From the frontline: stories to inspire you

From the frontline:

stories to inspire you

From giving critical medical aid at night, to helping a rural community grow crops, our mission workers have had a very busy, challenging and blessed start to the year. We thought it was time to share some of their news with you.

The surgeons in Chad who came to the rescue after dark

Andrea and Mark Hotchkin in traditional Chadian dress in front of a sand coloured wall
Andrea and Mark Hotchkin dedicate every day to helping others in Chad, no matter where they are in the country.

We’ll paint a picture for you. One day you’re in a fancy hotel in Chad’s capital city, N’Djamena attending a Ministry of Health meeting. Then just a few days later you’re hours from the nearest town, it’s late and you’ve spent the day driving from village to village assessing healthcare provision. Word reaches you that two local people are seriously unwell and no-one has made any effort to get help.
This is what happened recently in the lives of BMS World Mission surgeons, Andrea and Mark Hotchkin. If you didn’t already know how amazing they are, you certainly will when you read their latest blog.

Read the Hotchkins' blog

Giving hope for a better future

A woman dressed in black stands behind a table covered in neatly arranged clothing
You’ll probably never meet Shama, but thanks to your support for BMS you’ve helped her and her family.

Consider this: you have five children, your husband is unable to find work and one of your children has tuberculosis. You have to spend every day not knowing how long you have to make the small amount of income you do have last. This is the life that Shama has known in Delhi. But thanks to your support for BMS workers James and Ruth Neve, Shama and others have been given hope of a new life-changing income. To find out how, read the Neves’ latest blog by hitting the button below.

Read the Neves' blog

A night of praying with women in pain

Evening street scene in Bangkok with neon lights
The light of Christ is being received in Bangkok’s red-light district, helped by BMS worker Ashleigh Gibb.

In the red-light district of Bangkok, women are learning they are children of God and that he loves them. BMS worker Ashleigh Gibb writes in her latest blog about a special event at a hotel where women who work in some of Bangkok’s bars gathered for a meal and prayer. Please read Ashleigh’s blog, and please continue to pray for her and the people she meets in one of the world’s darkest places.

Read Ashleigh's blog

‘The seeds we received are a gift from God’

Carlos Tique stands in front of a house and some green foliage
By supporting BMS worker Carlos Jone, you’re helping people in Chassimba, Mozambique not only fight hunger, but also earn their own money.

There’s a rural village in Mozambique called Chassimba, where your faithful support for BMS work is transforming lives. Men and women are not only being given seeds to grow crops, they’re learning how to take care of them better. And with increased production comes an income. BMS worker Carlos Jone visited Chassimba recently, and shares in his latest prayer letter the beautiful response he received from villagers.

Read Carlos' update

News in brief from around the world

  • In Guinea, BMS worker Ben*, along with a professional football coach, visited football training sessions to strengthen links with non-Christians. Ben has also started to meet with a prison group as he continues to show God’s love among the marginalised.
  • In France, the BMS Action Team has been helping at a refugee centre for women, supporting youth work, forging friendships and developing their language skills. Check out all their news on their blogs page.
  • In Peru, BMS worker Laura-Lee Lovering has been kept busy through attending the Peruvian Baptist Assembly (her seventh!), catching up with BMS short-term volunteer Becky Richards, and meeting Action Teamers.
  • In Mozambique, BMS worker Sergio Vilela has put in a lot of miles (around 3,000 in two weeks) meeting people through our partnership with the Mozambican Baptist Convention. Meanwhile, fellow BMS worker, and Sergio’s wife, Liz Vilela has been doing great work with child protection training, which she touches on in her latest prayer letter. Please check it out and pray for the Vilelas!
Want your church to support life-changing mission work?

Your church can get behind our mission work by becoming a Church Partner. It’s ever so easy to join and gives your church the chance to focus on a region or ministry, or on specific people.

We’d love to talk to you, so please don’t hesitate to contact Jo in the Church Partners team with any questions. Call her today on 01235 517600 or email her at churchrelations@bmsworldmission.org

If your church isn’t in Church Partners, talk to your minister today. Get involved, be inspired, express your heart for mission!

These stories are just a snapshot of what our mission workers and partners have been up to. In countries like Uganda, Kosovo, Bangladesh, Nepal, Ukraine, Albania, Lebanon and India, your support is being felt through training, nourishment, heating, education and much more. We thank you today for all that you do for BMS, for your giving and prayer, and your encouragement. Thanks to you, God is meeting the needs of people like you and me around the world. We praise God today for your support and give thanks for our incredible mission workers.

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*Names changed for security reasons.

Fearless: taking on the Sahara Desert, raging rivers, and the sex industry

Fearless:

taking on the Sahara Desert, raging rivers, and the sex industry

There’s nothing overstated about the headline above. BMS World Mission workers enter isolated, extreme and often dangerous places because God has empowered them to change people’s lives for the better. They tread fearlessly knowing you are standing alongside them in prayer. So please read on for some of their latest blogs.

1. When you get lost, stuck and weary in the desert

Nightmare journeys home usually consist of heavy traffic, train cancellations, or flight delays. Not so for BMS surgeons Andrea and Mark Hotchkin. For these two brilliant mission workers, along with their children Ruth and Rebecca, the journey home to Bardaï in northern Chad involved getting lost in the Sahara desert, camping outside as lightning struck, and digging for hours to release their vehicle from sand. And if that wasn’t challenging enough, a dust storm then hit. Read the Hotchkins’ blog to find out how they got home!

Read the Hotchkins' blog
Truck stuck in the mud in a desert
The Hotchkin family not only faced flooding in a desert, they also had the problem of sand becoming mud.

2. Cable bridges, landslides and a lot of walking – just to reach schools

Simon Hall holding a book as children surround him
Children’s books (and Simon Hall) are clearly popular at this remote school in Lamjung District

It’s fair to say that Simon Hall put in a lot of effort to reach the school in the photo above. That’s what’s needed in Lamjung District, Nepal, where BMS teacher trainer Simon serves. The school you can see was one of 15 that Simon and three of his colleagues visited in just one week. Reaching them involved crossing cable bridges over raging rivers, walking for hours up steps, and then travelling in jeeps up to altitude-sickness-inducing heights. The journey was understandably draining, but it was nothing compared to what was to come for Simon. Please read his blog today and pray with him using his prayer points.

Read Simon's blog

3. Joining the fight to eradicate TB

Can you imagine being part of history? BMS mission workers James and Ruth Neve don’t have to. As part of the Indian Government’s plan to eradicate tuberculosis (TB) from the country by 2025, James and Ruth are going to be giving training to people who have been cured of the illness. Their training courses will teach vital skills to help some of the poorest and most marginalized people in India generate a better income and turn their lives around. Read James and Ruth’s blog post about the day they decided to help change the world.

Read the Neves' blog
Ruth Neve signing TB agreement
Ruth Neve signs a life-changing agreement

4. ‘I want women to understand that God created us beautiful’

Ashleigh Gibb witnesses pain every day. She serves with BMS in the red light district of Bangkok, where she enters bars and brothels to speak words of love and kindness to women who have been trafficked. She also works in a coffee shop, that gives women who have managed to escape the sex industry the chance to learn new skills. Ashleigh’s blogs are always very powerful and heartfelt, none more so than her latest post in which she writes about the importance of loving those around us, even those who are hard to love.

Read Ashleigh's blog
Ashleigh Gibb in Bangkok
BMS worker Ashleigh Gibb takes the light of Christ into the darkness of Bangkok’s sex industry.

5. ‘May you know that you are loved with a constant and eternal love’

The Ovendens sit together with new baby Eleanor
Please keep Joe, Reuben, Lois, Eleanor and Connie Ovenden in your prayers.

This may not be the frontline of mission work, but we’re confident you’ll want to read about it. There was much joy in the BMS family when news came through about the newest Ovenden. Eleanor Ada Joy was welcomed into the world on Tuesday 18 September, a third child for BMS workers in Uganda, Joe and Lois. We give thanks today for the blessing of new life, and for everything that Joe and Lois do for BMS. They’ve posted a prayer for Eleanor in their latest blog. After you’ve read it, please pray for Eleanor.

Read the Ovendens' blog

God is with our mission workers, as are you. It is your faithful prayer and giving that enables them to be on the frontline of mission, helping the sick in Chad, children in Nepal, women who have been trafficked in Thailand, and many others in need around the world. Our mission workers across the globe write blogs about their work and we often post them on our Facebook page, along with prayer requests and videos. Please check it out, and please do comment on the blogs with words of encouragement for our workers! We love to hear from you.

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Joy, burnout and leaving: Q&A with James and Ruth Neve

Joy, burnout and leaving:

Q&A with James and Ruth Neve

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They’ve said goodbye to family and friends, and are on their way to India. James and Ruth tell us about how that feels.

The Neves are almost at the Heathrow check-in desk. It’s taken months of preparation to get this far. James has left his job as a debt advisor and Ruth has left her role as a senior Baptist minister in Southampton. It will be 42 degrees Celsius when they arrive in New Delhi, their new home. They’re ready for it, and their Hindi is coming along nicely. Life as long-term BMS World Mission workers is about to move up a gear.

A man in a patterned shirt stands next to a woman with light coloured hair
James and Ruth Neve have been studying for months in preparation for their new life as BMS mission workers in India.

LET’S START WITH SOME BACKGROUND – WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE MUSIC ARTIST AND SONG?

Ruth: Well, the other day in chapel I played Celebration by Kool & the Gang.

James: I like Coldplay – am I allowed to say that? I do, there, I said it out loud.

Ruth: But which song? They did Paradise.

James: Yeah, Paradise, that’ll do.

SO, HOW DID YOU END UP AS BMS WORKERS?

James: We had a chat many years ago with [former BMS General Director] David Kerrigan about the possibility we might offer ourselves to BMS one day. The honing in on India happened about this time last year as we began to explore the possibility of whether BMS could make use of people like us.

Ruth: Because we had our children young, we thought we would still have some life in us towards the end of our working careers. It was a sense of: would we, as people in our 50s, have something to offer? This experience in India will certainly broaden our horizons, and we may be better grandparents as a result.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’LL BE DOING IN DELHI?

Ruth: No. We’ve been given as much carte blanche as possible to learn about the people and discern where God is already working and where his heart is beating.

And BMS has given us tremendous affirmation to do that discerning process, and come back and say, “this is where we think we should invest our time and energy”, and hopefully leave a legacy.

Joy will be extinguished if you just keep working. God doesn’t want us to live like that.

JAMES, YOU WENT TO DELHI WITH BMS IN 2007 – WHAT DID YOU DO?

James: I went as part of an Insight team. We worked with an existing partner, looking at women’s empowerment and children’s education in a slum area. There was a team of seven or eight of us, and it was a sample of, ‘this is what BMS is about’.

HOW DID YOUR FAMILY REACT WHEN YOU TOLD THEM YOU WERE MOVING TO INDIA?

Ruth: Naturally, there’s been a mixed response of sadness and support due to the separation.

A woman in a yellow dress and a man in a suit in a church
James and Ruth Neve are leaving their loved ones behind to serve God in India.

JAMES, HOW WILL YOUR EXPERTISE IN DEBT ADVICE TRANSLATE TO INDIA?

James: Personal debt is becoming an increasingly worrisome issue in India’s burgeoning middle class. If, for example, a debt and benefit advice service is planted within these next three or four years and is sustainable, then great, but it could take another form.

WHAT IS GOD’S HEART FOR THE POOR AND THOSE IN DEBT?

James: God is concerned about those burdened by debt and has made specific provision for relief of debt. Given his consistency of character, that should be the case in India.

RUTH, YOU’VE WRITTEN OPENLY ABOUT EXPERIENCING BURNOUT. HOW DESTRUCTIVE IS BURNOUT, AND HOW CAN IT BE AVOIDED?

Ruth: Many ministers are in burnout because a lot of them are workaholics. You lose your joy if you keep being that way, because what often gets squeezed is your time with God. The pressure of Sunday will take over, and unless you are very intentional you’ll stop hearing God.

My advice is for people to be careful because your soul is at stake. We need to sleep and have rest patterns, and have the Sabbath. Joy will be extinguished if you just keep working. God doesn’t want us to live like that. It’s not how Jesus lived. If you are stretched to elastic point, you will snap, and it’s not pretty, and often the church is a victim of it.

These past months have served as valuable preparation for the future, reflecting and drawing breath, and just being able to make a new start.

If you want to commit regularly to supporting James and Ruth, you can become a 24:7 Partner by clicking the box on the right.

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HOW HAVE YOUR FOUND STUDYING AGAIN IN PREPARATION FOR OVERSEAS MISSION?

James: These past months have served as valuable preparation for the future, reflecting and drawing breath, and just being able to make a new start.

A woman takes a photo of herself and friends in the background
James and Ruth Neve made new friends during their preparation time for mission work in India, including this group in Birmingham. Each week they were taught a phrase of Hindi and given Indian etiquette advice.

WHAT WILL MAKE YOU SAD WHEN YOU’RE AWAY?

James: Distance from family and friends.

Ruth: Notable occasions, such as when our grandson does something specific and we can’t share in it.

WHAT WILL BRING YOU JOY?

Ruth: The joy will be in sharing our lives with some lovely, generous people in India.

James: I think I’ll get great joy from going to a Twenty20 game in the IPL.

Ruth: Me not so much.

(For any non-cricket fans, the IPL is one of the most prestigious cricket competitions in the world.)

FINALLY, WHAT CAN PEOPLE BE PRAYING FOR?

Ruth: Please pray for the practical stuff of life to be taken care of. We want to go to India without having to think about things such as finding a tenant for our house.

James: Please pray for our language learning and finding a community. And pray for what will become the work that we invest ourselves in, and that makes a difference.

Could you be called to mission overseas? There are many ways to serve God with BMS, so keep praying and explore our mission opportunities today.