A summer of mission for Norwich church

Summer 2008 has been a busy time for members of Norwich Central Baptist Church who have taken up several opportunities to do missionary work. All the activities involve working with vulnerable children and have made a positive and ongoing impact on their lives. Helen Baldry reports.

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Members of Norwich Central Baptist Church and Limes Avenue Baptist Church in Aylesbury joined together on a trip to support the evangelistic children's work of Copii Pentru Christos (Children for Christ) in Romania. The charity was set up in 1991 when a group of youth leaders and children (many of whom are still involved with the work today) started praying that a Christian holiday camp could be built so that the children in the locality could learn more about God.

 

Their prayers were answered and today the camp is a thriving and expanding project where across ten weeks each summer over 450 children come together to play games, sing songs, study the Bible and learn about Jesus.

 

Val and Roger White, Chris Brown and Catherine Lansdown travelled 15 hours out to the rural village of Virfurile, near Arad in Transylvania, where they spent 10 days on the camp, helping other volunteers with housekeeping, maintenance and building work. "A lot of work is needed to keep the camp running to a high standard," Chris says, "and the work we do allows the Romanian leaders to focus all their energy on the youth work, so it's the children who get the benefits." The team feel blessed to be involved with this God-driven ministry and the work of bringing God's gospel message of salvation to the children, as well as His love.

 

Becky Gathergole spent some time working at the Morning Star orphanage in Nepal. The orphanage offers security to street children who would otherwise be begging on the streets and getting high on glue. Morning Star gives these children a place to stay, food, clothes and education. They also have specific Christian teaching as well as seeing Christianity in action through the love and care shown to them by Bishnu and Muna who run the house. Morning Star also operates outreach to street children around Kathmandu offering education, support and health care.

 

Becky describes a typical day at the orphanage: The kids get up about 5am and wake me with shouts of "Ista, Ista-kum", followed by "How are you?!". At 8.30 I wash outside under a hose – there are usually arguments between the children over who gets to do my hair! We then eat daal bhat, which is lentil soup and rice eaten with my hands. We then walk to school which starts at 10.30. After lessons and devotions and an afternoon meal, I usually help the kids with their homework and then watch Nepali TV, chat to the children in their rooms or play hide and seek – except only one of us is hidden and    everyone else has to try and find them!

 

There are some truly inspiring stories of some of the children at Morning Star:

Mangila was born to a deaf and blind mother and was showing very poor development when she arrived. She can now walk and talk as well as anyone else.

Susmita's father was killed in the 'Peoples War' and found it very hard when her mother left her in Morning Star as she didn't feel able to look after her. She settled in very quickly with the love and care of Bishnu and Muna.

 

In August, nine people from NCBC embarked on a two-week mission trip with BMS World Mission to South Africa. Based with the Rock of Salvation Baptist Church in Soweto, the visit was a huge success and greatly blessed those who were able to take part.

 

The team was involved in a wide variety of activities, many of which were a completely new experience. Evangelism is a big part of the make up of the church and the team shared and preached on the streets, and more unusually some were also involved in evangelism on the train to Johannesburg .

 

There was time spent at an orphanage helping to serve food and playing with the children. Regular visits were made to a local Christian radio station and various people were involved in the Hour of Power - a time when listeners ring in with prayer requests and are then prayed for on air. The prayer life of the church was inspiring and this impacted everyone who was there. People used many words to describe the trip: inspiring, encouraging, stimulating, emotional, overwhelming, humbling, exhausting, blessed, and many more besides.

 

Other missions this summer included a team visit to Bursitsa Orphanage in Bulgaria through the Christian charity Saltmine. You can find the full details at: www.norwichcentral.org