Saturday Post -- 09/05/15

A group photo featuring many of last Sunday evening's participants.
That's Diego standing behind me as I do my 'human-tyrannosaurus-rex'
impersonation. Gotta love those wide-angle lenses.

A very busy week here for both of us, but plenty of positives to be mined from it as we look back.

Last Sunday evening saw the church mark its tenth anniversary with a meal and a time of thanksgiving for the Lord’s faithfulness over the last decade. We were somewhat forced into the timing (we don’t usually have services on a Sunday evening) by the by-election that day, having originally planned for a lunch, which is the big meal of the day here. However, with a day-long curfew imposed here for non-ballot-related activities until 6pm, people’s desperation to get out of the house probably helped us in the end, with a good number of church attenders’ relatives coming along too. Free food isn’t too much of a hard-sell either.

This week also saw the beginning of the church’s new programme, words which all too often spell doom for one’s family and social life, except in our case, it meant fewer meetings and activities, with the Tuesday evening meeting dropped, and a single midweek meeting on Thursday; it will alternate between a prayer meeting and a Bible study. We’d also opted to push the start-time back by 30 minutes to give people more time to get themselves ready (with the siesta splitting the work-day, and many schools open only in the afternoons, a lot of people don’t get home till around 7pm).

I’m very cautious of the numbers game in church – the most important things for us, indeed, are invisible – but I don’t think it’s unfair to say that prayer meeting attendance is a telling indicator as to the seriousness with which a church body takes its faith. And so, we were greatly encouraged to see a much higher turnout than usual, as we prayed for each other and for post-earthquake Nepal.

I took on a new discipleship case this week, albeit an old face. Long-time readers may remember Diego who, with his brother Daniel, have been a part of the music ministry here with me since their early-teens. Diego takes his piano-playing seriously, and he was one of the first faces we saw when we returned in January, having moved to Santa Cruz to begin a music degree at university. Sadly, about a month ago, he was forced to return to Trinidad due to some quite stunning ineptitude on the university’s part. 

Bloodied, but unbowed, Diego has enrolled in a similar (if lesser) course here in the last few weeks, while he has been around the church once again with his family. Diego has great potential (he even preached a couple of times last year) and so I thought it would be of help to him to offer discipleship for a couple of hours each week as he seeks the Lord’s will for his life. As with others I’m discipling right now, we’ll be working through Vaughan Roberts’ tremendous ‘God’s Big Picture’.

Such ‘one-on-one’ time is an increasingly prominent part of our work here as we seek to establish a mature church, and it’s played a big part in Amanda’s FT work over the past few weeks as well, as part of her HR director role. Every six months, the staff here are required to complete a fairly thorough appraisal, either of the Foundation itself or of their own work. Amanda has then been tasked with sitting down with each member of staff to talk in more depth about their responses. This time, the focus was the Foundation, and so Amanda’s been able to go back to the other board members with some revealing insights from staff members as to the way things are done. But, in a fair few cases, it has also proven a great opportunity for Amanda to simply get to know the individuals better, and even, in the case of one or two, explain the gospel message in more detail than is usually possible in the morning devotional time.

And keeping the Foundation’s eyes on the eternal picture has increasingly been a concern of the board, with a number of big decisions over the last few weeks reminding Amanda and her colleagues of the need for greater prayerfulness. With that in mind, a ‘Prayer for FT’ evening was scheduled for Friday evening. My own involvement with FT is now limited to communication with supporters, with church work really my main focus since the turn of the year; essentially, I get office-space there, and that’s about it. But I am all too aware of the needs that exist, and so I was thrilled – for Amanda and for FT as a whole – to see so many staff and family members come last night simply to pray. I doubt we were the only ones who left last night consumed by a thought that is often uppermost in my mind whenever I dust off my knees after some quality time before the throne of grace: why don’t we do this more often?

Prayer

• This Thursday sees the first Bible study of the new programme, where we're going to be working through the Spanish translation of 'Dig Deeper', a terrific little book that helps people understand how to read and teach the Bible better. We have asked that anyone in any kind of teaching role in the church be present, and of course it will be open to anyone else who is interested. Please pray that the church would see the importance of taking the time to understand what God has revealed to us.
• One of the big issues the FT board are facing is the resignation of our ENT specialist, who will be leaving at the end of the month. Pray for wisdom as they seek a replacement.
• Please pray also for the planning for the proposed Langham preaching course at the beginning of June. Craig met with the other members of the planning committee this week, having received word of another (much bigger) event that has recently been organised for Trinidad's pastors over the same weekend. We've opted to go ahead with our preparation nonetheless, as the arrangements are already in place, and our numbers will likely pale in comparison with those of the other event anyway; please pray for understanding from others, that we would not be seen to be 'rocking the boat' in any way.

Praise

• For the spirit of prayerfulness that has come about in recently -- and particularly in the last week -- at FT.
• For the Lord's faithfulness to the church over the last ten years.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda