Dear friends,
The six students from the Faith mission comprising the team who were with us at the end of February and beginning of March left an indelible impression on a number of the congregation. The quality of both students and employees of the Faith Mission with which we have worked for many years now, always impresses us. Perhaps it has much to do with the fact that for the Faith Mission "faith" is far more than a title it is their modus operandi.

As Christians we are very good at saying or imagining we live by faith but in practice few really do. We want to be able to guarantee the outcome of any course of action before we commit ourselves to it, the idea of going forward "in the dark" with only the Holy Spirit to guide us terrifies us to the extent that we refuse to allow God to prove himself to us and yet the Bible is full of invitations to do just that. We have for example in Proverbs 3 verse 7 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths". Our natural inclination is to do exactly the opposite of that - to trust only in humanly promising outcomes. Some people might see little difference between practising what this verse recommends - which is the exercising of faith - and gambling. For example consider a Christian leaving a highly lucrative job in which he earns several times the national average salary in order to be a missionary. His income and financial security for the future as a missionary are paltry in comparison. However he believes God is asking him to do this and also that in being obedient God will never then fail to provide for him and his family. An unbelieving attitude would say "but what if he decides he has made a mistake, he may have thrown his life away

Thank you
A sincere thank you to everyone for many kindnesses shown to us during Annie