November update

G’day Praying Partners:

Thank you for your prayers for family camp. We had such a wonderful time of fellowship together. The baptism service was a special blessing. It was SO cold that day so the baptisms were quick, but it was such an encouragement to hear the testimonies of the two getting baptised. I’ve included a couple of pictures on our blog if you’d like to see them: ernstfamilydownunder.blogspot.com.

God’s continued to bless us with visitors almost every week! I think I shared that we had been praying specifically for this and it’s been awesome to watch God answer such a simple prayer. We’ve had 3 new families that have been coming faithfully, so that’s been great. In our last update I asked you to pray specifically for a new family that was attending that the mum had cancer. She came in last week so excited and could hardly wait to tell us that, after her last chemo, they’ve deemed she is in remission! She was giving thanks to the Lord – and to the church for praying and providing for them. It’s been incredible to watch God work in this family. 

Jackie had the honour of speaking at a ladies Christmas banquet this past week. It was for a group on the other side of the city. Her devotional was “Why is Jesus the Reason for the Season”. The ladies were very gracious and everyone had a lovely time.

Our time is finishing up at the school as the school year comes to a close. It has been such a blessing to be God’s hands and feet in the primary school. We look forward to seeing what God will do with the seeds that have been sown.

We would ask you to pray for our Carols by Candlelight Service. It is scheduled for December 9. This is always a great way for our church family to invite their friends and family to a service to celebrate the Christmas season. Pray that God would be glorified and the truth of Christmas proclaimed!

Prayerfully you each had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebrating with family and friends. We are so thankful for each of you and the prayers you offer up on our behalf. God is answering them in mighty ways!

Shining the Light Down Under,

Rob and Jackie

October Update

G’day Praying Partners,

First, let me apologize for the lateness of this update! It’s been a hectic couple of months! As you might recall, Jackie was in the States to welcome our new granddaughter. We’re so thankful for the time she was able to spend being a help to our son and daughter in law and spending time with our 3 grandchildren. If you look on our blog, ernstfamilydownunder.blogspot.com you can see some pictures!

Jackie arrived back in Australia with less than a week to get prepared for our Malcolm Creek Mini Show! This year we decided to hire a gentleman who has carnival games he’s built and provides as a ministry to churches and schools. Rob presented the gospel using a “magic trick” centered around the wordless book. We had over 50 kids and over 20 parents attend. We’re always amazed at the opportunity God gives us to present the gospel to people who would never come to church. All the kids had a great time playing the games, jumping in the jumping castle, eating fairy floss (cotton candy), getting dressed up and having their picture taken and creating some beautiful art. One of the parents asked if he could play the games as well! All of our church was involved in the day and we are so thankful for each one of them. If you visit the blog you can see pictures there as well! 

We are preparing for family camp in two weeks. This is something that our entire church looks forward to each year. We are going back to the same place as last year – in Queenscliff, over on the coast. The whole church will be attending this year – including a couple of visitors! I shared last time about a young man coming to know the Lord who we will be baptizing at camp. The wife of the Brazilian family that’s been attending for awhile now asked if she could be baptized as well. So we'll be able to celebrate 2 baptisms while we're away - what a blessing!

Thank you for your continued prayers for us and our ministry. We appreciate so much the fact that we have a team of prayer warriors going before the throne of grace on our behalf!

Shining the Light Down Under,

Rob and Jackie

June Update

G’day Praying Partners,

I can’t believe it’s been 2 months since our last update! Time seems to be flying by this year – but I feel like that every year! Here’s what’s been happening down under:

In May it was a blessing to get to Sydney for the first time (we were there back in 2001 but just for 24 hours). There was a conference being sponsored by a local IB church up there (a speaker from Our Daily Bread was there) and we thought it would be a great opportunity to finally meet in person many missionaries/pastors that we’ve worked with through the years. Plus get to spend some time exploring Sydney! The conference was a real blessing and we thoroughly enjoyed meeting our brothers and sisters in Christ. We’ve made some contacts that will be beneficial going forward. We also thoroughly enjoyed exploring Sydney. It’s a beautiful city (not like our world’s most liveable city of Melbourne😊) and it was a blessing to be able to spend some time sight-seeing. The church is also enjoying some tremendous blessings. This year we decided to pray for visitors each Sunday – and God has been answering! It’s been a real encouragement to see new faces each week.

In June we had a special family blessing – we girls conspired to surprise Rob with our youngest, Tori, coming to visit. I can’t believe we pulled it off – but he was completely surprised. It was such a blessing to us to have her visit, even if it was just for 13 days. Needless to say, we spent every available hour visiting with her – even managed to get away for a couple of days to the Great Ocean Road and enjoy some family time. Our niece is also still here and we enjoyed having everyone together. Tori left on a Friday and my niece’s fiancé arrived the next day! He is here for another week, so we’ve been doing a lot of sight-seeing. It is well and truly winter so we’ve been bundled up as we’ve explored God’s beautiful creation here in Victoria. This month we received another tremendous blessing as one of the young men who has been attending CBC for a couple of years trusted Christ as his Saviour! Dylan grew up in church but came to the realisation that he’s never personally placed his faith in Christ. We are so excited to see him growing as a new believer!

Jackie is making plans to fly back to the States for about 6 weeks for the birth of our third grandchild. She is looking forward to being able to welcome Liana into the world in early August. We’d appreciate prayers for safety for her, mum and bub. She’ll be returning with our niece, which will make the trip back much more bearable.

We would ask you to join us in prayer for continued visitors – and for some to stay! Also, for growth for Dylan as he explores God’s Word as a child of the King. Please pray as we begin to plan for our Malcolm Creek Mini Show coming in September. Also, for the chaplain and grandparenting program at school. We’ve recently had a couple of families attend church as a direct result of these programs.

I recently read this in my quiet time – I Cor. 1:9b “But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” Too often we rely on ourselves, don’t we? Our own wisdom, strength and plans. But God allows things in our lives to remind us that we can’t rely on ourselves – only God. After all, it’s Him who raises the dead! What do you need to rely on God for today? Don’t lean on your own understanding – allow Him to direct your path!

Shining the Light Down Under,

Rob and Jackie

April Update

G’day Praying Partners:

“He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” Matt. 28:6. We pray that you had a blessed time celebrating this Resurrection Sunday! What a blessing it is to have a time to reflect on all that God did in order to have a relationship with us. It never ceases to amaze me.

Thank you for your prayers for our Easter outreach. We held it the Sunday before Easter. God was honoured and that is always our prayer. The day included a gospel presentation, egg hunt, egg colouring, craft (decorating cookies) and a large assortment of games for the kids to play. There were over 50 children in attendance and more than 30 parents that stayed. Again, we had such an assortment of cultures and religions represented. I shared in our last update that Luca (who is the man that was baptized at family camp) was bringing the gospel presentation. We used large egg-shaped cut outs in the colours of the wordless book to demonstrate to the children. Luca did a fantastic job! Afterwards, one of the Muslim mums came up to him and talked to him a bit about the “interesting presentation” he gave. We stand in constant amazement of the opportunities God gives us to share the gospel with people who may have never heard and have been blinded to the Truth. Please pray with us that the Holy Spirit would use these seeds of His Word to bring fruit into the lives of the people who hear it.

In years past I’ve shared how our Easter service (unlike America) is usually one of our lowest attended services since it happens during school holidays and many families go out of town. Well, this year, God proved that theory wrong! We are praising Him that our church family was so faithful to invite their own families to come along. There were also 2 families visiting that found us by our website. All in all, there were over 80 people in the service! Many of them were unsaved. Easter is such a wonderful opportunity to share the Good News – and Rob gave a clear gospel presentation on the day. Pray with us that many of these people would return and join with us in worship.

I will put some pictures from the outreach up on our blog: ernstfamilydownunder.blogspot.com. Take a look and see how God is answering your prayers!

Our niece, Kait, arrived safe and sound from America mid-March. She is with us until August. Please pray that she can find a temporary job while she is here. We are so enjoying having her visit with us and taking her around our beautiful state.

Thank you for your prayers on our behalf. We are honoured to think that you take the time to pray for us and our ministry in Australia. Thank you for allowing us to team up with you to serve God in this beautiful country. May God be honoured and glorified by our efforts here – and yours across the pond. Let’s be faithful to proclaim the good news of Easter to those who need to hear it!

Shining the Light Down Under,

Rob and Jackie

G’day Praying Partners,

We’ve come to the end of our summer break, but the hot weather refuses to let go! The temperature has hit between 105-110 several times, but we’re thankful for a couple of cooler days in between. This week we will be seeing a high of 95. Somebody said to us that it must remind us of Florida – no way! It is much drier here (good and bad to that), but I informed this person that in Florida we go from our air-conditioned house to our air-conditioned car to the air-conditioned shops😊 We’re not so fortunate here. Our house has an evaporative cooler – some of our friends from out west are more familiar with those – and unfortunately it can’t keep up when it gets really hot for more than 2 days in a row. Often the shops are not much better than the house! And when we get a hot northern wind, look out! It’s like being in a convection oven! Technically it is still summer, but I’m ready for autumn to come and bring some cooler temperatures.

Thank you for your prayers for our Carols by Candlelight service. We didn’t have as big a turn out as we had hoped for, but a couple of unsaved people were in attendance to hear the gospel message. The kids did great with their nativity scene and song. Let’s face it, they’re really the star of the show!

Summer is always a bit slower for us – basically we don’t have much extra going on for the month of January. Lots of our families take off for extended periods of time during the break.  It’s nice to take a bit of a breather and get the scheduled prepared for the coming year. School is officially back as of this week and Rob is back as the chaplain. Each year the school puts out a “well being” policy for the staff; we were excited to see Rob was included as someone for the teachers/staff to go to if they were experiencing any kind of emotional struggles. God continues to open opportunities for Rob and we are so thankful for each one of them. Please pray along with us that God would bring fruit from Rob’s labour at the school. Jackie will be starting up with some students in her volunteer role – pray that she can be a blessing to them. 

We have had visitors come along almost every week this year! It’s been a blessing to see God moving in the hearts of the community. Pray that we can see some stick around and worship with us on a regular basis. We’ve begun preparations for our Easter outreach – which is just around the corner! (It feels like this year is already flying by and it’s just begun!) Please pray for us as we plan out the program. 

This month we are beginning a small AWANA program – just Cubbies for now. We’ve got about a dozen kids (between church and friends/family of church people) who will be coming along. Our prayer is to extend that to Sparkies next and offer it in the school – adding ages as we go along. Please pray for our “leaders” to be faithful and excited! Also pray that God would bring the increase as we seek to teach the littlies about Him. If any of our churches have extra AWANA things you’d like to pass along – we’ll take it! We know there are pros and cons with AWANA but God so clearly guided us this way that we are going to go forward and see what He wants to accomplish.

We’re also praying about starting up a teen program. There doesn’t seem to be as much support in the church for that – as in people willing to volunteer their time. It’s not something we want to take on by ourselves so are praying that God would raise up those with a heart for the teens. We actually have 5 that regularly attend church and would love to do something for them that would encourage them to bring friends along.

On a personal note – we got the best Christmas present ever…we’re going to be grandparents again! Our son and daughter in law were surprised to find out #3 is on the way! She’s due in mid-August so we would appreciate prayers for them. Nothing better than being a grandparent!

Just finished reading through the book of Psalms. If anyone needs some direction in how to praise the Lord – this book is for you! Wanted to end this prayer update with the last verse in Psalms – 150:6 “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!”. That means that if you’re reading this then, well, you have breath! Please take a moment right now to stop and praise the Lord for all that He’s doing in your life – and ours! What a mighty God we serve!

Shining the Light Down Under,

Rob and Jackie