Finnie, Dean and Paula - South Africa
Prayer Letter June 2006
“Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” Philippians 1:27
Chris Nissen Park
CNP remains at the very heart of what we do here in South Africa. In the midst of some uncertainty recently some very trusted friends reminded us to remain faithful to our initial calling. For us here in SA that is to serve the community of Chris Nissen, to love them and stand with them through the good times and the bad.
Recently we’ve had some major issues to deal with in CNP, primarily amongst our church members. The community is deeply divided with jealousy and gossip keeping people down. We are constantly talking about these issues and trying to help our members and other Christians in the community to be ‘salt’ in CNP, but we seem to go round and round in circles. Dean is continually stressing the importance of each Christian’s witness in the community and often quotes one of his favourite scriptures with a view to assisting them. As the verse on this prayer letter states, we are to ‘conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel, WHATEVER happens’. The folk in
CNP are probably sick of hearing Dean bang this drum, but until they finally grasp the concept that how they live and behave impacts non-believers, Dean will continue to bang this drum very loudly!
Our men’s Bible study and Paula’s cell group are going from strength to strength and we are finding that through discipleship we have really begun to start building in people’s lives. Good strong friendships are also emerging from these groups. The monthly feeding programme is also going very well and we are able to provide a month’s worth of food to 6 of the most vulnerable families in CNP each month – praise God!
Family Life
And then we were four… We are so thrilled to be able to announce that Eli Thomas Finnie is now officially our son! In the covering letter attached to the final court order it states that: “According to the provisions of the Child Care Act 1983, your adopted child is now considered as if born to you.” WOW!
We are now in the process of changing his name and getting a full birth certificate and ID number in his real name of Eli Thomas Finnie. Thankfully the court has ordered that his name be changed, so the process is quite simple although somehow it is very lengthy!
Joel adores his younger brother and the adoration appears to be mutual. As soon as Eli clocks Joel in the room he follows him with his eyes and rolls over to get a better look. Joel can be a bit exuberant with Eli and has attempted to ride him piggy back as he’s been on his tummy and to smother him with his sick cloth! Amazingly Eli is very tolerant, for now at least!
Mission Education
We return to the UK on the 9th of June for five weeks of Mission Education (home assignment or furlough are the old fashioned terms for this) during which time we will be speaking in 6 different churches, as follows:
Sunday 11th June St. George’s weald (Eli’s thanksgiving)
Sunday 18th June Queens Road Church, Wimbledon
Sunday 25th June St. Mary’s, Cheadle
Sunday 2nd July Holy Trinity, Gee Cross
Sunday 9th July St. Peter’s, Ightham
Sunday 16th July Back home in Helderberg Christian Church.
Also, on Friday 7th July at 7pm we will be at St. George’s Weald for a cheese & wine evening when we will give an extended presentation of our work. If you’d like to attend this event, please email us (dfinnie@crosslinks.org) so we can ensure you are catered for.
Some other dates of note: between the 26th and 30th June we will be in the Lake District and deliberately incommunicado. Then we will be in Sheffield on the 3rd (and maybe 4th) July and would love to see you if you’re there – you know who you are!
If you are near one of these churches we’d love to see you. If we’re not visiting your church this time, fear not! We will be prioritising you for our next mission education. We plan to return to the UK every 18 months now rather than the usual 3 years. This is mainly because our work is very relational and to dip out of these relationships every 3 years for 6 months would not be great. so we’ve reduced the period of our visits to Blighty and made them closer together.
Paula, Dean, Joel and Eli
XXX
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