARTNERSHIP
A letter of thanks from the Living Church

“Our beloved partners Comfort Rwanda, we once again wish you a happy and prosperous New Year, may God multiply your blessings in 2010.  We thank you for your support since the time we have been working together to minister the Kingdom of God to the people of Rwanda.  When we look at the Friends of Jesus (Street Kids Rescue) now we see what a great work we have done in the Kingdom of God with your hand.  The F.O.J. bakery is now serving the community and the boys in the Friends of Jesus are enjoying being part of the team that is making bread.  When we look at the progress in the lives of the pastors we have been training at Eglise Vivante with your support we thank God for our wonderful connection and partnership.  What do we say about the land bought because of your generosity, now we are going to build the technical college soon it is all a product of our friendship and we always thank God and pray for you because you have done and are still doing a great work in the Kingdom of God.

The mothers in Eglise Vivante who were given money to run small scale businesses are very grateful to your ministry, some are doing well and others who didn’t do well previously are now blessed with training and soon will receive their second phase support.  They say they are better now than when they were given the first phase. Kamonyi people are witnesses to your wonderful help in practical reconciliation because now people live in roofed houses because of help and giving hand, the ladies and orphans in Kamonyi now have a hope for a better future because of the sewing machines you gave them, they learn with passion and enthusiasm.

The other children from Eglise Vivante and the Eastern province who are supported in their education also thank God for you, their parents narrate how your support has helped them take their children to school, had it not been because of your helping heart then they don’t know how they would have been today.

So dear beloved partners join us and let’s thank God together for our partnership and role extending the Kingdom of God.”

Christian Training College of Rwanda (CTCR)

The Foundation Certificate of Christian Studies goes before the International Christian College (Glasgow) on March 24th.  Do pray for God’s blessing and wisdom on this.

NEWS CLIPS 

You can hear/ buy/ download music from the Solace choir at www.rafikirecords.com

We hope to have a time of prayer on April 7th during the genocide commemoration period.  We are not sure how many people are likely to come to that so choosing a venue is difficult.  So please let us know if you are likely to be there and we will choose an appropriate venue to suit the numbers.

Our graphics and web designer, Gary, has updated and refreshed the logo. We  are still experimenting with various design offshoots. We hope you like it!

The July visit is now booked. Interest in September or October visits should be given now and deposits will be needed March and April 30th respectively.
 
Want to pray for the work in Rwanda?  Get in touch with Anne Reid (01382 776601, ) to get regular prayer news. 

If you want to have a stall for the Rwandan crafts please let us know.

NEW HORIZONS 

For some time we have felt that the work in Rwanda and the good things God is doing there must reach out to hurting people in neighbouring countries.  A visit in October confirmed the huge need of tens of thousands of people in Kivu, north-east DRCongo. Years of conflict and displacement, recent volcanic eruptions and rampant corruption have robbed people of hope, resources and often their families as well.  Hundreds of thousands of people are living in refugee camps, many in torn tarpaulins stretched over bent branches.  Comfort Rwanda has a small sewing project in the camps and we believe a £10,000 project to help refugees return home by providing land, tools and crops will be approved shortly.  We visited pygmy churches where, despite having been driven out of the forests and having lost everything, they worshipped with fervour.  A gift of a few sacks of beans was received like treasure.  Please pray for the work in DRCongo that God’s compassion would reach these traumatised and disempowered people.

 
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Dwellings made of rags, tarpaulins and branches and built on volcanic rocks cluster round a church in the refugee camps
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The pygmy church at Mugunga refugee camp. It is beautiful to see the effect of God’s love being ministered to such marginalised people

Urban Expression Possilpark

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Grand Prix Circuit
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Group Photo - Church from Scratch Visit

A New Look to Our Local Nursery

 

At the end of October, despite the rain, The Urban Expression Possilpark team had a great three days helping local mums repaint the courtyard and front entrance to Westercommon Nursery.  Emma MacIntosh (a member of the Possilpark Urban Expression Team) helped her friends from the nursery design all the images that were eventually painted for the "weans", and a volunteer from local project Depot Arts called Tricia Durham helped us with the outlines. Then 7 friends from Church from Scratch in Essex (including Peter Dominey and his son Matthew, Clare, Barrie, Julie, Kezia and Tom) helped (alongside our UE team) to support the mums as they transformed the playground.  It was a great experience, with a great buzz and the chance to get to know people better from our community.

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Vintage Ministries Newsletter January 2010

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RUSSIA 

The visit in September to Russia was a great blessing to me as Bill Nisbet the leader of North Berwick Christian Fellowship traveled with me, sharing in the teaching, and contributing vastly by his humour and language skills!  After this visit I asked him to write his impressions of the church in Russia as he had seen it. His interesting observations are on a separate report.  Bill & I went first to Novomoskovsk, some 250 km south of Moscow, to the Last Times Church lead by Roman & Lena Uglev.www.vintage.org.uk 

NEWSLETTER - January 2010 

The four months of September to December turned out to be a very busy time with a visit to Russia and four visits to Poland. It has been a privilege to bring biblical truth through teaching seminars in several local churches as well as meeting with their Pastor and Leadership Teams.  An openness to the truth of Scripture and a hunger for Father God’s activity and presence always creates a meeting where lives are changed. 

I have known Roman since 2002 when he interpreted at the very first Conference in Moscow and then for subsequent conferences before he then asked for a visit to his own church which we have now done on three previous occasions.  The meetings both in Roman’s church - a joint churches leaders meeting - and a visit to Kimovsk just outside Novomokovsk – were all excellent because of the open hearts of thepeople and their testimony to the Father’s blessing they had received on on previous visits.  This was a very critical time for this church and ministry as Vadim was unwell and awaiting time in hospital for investigation and treatment. This happened a few weeks after we left when Vadim experienced His Heavenly Father’s intervention as he was told that although his liver had been affected by Hepatitis ‘C’ he was cured and there was no sign of this condition.  However he does have a heart condition which may need surgery. This wonderful healing is spurring everyone to believe for the Father’s intervention once again. 

In Moscow we were as usual with Vadim & Yuliya and their people in Youth Christian Centre Ministry and Moscow Family Church and as usual our time was very much with individual people or couples as well as an important time with the leadership team.  There are around 30 people in this ministry who together are responsible for a Christian School and Nursery; a small Bible School; outreach through their band ‘Praise Him Loudly’; and book and music publications.  Not all are ‘fulltime’ with many holding down regular jobs.  It is their intention to treat 2010 as a ‘Sabbath’ - a time of peace and rest - and focus on going deeper into the Father’s heart. 

Whilst in Moscow we shared at two meetings in Gleb & Tanya’s church in Klimovsk and on the Sunday morning visited a church in the north west of the city with which Vadim is building a relationship.  We were well received and invited to come again! 

POLAND 

In September I was again in Antioch Church in Wroclaw, lead by Edward & Dorota Pawlowski.  I first visited this church back in 1984 and have been going regularly every since.  On this occasion to teach a seminar on ‘Developing a Godly Character’.  In November I then had my second visit this year to ‘The Fellowship of the North’ in Warsaw, this time teaching a seminar on ‘A Portrait of God (‘What is God really like’).   I am always received well in this large & growing church and on the Sunday morning it was once again a delight to see people being baptised in water in both morning services.  In the evening of that same Sunday I was in New Life Church in another part of Warsaw - the 25 people who attended were a huge contrast to the 500 people I had ministered to in the morning - but what a meeting - so lively with a tangible presence of God among us.  That Sunday demonstrated God’s diversity both in the way He manifests Himself and expresses Himself through His Body, the church.  A couple of weeks later I was ministering at the Christian Fellowship in Plock some 100 km to the west of Warsaw.  The leaders and people of this church have recently opened themselves to embracing the activity of the Spirit and to a wider fellowshipping with the Body of Christ so it was easy to speak into very receptive hearts.  The subject for this weekend was ‘Being a Prophetic People’ and started with a leaders meeting on the Friday followed by an all day seminar on the Saturday.  It was good to have two other pastors and their people participating and also closing their own meetings on Sunday so as to come together as one congregation. 

The year ended with me being back in Wroclaw so as to have time with Betel Church which is lead by Greg & Kasia Milczanowski and with which I have been associated with since its beginning in 2002.  Friday evening I had time with their leadership team and then on Saturday and Sunday the church came together for some teaching.  That Sunday evening I ministered at the Kanaan Fellowship.  

PUBLICATIONS 

Jack Frost’s two books continue to impact people’s lives! In Russia one of the pastors shared withme how significant Jack Frost’s book ‘Experiencing the Father’s Embrace’ had been as a tool forcommunicating the message of the Father’s heart.  I had copies of the newly published ‘FromSpiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship’ with me and he purchased extra copies to give to people heknew would not be in the service that morning! 

At a church in a northern suburb of Moscow, a man approached me reminding me that several yearsago I had prayed with him but also left him a copy of ‘Experiencing the Father’s Embrace’ whichhad changed his life. These testimonies are typical of the feedback from those who have read these books and nowThere is a great need to once again re-print Jack’s first book and plans are underway to do this inthe Spring. 

January to June 2010 

April 7 - 11 Conducting a Fatherheart Conference in St Petersburg, Russia
June 3 - 6 Retreat at Zakosciele, Poland, with members of ‘Polnoc’ church in Warsaw 

Awaiting confirmation of dates for visits to several other churches. 

Please keep up to date by visiting: www.vintage.org.uk

Rock Community Church, Dumbarton

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The Rock Community Church held baptisms in Loch Lomond at Luss on 28th June 2009.  Those being baptised came through their last Alpha Course and have real stories to tell of God's grace.
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