UK: meeting with God in nature

Pray for seven people taking part in a hiking retreat in Scotland over the next few days hosted by Miranda and Tim Heathcote. As well as retreats such as this one, partners Miranda and Tim support mission workers with leadership development, spiritual direction and debriefing, at their retreat house in Spain and online. Pray for good weather and for the retreat to be a time of precious encounter with God for each person.

The post UK: meeting with God in nature appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

Middle East: training for young Christian leaders

Give thanks for a training programme for Christian leaders from Muslim backgrounds which has been taking place this week and is drawing to a close this weekend. Pray for the leaders participating in the training to draw encouragement from their time with other leaders in the region and discover new ideas and fresh strength for their ministry. Pray for safety as they all travel home at the end of the weekend.  

The post Middle East: training for young Christian leaders appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

Spain: new roof for spiritual retreat

Miranda and Tim Heathcote celebrate the success of a fundraising event that took place at the end of April, raising funds that will go directly towards building a roof over the outdoor meeting and reflection space at their spiritual retreat in Spain. The lack of a roof severely limits the use of this space. Please pray for the remaining funds to be raised in order to complete this project.

The post Spain: new roof for spiritual retreat appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

Egypt: Sudanese communities

Please pray for our partner network TN as they seek to support and equip local churches to serve more than 3,000 Sudanese refugees across Egypt. Pray that the Sudanese communities experience God’s favour and provision in every area of their lives. The needs are great and the number of refugees has increased so prayer is requested for more labourers with a heart to serve the Sudanese people.

The post Egypt: Sudanese communities appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

North Africa: creating space to explore faith

H and M support followers of Jesus in minority contexts through discipleship and sharing God’s love through their everyday lives. H is also doing some coaching alongside this and has recently been able to organise some ladies’ events, which have been great fun. As she is hoping to put on a few more events for women over the coming weeks, pray for these to be special times of fellowship and safe spaces for exploration of faith. 

The post North Africa: creating space to explore faith appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

Spain/North Africa: quiz night fundraiser

Give thanks for a quiz night taking place this Friday evening in the Cotswolds to raise money for mission partners Miranda and Tim Heathcote’s ministry of providing essential debriefing, spiritual direction and more for mission workers. P

ray for all guests to feel welcome and at ease, especially those who may be less comfortable in Christian settings, and for people to be encouraged by the impact of Miranda and Tim’s ministry.

Pray for Miranda as she travels to their ministry house in Spain this weekend to host two consecutive weeks of debriefing, hosting and catering. Pray for energy for Miranda and for each person being debriefed to encounter God’s love for them in the way most needed.

The post Spain/North Africa: quiz night fundraiser appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

North Africa: drawing close to God this Lent

Please stand in prayer with mission associates leading a church in North Africa as they host a Lent course looking at forgiveness. The course includes a range of activities designed to deepen course participants’ understanding of the Scriptures. Please pray for each member of the group to be able to draw close to God through this course and to experience and celebrate his forgiveness this Lent.

The post North Africa: drawing close to God this Lent appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

Spain/North Africa: ministry house rewiring

Following an unusually wet winter in Spain, it has become clear that the wiring in Miranda and Tim’s ministry house in Spain needs a complete overhaul. Pray for obstacles to be removed so that this work can be completed quickly and easily so that mission workers across the Middle East and North Africa can continue to receive essential support through leadership development, debriefing, spiritual direction and retreats.

The post Spain/North Africa: ministry house rewiring appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

North Africa: God’s Word for those who need it

A mission partner couple in North Africa disciple local Christians, teach healthcare and first aid and share God’s love in everyday contexts. They share that they recently reconnected with a Scripture project they worked on 10 years ago following a request to reprint a PDF children’s Bible. Praise God that he is making connections to get his Word into the hands of those who need it. Pray that the culturally appropriate artwork produced for this Bible will be used for neighbouring language groups and benefit them, too.

The post North Africa: God’s Word for those who need it appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

What if God called you to a place where in 20 or 30 years you might see two or three people come to faith? If you knew this, would you still go? Mission partner M reflects on how to keep going in tough contexts.

My family and I live in North Africa, in an area where it is really hard to follow Jesus. Local people can’t be open about their faith.

Our aim is to be a blessing to the people around us here, particularly more remote communities in mountainous areas. We’ve been here for 10 years, living alongside local communities and sharing day-to-day life with them – experiencing the ups and the downs along the way.

My wife is training as a counsellor, to be better equipped to sit with women in these communities and help them to walk through the most difficult times. The local culture has quite a fatalistic approach, so people tend to take the view that if suffering comes you just have to live with it. However, for a lot of people who have been through really difficult loss and grief, or who have experienced traumatic things, they need help as they can’t just sit with that suffering.

If not us, then who?

Some aspects of our calling can be very challenging. We are quite isolated, and can’t share Jesus openly. Walking with our friends and neighbours through difficult times can mean carrying heavy burdens with them. Yet if we do not walk through this and show the light of Jesus, who will?

Following a call to mission in this context means learning to let go of a Western approach that is very results and productivity driven. That approach is to look for success in big growth and clear numbers. We simply don’t see that where we are.

Just stay faithful

Before living in our current area, I lived in West Africa, again in a place where mission was slow and hard. I had the immense privilege of spending time with an older missionary towards the end of his life. He had been thrown out of the country where he had served and longed to see people meet Jesus. He had stayed faithful to the call of God throughout his life. I have never forgotten his advice to me as I was beginning my mission journey in such contexts: “You just need to stay faithful to what God has asked you to do – don’t worry about the fruit, that’s up to him.”

In our work, we of course have times of wondering, “What are we doing with our lives?” In these times it can be tempting to think of giving up. However, then we come back to another question – who will stay if we go? Who will walk alongside our friends and neighbours? We don’t want to say that it all depends on us, but if the few of us who are following Jesus here leave because it’s too hard, who will remain?

Find refreshment

We have been learning how to manage too – finding Christian community with other foreigners here is really helpful. We have also learned that we need to take small breaks, to build in rest and refreshment, alongside debriefing with those supporting us. Knowing we have a network of faithful people prayerfully supporting us from afar is an encouragement. Over years working in this context, I have learned that one of my personal giftings is to keep going when things get tough – to put my head down and keep stepping forward. And I can do that literally too, hiking in the mountains close to where we live.

Walking with others

One of the ways God has been using me is also to walk alongside others, helping them to think through and discern God’s call. We are able to welcome young pioneers, people who are sensing God’s call to go and serve the Lord in tough places. We want to be able to come alongside them, to train and help them to fulfil God’s call on their lives. In that way we can seek to multiply the number of people being the light of Jesus in difficult places.

I’m able to walk with these groups in the mountains and be intentional about exploring the reality of this life. As we walk, I can listen, and I can talk, share stories and challenge people. A key question we often raise is, “What would you do if God called you, and you spent 20 or 30 years in a place to see two or three people come to the Lord in that time? If you knew that was what might happen, would you still do it?” Out of a team of eight to 10 people, maybe God will call one person to a place like this for the long term.

At the end of the day, as we consider the challenges for ourselves and with those who come to learn about our life, the question we come back to is: “What else do we live our lives for?” Jesus has called us to this work and we follow him. He never promised it would be easy, but we stay faithful, knowing the truth of his words in John 16:33: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Take part

Is God calling you to the edges in mission? Find out about opportunities to serve at the edges:

Mission opportunities

Related posts

Get our email updates:

SIGN UP

The post An uphill climb appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

More stories of Jesus equipping and encouraging

The post Miranda and Tim Heathcote, Spain / North Africa appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).

For followers of Jesus from a Muslim background, isolation is a huge challenge, especially if their faith is secret. Basma longed for Christian community for many years, but recently met some CMS mission partners…

When she was a child, Basma (name changed) in North Africa was drawn to Jesus, even though she was born into a Muslim family. She had met Christians in her town and wanted to be like the Christian girls – though she wasn’t really sure why.

She learned the Lord’s Prayer and would say it sometimes. Like many other believers in Jesus from a Muslim background (MBBs), she had dreams about Jesus. And as she grew from childhood to adulthood, she gave her life to Christ.

Basma’s new faith was a secret, not shared even with those closest to her. She married a Muslim man, the marriage arranged by her family. Basma and her husband had two sons. Yet this marriage fell apart and the couple separated.

Craving community

The separation released Basma to explore and live out her faith in Jesus at home, though not in public. And that meant that while she could read the Bible and pray alone, she couldn’t meet with other Christians.

Basma has a good job to support herself and her sons, who now live with her, and the boys still see their father weekly. Basma is comfortable with continuing to wear a hijab and her family don’t know that she follows Jesus. She seeks to bring her sons up in the Christian faith, though she must be careful – their father could remove the children from her and bring them up himself.

Over the last 10 to 15 years, since first coming to faith in Jesus, the main place Basma has been able to grow in her faith has been through discipleship online. Yet Basma longs for community with other Christians and for the opportunity to discuss the Bible, and to connect with other MBBs like her to pray together.

CMS mission partners who know Basma comment, “She’s desperate… to talk about her faith and to be who she feels she is, rather than to hide.” But within that is a great tension – Basma needs to protect her children and is keen to keep relationships with her family.

Facing real risks

Secret believers like Basma risk losing their jobs, family life and connections with community, and in some places there are legal risks too. This makes MBBs whose faith is not publicly known reluctant to meet together.

The experiences of another MBB in Basma’s town, whose faith is not a secret, clearly illustrate those risks. This woman comes from another North African country, which she fled after she was beaten up and arrested for her faith, and her family disowned her. She had to begin life afresh with no connections in a new land, and still painfully misses the place and people she left behind.

Precious connection

Basma does know some Christians through her workplace, and they helped her to connect with someone who travels around her region meeting with MBBs and discipling them. Yet there was a challenge in finding a safe place for Basma to meet with this man, where she could go without suspicion and meet him with another woman present.

This is where the CMS mission partner couple stepped in – they offered their home as a safe place to meet. This couple speak Arabic fluently, and are able to welcome Basma and discuss the Bible and other issues with her, as well as hosting her discipleship meetings.

Basma and the man who disciples her arrive separately, and much of their time together is taken up with Basma’s questions about what she has read in the Bible. Recently she read through 1 Samuel, and had many questions about why God had done things and why people reacted in particular ways.

Inspiring hunger

One of the CMS mission partners observes, “Basma’s hunger for the Bible is inspiring. She absolutely devours Scripture and wants to discuss everything. She wants to understand everything in a way that lots of Christians don’t. That challenges me – when I’m following daily prayer and reading long chunks of the Old Testament, sometimes I just fly through it, I don’t think about it, but she is questioning everything she’s reading. She still really wants to learn and press in.”

Such is Basma’s desire to meet with other Christians to discuss the Bible that she will now come to see the mission partner couple even if the man leading discipleship cannot come too.

As their relationship with Basma has deepened, from time to time they have been able to take bread and wine together, at Basma’s request – hugely valuable to Basma, as she is unable to attend church.

While Basma’s friends and family don’t know about her faith, her mum does sense there is something about Basma and asks questions, such as “Where do you get your wisdom from?” Basma and her mission partner friends continue to pray for her mum, that doors will open up for Basma to speak about her faith.

Pray together

As we pray together, we can stand with Christians like Basma. Please pray for Basma to be encouraged in her faith, and that CMS partners will be able to show more people like her that Jesus never gives up on them.

Related posts

Get our email newsletter:

SIGN UP

The post A secret disciple appeared first on Church Mission Society (CMS).