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August
I came back at the
weekend from training new European staff. One of them is Mar, from Spain. During the training she ran into
a young man from her home town. In the course of conversation she asked him about his spiritual journey and was surprised
to find that he knew a bit about the gospel. He had even been encouraged by others to put his faith in Christ.
He just hadn't got around to it.
Mar patiently
went through the gospel story with him and showed him Revelation 3:20 "I stand at the door and knock..." When she invited
him to pray to receive Christ, the words that came out of his mouth were, "¡Perdóneme!, ¡perdóneme!" - "Forgive me,
forgive me!" He rightly perceived that accepting Christ is a matter of forgiveness.
Afterwards Mar
said, "God had already been working in his life. I was just a link in a chain - the last link". We often hear
about being a link in the chain. Praise God for those who know how to be the last link.
In
the next few days we have visits to Birmingham, Dublin, Winchester and Nottingham. Then
we move.
Ten minutes after we sent
out an email version of our newsletter last month we had a phone call offering us
a house to rent in Dublin belonging to family friends. Ten days later we
went to see it and signed a contract. Now all we have to do is move - due to arrive there on 25th August.
Our home address will then be 16 Glengara Park, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, Ireland.
In the meantime I will
go to Northern Spain to teach a course on Bible study methods at our new staff training for
staff from all over Europe. I taught a course there last year ("doctrine of Salvation") and I was amazed at how
superficial some of their Bible study skills were, especially their understanding of the principles of interpretation.
So I asked if I could concentrate on that issue this year. People need to be encouraged that they can
successfully study the Bible for themselves and they don't need to wait until they talk to a church leader. In fact
when they are out on the field in evangelism they mostly need to be able to answer questions
now, or the moment has gone.
June
In
August we will move to Dublin to relocate our Associate European Director work there. A good team, into
which we can fit, awaits us - including a growing staff team, good disciples, and a great Irish Agape board.
Alongside local ministry with them, the main thrust of our work will be across Western Europe, the lost continent. We
pray that God will use us to bring the best of Ireland to the rest of Europe, and vice versa.
Moving from
London is soaking up our energies. To help us say proper goodbyes to our London friends we’re having a "Leaving
Do" on 5th July from 12 noon - 3:30 p.m. at St Paul's Robert Adam Street W1U 3HW (r.s.v.p. vanessa.agape@btinternet.com if you can come).
One amazing outcome of last
month's consultation on reaching and discipling leaders (www.disciplingleaders.com) was in our "Christian Embassy" work. We made connections between various
different capital cites e.g. in passing on spiritually interested diplomat contacts. As a result I am going to serve
as the European Representative of Christian Embassy which gives me wider entry to help diplomats e.g. in Dublin, London, Berlin in
coming months.
May
A major part of our work this month is a European Agape consultation on reaching leaders, held in London. Agape staff
who disciple leaders in fields such as parliament, business, classical music, finance, sport,
diplomatic corps, will meet together. We will remind ourselves of the Biblical principles that underpin our work, hear
what God is doing in this new growing edge of the kingdom and share our best tips about methods of working.
We have also invited people who lead in various sectors of society (who are also
Christians) to come and talk to us about what it takes to disciple them and about their experience of spiritually serving
those they lead.
How we deal with people matters to God. If you are a leader you deal with a lot
of people and so God is all the more interested. Leaders have moved into the "people
zone". Suddenly there are parts of the Bible that apply as never before. We owe it to leaders to serve them well with the
Word, with prayer and with that delicate balance of sympathy and strident challenge.
April
Tonight Joel
and Sean and I will leave for Ireland for a four-day nostalgic visit to our old home-towns - Strabane (mine) and Dublin (theirs).
Pam will then join me to visit the Dublin Agape team, meet the new staff member, Stephanie Luke, and attend a board meeting.
A highlight
of this past month was being with 100 Agape students and staff in Berlin as they spent a week of witness at three great universities
there - the "Technical", the "Free" and the "Humboldt" - once the academic pride of East Germany. So
many people sticking their neck out this far for
the Gospel in these prestigious centres of learning is a bit of an event!
On 22nd of April
I will be in Berlin again - this time for recruiting meetings and on one evening to give cross-cultural training to diplomats.
One of the ambassadors has kindly offered to host this event at their embassy. It's hard to believe but many diplomats
are sent forth into the world with no cross-cultural training whatsoever. Missionaries do much better.
March
Thirty-seven countries
were represented at the lunch event, mostly by Ambassadors and High Commissioners, to hear Ram Gidoomal. He talked
about the Christian roots of British society and himself discovering the Bible at Imperial College London as a student. We then offered Bibles which will be personally delivered. Over 20 were requested. Nearly all want information about
upcoming events.
Some ambassadors'
comments...
"Amazing speaker,
did not have to say he was Christian but he showed in his talk God walks with him."
"A fantastic
start to the strategic forum of engagement made possible by God Himself"
Next week I
will speak at the launch of a short evangelistic project in Berlin involving forty German students.
On 15th John
Arkell and I will spend a day with 40 local church leaders in the North of England to help them mobilize the believers
in their churches in sharing their faith in ways that work.
Pam and I will join Agape UK staff, in Nottingham, for the last week of March - I am involved in teaching a "New Testament Survey" course
February
We need you to pray for the next 10 days about
a lunch for ambassadors being hosted by the Christian Embassy part of Agape in London on 14th. We invited
all 130, twenty of whom have already sent their
acceptance a further half dozen who want to send a delegate to represent the ambassador. Our speaker will be Ram Gidoomal
who will talk about "how best to do business with the British" and explain how his Christian commitment has affected his life
and work.
Tomorrow morning I will go to the Agape student work in Dublin. I also
have the great privilege of speaking to the Christian Union at Trinity College Dublin where my own faith was fostered when
I joined them as a student 42 years ago!
Last few days of the month Pam and I are with the Rome team to encourage them and to give some Bible teaching.
Seán is still with us, and working at
Monmouth Cafe in the Borough Market.
January 2008
On
Wednesday Pam and I go to spend time with staff from Estonia, Lithuania and
Latvia - meeting together on the Baltic Sea coast
of Lithuania. There are about 60 of them and although they group together for this Bible conference they are diverse
in cultural backgrounds. Their languages include Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian (completely
unrelated to each other) and also Russian and English.
I am
to speak from the Word about those who "met God". This is going to include some material on how to interpret the
Old Testament in such a way that we may get the best food out of it for our souls in our NT age. A digest
of this talk is online www.davidandpamwilson.net/id43.html
Pam will lead a women's session
on dealing with fears, starting with "When I came to Macedonia, my body wasn't able to rest. I was attacked no matter where
I went. I had battles on the outside and fears on the inside." II Corinthians 7:5 (NIV).
Evie
and her parents came to see us for an early celebration before they went to New Jersey to see Danielle's people for Christmas.
Pam gave Evie pink luggage and Joel took a picture - www.davidandpamwilson.net/id44.html
December
Seán arrived from San Francisco two weeks ago. He has suffered from psoriatic arthritis and needs some NHS treatment.
In 10 days time Pam and I go to Dublin to spend
some time with the Mulhollands. They have made great contacts with students this term through every conceivable means
- from joining the Dublin student ultimate Frisbee team to joining the group of University College Dublin students who are
preparing to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain in the summer.
Then
I will go to Paris for two days to meet with Agape leaders there about recruiting.
We believe God has given us a bright vision of bold witness among students there. We want to present this
challenge to young believers in the Parisian churches. Got any good contacts there?
On
one occasion this past month I preached about Job. A woman came afterwards and explained that Job was the first
book of the Bible she ever read - when she was sheltering from her husband's violence in a home for abused women.
That was 13 years ago and she never understood what it really meant until now, "God has closed a loop in my mind today".
November
This month Pam and
I (and the other Amigos) will meet with the Agape leaders from around Europe. This is an opportunity for the most simple
form of leadership development - asking them "How are you doing?".
There are two things all leader need (a) time to think and (b) somebody to talk to. Just asking a leader "How are you
doing?" helps to meet both needs because (a) they have to think about their answer and (b) you
are somebody to talk to. Try it. You will be a blessing
Joel
and I attended a conference for Christian classical musicians which drew participants from all over. One had to leave early,
saying, "Excuse
me - I have to go to Baku"! He is a senior missionary to
Azerbaijan who considered ministry amongst artists important enough to include it
in his European furlough.
Louise Lynton, who assists us with admin, only has a couple of months left with us so we are
on the lookout for a good replacement.
Next week Pam and I are invited to a reception by the embassy of a north African country.
We need the Lord's wisdom and boldness with those we will meet there.
October
October begins happily for me in Dublin visiting Kelly
and Kate Mulholland who move there next week to set up an Agape campus ministry.
The next day I will speak to unbelieving first-year students at University College
London on "Are you there God? Why can't I see you?". Of course God was seen in Christ - but on a deeper
level it brings up the whole business of what sort of God people conceive of. In the summer I read "The Goldilocks Enigma"
by Paul Davies (the cosmologist) who imagines the kind of God it would take to create the universe. It
turns out to be amazingly like the God of the Bible.
8th -12th Accompanying
a delegation to meet members of the parliaments of Austria, Germany and Latvia. Our delegation, mostly Canadian, comprises a Christian member of the Canadian parliament, some Campus Crusade
colleagues and senior business people who are prepared to use their position to reach out to their peers.
Also this month: 21st speaking on the lives of Wycliffe and
Tyndale, Birmingham; 28th "New frontiers
in Missions" at Myton church, Warwick
There are leaders in the London diplomatic corps who are willing to confess Christ openly. This month we will
meet with some of them for encouragement and to plan how they can have a significant impact on their peers.
Joel and I will work at the Crescendo international conference in Malmö at the end of the month. Crescendo
is a part of Agape that disciples classical musicians worldwide We want to inspire them to use their platform as
artists in a godly way and strengthen them in their calling to produce good art
www.crescendo.org
In the summer one of our London colleagues held a two-day training for the spiritual preparation of teenagers going
up to university. One of those who came, called Rowena, told me afterwards that she was the great great great
great grand-daughter of David Hume, the 18th century sceptic philosopher. I was tickled pink at the idea of Hume's grand-daughter
learning how to live for Christ at university and she said, "Yes, I thought you'd like that!”
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