An apology

I'm sorry, I've been busy and have been neglecting this page in particular. Right now I'm working on a major rework of the website that will allow more people to contribute to it, in the hope that we can post more material and keep it up to date more effectively than in the past. In the meantime, here is a summary of some of our recent news.

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Nathan's year at UCB

Nathan has just completed a year's management programme at UCB (United Christian Broadcasters), an organisation that broadcasts high quality Christian radio and television programmes, distributes Bible reading notes & offers prayer support via its Prayerline service.

During that year, although based at Stoke-on-Trent, he has travelled to Portugal, Swaziland and South Africa, contributing to a wide range of UCB's ministries.

Louis and Maribel - July 2009

The Ladies' meeting is probably the strongest point of the work at the moment, with the possible exception of the children’s work. Maribel runs this with help from another lady called Silvia. Louis also gets involved and one Thursday taught the ladies how to make pizza in what was a very successful afternoon! It is hoped that with the sewing machines now permanently installed in the church that this aspect of the ladies' work will grow.

Construction work of additional rooms continues at the church in Alpacoma. They are now habitable but not yet completely finished. The next stage is to finish the toilets and they would like to build showers for the children.

They too run a Vacation Bible School, which this year started on 29th June and at the time of the latest news letter was going very well!

David and Sari Gardner - June 2009

David and Sari are continuing to work with the Roma people in Romania on a translation of the Bible into a format best suited to them. With low literacy among this minority group, it may well be that audio-visual formats (CD or DVD) would be the best choice. The itinerant Roma people are hard to befriend, so learning their language is a struggle for David, and the "local" translator helping them lives 9 hours' travel to the south! They also have to be careful to avoid Romanian "loan" words in favour of native Roma words that carry far more meaning.