G’day Praying Friends:
We pray that you had a wonderful time this Easter season
celebrating our risen Saviour! Your prayers were answered in abundance and we
are so excited to share with you all God has been doing in our ministry here in
Australia.
Easter came early for us as we did our Easter Outreach on 7
April. This was the first weekend before school holidays began and we find that
if we do it any later, the kids forget. Our church devoted the entire week
before the outreach to prayer – we made up a checklist of all the daylight
hours for people to tick off times they would be praying. This event was
literally bathed in prayer. We were praying for 50 kids (based on our
supplies!) but God decided we could handle 60😊 There were also 25+ parents that stayed for
the outreach. One of the ladies from our church gave the gospel presentation in
story form. She spoke on the children’s level and it was so impactful. How
thankful we are for people to hear the gospel so clearly! We had several inquiries
on the day about church and other children’s programs. Our people had good
conversations with parents as well. What an opportunity to continue to sow
seeds of the gospel in the lives of our community!
This year we decided to do a Good Friday service – something
we’ve never done before. Here in Melbourne, all shops and business are closed
on Good Friday and open on Easter. There are exceptions, of course, but that
seems to be the norm. We decided to have a morning service – not expecting a
huge turnout. There were more than we anticipated would come – and a couple of
visitors as well. It wasn’t a “normal” service. We actually took a walk with
Jesus on that Friday. We read Scripture, sang songs that were appropriate with
the Scripture, and did other readings as well. It was SO moving – and put a
completely different perspective on the weekend. It truly set the tone for our
Sunday celebration! It’s something we will definitely be doing in the future.
As we’ve told you in the past, Easter is always one of our
lowest attended services (along with Christmas, to be honest). They both take
place during school holidays and families are gone for most of the time.
Definitely not like in America! We were thankful for those who came along and
celebrated our Risen Saviour with us!
This Saturday, 4 May, we will be hosting a Mother and
Daughter Afternoon Tea. Please pray that we can be a blessing to those that
come along.
Also, please be in prayer for our men’s and ladies Bible
studies beginning in May. We’ve had a great response to those wanting to come
along.
Our prayer during this season is that we take the
resurrection with us through the whole year. We want to say, as the disciples
did after meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus, “did our hearts not burn within
us”? It’s easy to celebrate the death and resurrection and then go on with
life. But it is the very thing that has changed our life forever! May we live
with that resurrection power everywhere we go!
Shining the Light Down Under,
Rob and Jackie