Report Letter-December-January
2007
Greetings to all! We
hope this newsletter finds you well and experiencing God's peace and
kindness. It has been a most eventful
last few weeks but we are able to see God's hand in the all of the things here.
DVD FOR TOMMY: We have been
doing a great deal of work in setting for and then compiling and editing a DVD
over this last month. It is an
especially good time to do this as so many people here take this month of
January for their holiday. What we are
doing is trying to help Tommy Duffy who is autistic and make a play for
something that he likes and which seems to help quiet things down for him. It all started when we noticed that he loves
the little kid's song, "MY GOD IS SO BIG".
His face lights up, he calms down and he tries to do the hand motions
for the song. When we saw this, we
decided that to help Lexi and Quentin with Tommy so they can participate more
in the worship service we would make a DVD of ‘Tommy's Song'. The project grew very quickly and ended up
with ten songs for little kids performed by the youth of the Gosford
congregation from down in Sydney. Because Lexi is the area president of the
Autistic Support Group, we are going to be doing up this video free for all of
the members of the community who have young autistic children. This will allow us into their homes and
will give them a picture of a congregation that cares and is willing to help
them.
ADVERTISEMENT: As you know, we started out by simply
advertising in the local newspaper for those that were interested in
worshipping God in a simple and biblical manner. This brought in a number of people who do
not like all of the musical instruments and entertainment styled worship that
the denominations are offering today.
They are usually older people who are used to the non-musical instrument
styled worship that used to be seen in many different types of groups
here. This by itself is amazing to
me! Simple advertising and simple
worship: it did very well. We have since
found out that we can advertise on the television for $35.00 per minute on
morning television. It will cost us
about $1000 to do the production of the commercial itself, and then the much
more reasonable presentation costs come into play. This means that for $1000 we can get a
commercial made and then it costs us $35.00 per minute to show that commercial
on morning television. (The average
length of a commercial is 30 to 60 seconds here.) We have been doing well enough on
contribution and bills to be able to afford this and so we are going to give it
a try. It means that we will be
advertising on a national television station with an ad that goes out over all
of northern New South Wales. We can show the same advert in the evening,
but at a much higher rate than the morning slot. (If we were to consider this
whole venture in Melbourne or Sydney, it would be astronomical in price!) Please pray for this side of our work. We will be focusing this new advertisement
campaign on the idea of helping families, and being a family friendly
congregation, which is something that is not happening anywhere in Coffs at
this time, nor has it. (There are lots
of young families moving here at this time and lots of new suburbs going up, so
we have an ever increasing audience in this side of the community.)
STUDIES: Currently, we have started back the art
support and discussion group and this is going good. We do a bit of oil painting and then we sit
around and talk about how life is going and how God can help life to go
better. Most of the ladies who are
involved in this work are care-takers for husbands who have Altizheimer's
Disease. We have a new bible study group getting going out at the
Sapphire Beach Apartments complex and this is one that I will be teaching. It will be held at the apartment of Bo and
Daphne Riccobono and we will study the book of Acts. One of the ladies who lives there and will be
attending the study is a former minister with the Episcopal Church / Church of
England. This should be very
interesting!!
HEALTH: Health-wise, Jenny
and I are doing much better. The
pulmonary embolism (a large blood clot to the lungs) that I suffered at the end
of November is dissolving, slowly, but dissolving none the less and that is
what we want. This caused me to have some time in the hospital's cardiac unit
until they found out what it all was. I
was able to go home after nine days in and then on a very limited schedule and
heavy blood thinners. It hits you rather harder than you would expect, and it
has slowed me down for a while. I am
back to doing full days now and slowly increasing the study load again. Colin and Quentin filled in for me, as you
know, and this has opened it up some great opportunities for Quentin who would
now like to teach on an every other week basis on Sunday morning. [There is a blessing in being sick!!! Quentin is proving to be an excellent
teacher.] Jenny is doing fine and yet
she is suffering from a summer cold right now.
She is a real steady person and is always working, a model for us all.
TEACHING AT MSOBS: Due to
my being restricted from traveling for a while, we have had to put off my
teaching at the Macquarie School of Biblical Studies down in Sydney.
We have tried to move this week long intensive study to a new slot down
in late April but this will be conflicting with the arrival of a team of
students who are coming to Australia
from Oklahoma Christian with Kent Hartman. [I
need to be here because we are trying to apply for a married couple from the OC
‘HIM Program' to come over and help us build on the idea of the family helpful
church idea for the next two years. This
is part of the targeting of families that I mentioned in the section on
advertisement.]
TEACHING AT STAMP: I also
have been requested to teach a week long, intensive, course down at Gosford in
May. This is a program that is very much
like the AIM program at Lubbock, but which is
for kids and young adults from Australia
and New Zealand. (We have a great deal of hope in this
program. STAMP stands for Short Term
Australian Mission Program. My job will
be to teach these young people how to use the book of Mark as an evangelistic
tool, and how to know when to use this tool in place of another but shorter
form of study. This excites me a great
deal.
VISITORS: We have had
visitors, visitors, visitors, over the last several weeks. One of the reasons that we chose Coffs is
because of this very factor and it is proving to be a real mission work itself
as we provide beds and lodging for the Christians traveling from Brisbane to
Sydney and vice versa. We have had a
different couple every weekend for the last month and that is a lot of people
to come through actually. This is where
Jenny really shines and it is so good to have her with me in the work in
Coffs. We are not going to have any this
coming Saturday night and so we are going to take a night off and just go down
the coast and go do some fishing. Next
month we will get a good break when we go back down to Melbourne to participate in the Belmore Road
congregational camp. (It is called
CampING...or Camp: I Need God.) It will be good to be a visitor for a change
and to be on the receiving end of the fellowship ministry of so great a group
of people as Belmore Road.
COL'S SITUATION: Col Bebe has had a
rather rough last month and will be going to a counselor to help him. We ask you to pray for him. He is the other male worker here and his
difficulties have really hurt things over the last few weeks. We are getting over it and with him going to
counseling; things look a lot more hopeful and positive. His wife Judy, Jenny's sister, is looking
after him in a most excellent way. She
is a real servant and a great help.
FINANCES: The U.S.A dollar
continues to hurt the Australian dollar, but we are getting by at this moment.
JENNY'S MASTER'S DEGREE:
Jenny has decided to go for her master's degree by long distance
study. This will help her in her job
and it will get her on the campus of Southern Cross University in Coffs so we
can do some evangelism work there. (We
have to be invited on to a university campus here by a student. When we are invited on, then we can
legitimately get a room and be allowed to hold bibles studies on the campus.)
STALL AT THE MARKETS: Jenny
and Heather Cox are working up a program that we can do at the local market
down in the jetty area. We are required
to be giving something out, and or, selling something that is not religious to
be allowed in to the market. So, they
are making greeting cards, I'm doing book markers. We will give these away free and thus be free
to also give away tracts and brochures on the church. The Jetty Market is on early on Sunday
morning and is only a short drive to the church building. They are going to pass out these book marks
and cards and then we will all talk to people there about why we are here and
what we stand for. There is only one
other individual doing anything like this that I know of there at the market
and he is a Sikh, with the broadest Australian accent I have ever heard. He is giving out dhal soup, a fried pakora
sandwich, and tracts on the Sikh religion.
(None are left on the ground and that says something I think.)
Well, I best close for now and
get this all in the post. Our love and
appreciation goes to all of you as you continue to help us and to support us in
this ministry. Without you and without
God, we would not be able to do what we are doing. May all of the glory go to His name.
Your fellow missionary,
Marvin Ancell
Last update : 08-02-2008 14:12
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