General Notices:

• A cleaning rota and a laying out rota has been placed on the board for people to sign up to, as there have been no volunteers to take over the role on a permanent basis. Please sign up on a part-time basis if possible.
• Lynn MacDonald is not very well and is in the Heath Hospital at the moment (on Ward B5). Please pray for her.

Special Activities:

• Exodus on Sun 13th May (not the 6th due to the bank holiday monday)
• There will be a Ladies meal at the Barn, Monday 14th May at 7:30pm. Please invite friends and add your name to the notice board if you’re coming. Please speak to sue for more information.

Readings:

• Sunday Alive 11.00am: In the morning DJ Morse will be speaking on ‘Everyone who wants to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’ Acts 21:17-36
• Evening Service 6.00pm: In the evening DJ Morse will be speaking on ‘He is not here, He is risen’ Matt 28:1-15

Next Week’s Readings:

• Sunday Alive 11.00am: In the morning Paul Young will be speaking on ‘Boldness and Wisdom’ Acts 21:37-22:29
• Evening Service 6.00pm: In the evening Graham will be speaking on ‘The Great Commission’ Matt 28:16-20

General Notices:

• Arthur Swansbury passed away last week. His funeral will be a Carmel Baptist Church in Llanharan on Wednesday at 12:15pm
• A cleaning rota and a laying out rota has been placed on the board for people to sign up to, as there have been no volunteers to take over the role on a permanent basis. Please sign up on a part-time basis if possible.
• Apologies for the absence of notices, church around the world and sermons in the last month, but I have been away on holidays. I hope to have the sermons up shortly.

Special Activities:

• There will be the usual monthly prayer meeting on Saturday starting 8:30am until 9:30am. Please join us if you can.

Readings:

• Sunday Alive 11.00am: In the morning Phil will be speaking on ‘Towards Jerusalem’ Acts 21:1-16
• Evening Service 6.00pm: In the evening James Probert will be speaking on ‘Claimed, buried and guarded’ Matt 27:57-66

Next Week’s Readings:

• Sunday Alive 11.00am: In the morning DJ Morse will be speaking on ‘Everyone who wants to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’ Acts 21:17-36
• Evening Service 6.00pm: In the evening DJ Morse will be speaking on ‘He is not here, He is risen’ Matt 28:1-15

The conference was really great.  The Bible teaching was by Chris Wigram, ECM International Director and Sheryl Haw from Micah Network.  Jim was involved in delivering a seminar on Tools for understanding Culture, Context and Community.  He had nearly 100 people over the two days and the seminar was very well received.  The theme of the week was “Transforming the peoples of Europe” and the whole conference was a call to engagement in transformational mission in Europe, but there was also a sense that God was wanting to see change and transformation of our mission practice as ECM.  It has left us with lots to think about so pray with us as we reflect on what that means for us as a mission.

Grace’s attendance was a last-minute thing as an opportunity arose to help out with the children’s programme.  Grace had a very busy week with long sessions in both morning and evening but she secretly enjoyed it and even got the job of presenting what the children had been doing in one of the main plenary meetings.

The biennial ended rather dramatically, however, as one of the participants collapsed and hit his head when checking in at Valencia airport.  Jim went with him to hospital where he was admitted for concussion whilst Grace returned with the rest of the ECM group.  Jim returned on Sunday after seeing him through the night at the hospital and helping to organize a rota of local ECM missionaries to take care of him.  He has now been discharged and is convalescing before flying back to the UK this weekend we hope.  Pray for his full recovery.

Christine had a really busy week at Redcliffe with the start of the building work provoking some problems.  She was also leading the service on Sunday and holding the fort as usual.  Alex and Rosie have both had disappointments over the last few days in respect of their choices for future study.  Alex has a provisional offer from Gloucester High School for sixth form but he will not be able to study Economics since this clashes with Spanish.  He will have to do Business Studies instead.  Rosie has been even more unfortunate as there were not sufficient demand for her to do GCSE Food Technology (her first choice) nor either of her two reserves (Sociology or Full Course Religious Studies).  We have a meeting with the school this Friday to talk about these problems and ask your prayers for this.  Anyone who is a friend of Rosie’s on Facebook will know how passionate she is about baking so this is a big disappointment for her.  A photo of one of Rosie’s amazing cupcakes is attached to aid as a stimulus for prayer.

With our love as always,

Jim and Christine

On his return Jim turned his attention to editing the next edition of Vista.  This latest edition looks at the challenge and opportunities of doing mission in a context of crisis, something which is certainly the case in Europe today.  If you are interested you can download a copy here.

In the meantime, Christine has been perhaps even busier at Redcliffe with the departure and arrival of new volunteers and the preparations for the three-week Masters Summer School which begins in May.  One of these new volunteers has been a girl called Ana who Jim met during his visit to Aguilar in February.  We needed a last-minute extra volunteer for six weeks up to Easter and God led us to Ana.  We say that because it has clearly been an amazing experience for her both personally and spiritually.  Like many nominal Catholic young people in Spain she had little time for God and even less for the church.  She returned to Aguilar last Sunday but did so with a new experience of God and having made very close friends from among the other volunteers.  Please continue to pray for Ana (fourth from the left in the attached photograph) into the months ahead.

On the 14th of April Jim will travel out to Spain again to take part in ECM’s biennial conference.  For the first time in their lives Alex and Rosie will not be able to be there due to school and exam commitments.  They are very sad to be missing what has been an important part of their lives but at the last minute Grace will be going to help out with the children’s programme.  Pray for Grace as she serves God in this way, and for Jim as he leads one track of the seminar programme.  Pray for the whole biennial to be a real blessing to the mission and for safe travel for all, and no more volcanoes (our trip home last time was affected by the ash cloud and was quite an adventure).  And pray too for Christine as she takes care of (and tries to cheer up) Alex and Rosie at home.

With our every blessing this Easter.  Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!

Jim and Christine

Pray for the Hallet family in Chile. Andy and Debbie and Dan are meeting up with Michael who is there for a while and enjoying the country. Pray for a good holiday together and for their safe return home.