Only 124 days left till Christmas! What gift can you give to someone who already has so much? Why not be a blessing to others and give a gift that will make a difference in the lives of others. Our 2013 APWM Christmas Catalogue is now available.

HOW IT WORKS

1. You choose the item(s) on our list that you would like to purchase for your friends/family.

2. Send us your order, including payment. Please note that these gifts are not tax deductible.

3. We will send you the cards you have ordered. You are then free to give these cards to your friends/family for Christmas. The cards state which gift(s) you have purchased, on their behalf, for someone in East Timor or Myanmar. The card does not state the monetary value of the gift.

4. APWM then sends the money to our partners in East Timor or Myanmar. They will then purchase the gifts locally and distribute them to those in need.

You can download the 2013 Christmas Catalogue here.

For NSW people. Reachout is on again this year at Katoomba, 10-11 August. Reachout is a terrific Missions Conference held at Katoomba on the second weekend in August every year. It’s a chance to learn more about serving overseas and features terrific speakers and seminars. Most of the mission agencies, including APWM, will be there so that people can discuss different parts of the world where they would like to serve. Be there!

Registrations are now open!

http://www.reachoutmissions.com.au/default.aspx

In April the Gospel Coalition ran a Mission Conference prior to their National Conference. The talks are available here and include one from Queensland Theological College’s Gary Millar.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/2013/

You can now order your 30 days of Prayer for the Muslim World Ramadan 9 July – 7 August 2013. $5.50 includes postage.

http://30days.com.au/30_days/Welcome.html

Isn’t it great when you can give a gift that lays a foundation for ongoing blessing for years and years to come?

Many people from throughout the Presbyterian Church of Australia gave christmas gifts to the people of Timor Leste last year. Some gave toiletry needs, others gave animals, others gave money to help people buy books and uniforms for their school children.

Let me tell you about the Synod’s plans for goats. (the same principles apply to other gifts as well).

In years gone by, people within the church in Timor Leste have received the gift of a goat, but what does a poor family do with a goat? They seek to meet their most immediate and pressing need of course – they eat it!  Once they have eaten it, to state the obvious, there is ….. no goat! There HAS been a worthwhile benefit – a hungry family has been fed, but there is no long-term economic improvement.

The Synod of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Timor Leste has thought very carefully and prayerfully about how to make the best use of the gifts we have given and decided to try to develop a new programme.

A congregation will be allocated a number of goats. That congregation will form groups made up of several families which will care for each goat.

No individual family will be able to eat the goat because they do not wholly own it and they will therefore be responsible to and accountable to the whole group. The group will not receive their goat until they have built a fence, which will show that they are ready to start to care for their new animal. Each group will allocate tasks for their members.

All being well, in six or twelve months they will be able to sell their fat goat and buy two young goats – one for them to keep, and the other to start another group. They will keep on this way until they own many goats (or pigs or cattle), and each time they make a profit they will share it with the others and give 10% to the local church.

Did you give a goat? No! You really gave a gift of opportunity – opportunity for economic foundation and development. The simple things can make a BIG difference.

THANK YOU!

We pray that in the future, some people in Timor Leste will look back and remember that in 2013 they received a gift from God’s people in Australia which marked the point in their lives when at long last they were able to build a future for themselves and and their family and to support the work of the local church because someone just gave them a start.

Rob Duncanson

May 2013

There will be another Christmas Catalogue this year.

http://bondiatl.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/giving-gifts-that-give

ReachOut 2013 ‘Every Tribe. Every Nation’ August 10-11 @ KCC, Katoomba

Why not publicise this in your congregation?

ReachOut conference is an annual Missions Conference held the 2nd weekend in August, in Katoomba NSW. It’s an awesome opportunity to explore what God is doing globally through His people; people that have answered the call to work cross culturally within Australia & overseas. Over 60 organisations have reps to chat with about what their mission is involved in and where, and how one can be involved as a goer or sender.

http://www.reachoutmissions.com.au/conference.aspx

Andrew and Marilyn Schache have just received their visas to travel to Vanuatu tomorrow. Please join with us in praising God for this! If they hadn’t arrived today they wouldn’t have been going tomorrow.

Check out Mission Platform‘s new site at www.missionplatform.com for listings of mission opportunities in Australia and around the world! Please share with anyone you know who might be interested!

The Bislama New Testaments have arrived in Vanuatu! For those of you who don’t know about this, Vanuatu ran out of Bibles for sale. Individuals and congregations in the Presbyterian Church of Australia gave money so that approximately 24,000 New Testaments could be given to the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu for free distribution. Thank you to those who prayed and gave.

Michael McLennan, an Australian living in Vanuatu, coordinated this project. He writes ”

The opening of this container was the fulfillment of close to a 4 year project. It really just felt like a great release, and we pray that God’s Word would not only go out but we would see a revival in relationship with God through His Word in Vanuatu. We had a small dedication of the arrival of the NT’s 40’000 in total as sponsored by predominantly three groups. Presbyterian, AOG and Health Care Fellowship (Australia) and Island Mission Partners. Special thanks to the Bible Society of the South Pacific for sharing in the vision and making the text available for free distribution, and to Lori Ellison’s help in the development and initial support of the project, and to Kevin Murray and the Australian Presbyterian World Mission without all their support this project would not have been possible. From this point all associated groups are now responsible for there own distribution. The Presbyterians believe that almost all their copies will go out within about a month…. The two biggest things leading up to this in terms of words said, “are they really coming”, and really excitedly now that they are here they say so happily “look how small it is”. To read the Bislama people have been used to a bible that is the size of an oversized NIV study bible, so this makes it so portable for people to go and take the Word with them. Michael.”

I was recently in South Sudan and took the opportunity to interview Motor Yat. Motor works within the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan in the training of elders. Motor is in good health and God-willing will be returning to Australia mid-year for home assignment.

Kevin Murray

The interview is in two sizes

Small

http://vimeo.com/62648204

Large

http://vimeo.com/62645110