Showing posts with label Ballnahinch Congregational Church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ballnahinch Congregational Church. Show all posts

Friday, 6 October 2017

Update for October 2017

Dear Friends,

We send you greetings in the Name of our Lord.

David here. Thanks for your prayers for all the meetings in September. The week of devotional messages we gave at the Ballynahinch Congregational Church went well with good attendance through the week and the four sermons I had the opportunity to preach went well, I believe. Debbie enjoyed the Kairos course on missions at the Belfast Bible College.

We are enjoying teaching missions at the Irish Baptist College. I taught four times on the theology of mission and Debbie will take the next two classes since they major on missions in the Old Testament. Then the students have a week of evangelism in which there will be no classes followed by a study week with no classes. The course starts up again after that.

Debbie has been asked to teach a series on ‘The Disciplines of a Godly Woman’ in the women’s meetings at the Ballynahinch Congregational Church. They meet on the first Monday of each month and the series will continue until May next year (DV). She is also taking a ladies meeting at the Cookstown Methodist Church on 16th and will be leading her Bible Study group through the book of James on two Monday evenings each month.

I enjoyed teaching a short series of Bible studies on Thursday evenings in September on the topic of ‘The Church’ and will start another short series on prayer to the same group of believers next week.

On 31st we are taking the prayer meeting at Coagh Baptist Church during which we will give an update of the work at Kagoro and our plans, God willing.
Please pray our Lord will be glorified through all these events and thanks again for remembering us in your prayers.

In Christ,

David and Debbie Colvin

1 Thess. 5:17

Tuesday, 1 August 2017

David and Debbie's Prayer Update

Dear friends,

We send you greetings in the Name of our Lord.

Keswick Conference

It was great to be able to attend one week of the Keswick Convention meetings in Keswick. The main venue holds about 4,000 people and that was not large enough to seat all the people who came to the morning and evening sessions. Hundreds more were in overflow venues and it was possible to watch the meetings live on the Internet. The main teaching was well handled by Alistair Begg who spoke from several of the Psalms. Debbie and I had a small part to play in one of the missions seminars led by Steve Smith (the SIM UK director). Thank you for praying and we thank the Lord also for the couple who let us share their home for the week. On one sunny afternoon we managed to climb one of the hills overlooking Keswick and Derwent Water.

Teaching and preaching

The missions course we will teach at the Irish Baptist College starts in September so we are doing some work for that. Debbie is still taking a small group through the Discipleship Explored course on Monday evenings. I have been asked to teach four Bible studies on Thursday evenings in September and will be working on material for those this month. On 20th August, I will be taking the services at the Ballynahinch Congregational Church and on 3rd September the Sunday services at Coagh Baptist Church. We have already started taking some prayer meetings for SIM. Pray that on all these occasions our Lord will be honoured (Col. 3:23). Thanks.

Other ministry opportunities


Though we are not at Kagoro, we are still doing some things for the Seminary and keep in touch with the teachers there. I am finishing off the supervision of a student’s thesis this month, for example. We have been asked to help review some doctrinal assessments written by people wanting to join SIM as missionaries and Mike Ewan (SIM Director for Ireland) asked us to represent SIM at New Horizon in Coleraine on Wednesday next week.

Settling in

We are still settling into life at Moneymore. It has taken weeks to get our broadband connected. I thought that would be a simple thing to reactivate but BT really let us down. We are with a different company now but still have the same land line number 02886746484. As mentioned in our recent prayer letter, our mobile numbers are now David 07729077954 and Debbie 07803477992. It is easier to get us on those.

Pensions

We have some funds in pension schemes which, according to SIM UK, are designed only for people working abroad so we have to change that. We need someone who can help us with professional advice on pensions and tax issues since the SIM finance people say they are not ‘registered’ to give that kind of advice. Does anyone have any suggestions?

As always, thanks for your prayers.

In Christ,

David and Debbie

Friday, 3 August 2012

August update

Dear friends,

We send you greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus.

Thank you for praying for Debbie. Her nose is healing well and we are able to return to Kagoro leaving Northern Ireland on 14th, flying overnight from London to Abuja and then being driven to Kagoro arriving mid-morning on 15th, God willing. Our colleagues, Dennis and Coletta Shelly, will be on the same flight from London and the journey by road to Kagoro. We thank the Lord Dennis does not need surgery and that his health concerns are not as serious as earlier thought. Thank you for praying.

We have two farewell meetings at our home churches. The evening service at Ballynahinch Congregational Church on 5th August (6:30 to 7:30pm) is the first of these with Mike Ewan (SIM Ireland director) speaking at that service. On the following Sunday (12th), there will be a short farewell service at Coagh Baptist Church at 7:45pm right after the evening service. There will be tea after each of these services, we hear. Our role at each service will be to give a short update including prayer requests. Everyone is welcome at these services and we look forward to seeing you there if you are able to attend.

The academic dean at the Seminary has let us know which courses we will be teaching. Debbie will be covering three courses all of which she has taught before while I have been asked to teach a new course on spiritual formation and one on expository preaching. Although this second course is not new, I have not taught it before so I have been working on both courses and look forward to teaching them this semester. The Provost wants me to resume work as the registrar at the Seminary so I will have to find out from Dr. Paul Bidoli what has been happening in the office while I have been away.

We would appreciate your prayers as we pack (six suitcases to take with us on this trip, two of which are full of things for the seminary). It is always hard to say farewell to family and friends and we would appreciate your prayers for us and them as we head off to Africa again. Pray also for our adjustment to being back at Kagoro. It will take some time to get our systems up and running again.

Thank you to all who have been praying for us and contributing towards our financial support. We could not continue our ministries without you and are confident our Lord will reward those who are seeking the extension of His kingdom (Col. 3:23-24).

Yours in our Lord,

David and Debbie

Saturday, 5 May 2012

May update

Dear friends, Many thanks for your prayers during April. We praise the Lord for help given in the meetings and medical appointments. In Castlewellan we enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of Andrew and Lorna Forson who allowed us to stay in a cosy corner at the Castle. We got a walk around the lake as well as a few strolls in Newcastle between the showers. On Wednesday the 9th May we go to England to visit friends in Preston, Lichfield, Oxford, St Albans, London, Capel St Mary and Leeds. It is kind of many to offer us hospitality and take time to see us in the midst of busy schedules. We will take the morning service in Oldfield Baptist Church in north London on Sunday, 13th May and visit SIM UK Headquarters in Wetheringsett on the 16th. Please pray for safety in travel and that we would be a blessing to those we meet. When we return we will take the Missionary Sunday in my (Debbie's) home church, Ballynahinch Congregational, on the 20th of May. David will preach in the morning and I will show a power-point presentation during the Sunday evening service. Again we need the Lord's help and enabling for these services. Last night was very important in the life of David's home church, Coagh Baptist. It was great to have the chance to attend the induction service for David Causby, the new pastor of the church. Please pray for the Lord to use him as he serves the Lord in this new ministry. It's also time to get our vaccinations up to date and we plan to do that at the end of May. We are thankful for the Lord's faithfulness in answering prayer and all the ways we've been encouraged by His people during this time of home assignment, Hebrews 10:24. God bless, Debbie and David