Download your copy here Anchor Youth Programmes

Check out Hannah Donald’s and Grace Falls music on these Youtube clips….

About 30 are off to Mystery Creek and the Parachute Festival this weekend.  Anchorkids is back starting the year on February 14 with the Runrig team. The r12 programme is launching the following week and will take us through the next six weeks, finishing at El Rancho at the end of March.  Make sure you find a small group to do this programme with.  The weekend at El Rancho with Andy Eldred will be a lot of fun.  Darryl, Stella and family are planning to join us at the end of the term, Ruth is coming on as a youth intern.  In all this, we need to keep our focus on the one we serve. I am sure that God will use the r12 programme is going to touch our lives on this point.

Its been nice to sit back and listen to others stories these last few weeks, to think about what Brad said about Jesus being a Mythbuster – the one who loves me as I am and I should love him back with all my heart, to think about what Sandy spoke of describing his own walk away from God and back again and to understand something of the fickleness of our own hearts .. ….. I think maybe we all twist 1 Corinthians 13 in our own way.  I missed the two weeks before that but am confident that they were also heart messages - from the heart, to the heart and pointing to the heart of God.

The newsletter is planned to kick back into life this weekend so make sure you get your copy.  Cover the year in prayer these next few weeks.

Don’t try to be the best church in your community, become the best church for your community.  http://www.maclakeonline.com/

Geoff

You can download the full Freest newsletter at http://freesetglobal.com/news/13/66/January-2010-Newsletter.html.  We were able to send the Freeset team $14,000 last year to assist in this mission of freeing these women from exploitation and finding the freedom they can only know as followers of Jesus.

Everybody tells me I’m hard to buy presents for. I guess it’s hard to get excited about stuff, especially when most of us have too much already. I have to say though, if a present can be likened to being able to see freedom at work in the lives of women, there is no Christmas present quite like it. A couple of weeks ago one woman gave me the best Christmas present ever. Let me explain.

While Gina was trapped in prostitution she had no room to call her own. She used to stay under another woman’s bed in a brothel. I guess there were times when she had to wait while her friend finished with a customer before she could emerge from underneath the bed. I presume when she had her own customers she was permitted to use the bed for a fee.

Fortunately, not long after joining Freeset, she was able to move into a new room with her six year old son, a place they could call their own. Well, you could call it a room but it’s more like a closet, a room created from the empty space underneath a skinny staircase. The highest point is four feet and the lowest – well – you get the picture. Still, Gina has been able to leave the sex trade and that’s worth celebrating.

There are times though when Gina, at her new job at Freeset, falls off asleep. You see, being H.I.V. positive means she is not always feeling Hi Everyone, on “top of the world.” Thankfully, the antiretroviral medication helps bring some stability to her health.

Good rooms are hard to come by in our community so I’m always on the lookout on behalf of Gina and other women. I mean, wouldn’t it be great for Gina to have a better room. Just two weeks ago Gina heard about a room coming available in the very building she was living in. With a little bit of help with the deposit she would have a much better living space for both her and her son. I could see just how much she wanted that room.

When the landlady approached me to see if Freeset wanted to take on that room I was faced with a huge dilemma. Gina wasn’t the only one in need. Women trapped in the sex trade often have lots of, what I call, parasites feeding off them – people who sit on their backsides doing nothing but using the women as a source of income. Their aim is keep them in the trade and live off them as long as they can. Of course these women can never be free until the parasites are dealt with.

Sadly, even though Putul has been at Freeset for a while, she is yet to be free from prostitution. Although this is hard to understand, her parasites are her mother and brother who pressurize her to stay in the trade.

Talking things through with Putul, we both agreed the best way forward was to find a new room away from her family parasites. Now you can see the dilemma. Who gets the room? Gina or Putul? And who gets to decide?

Knowing that Gina had her mind set on that room I decided to talk with her first. ‘Gina, I know you’d love to move to the bigger room and it would be great for you and your son. The difficulty is that Putul is still selling her body and desperately…” Before I could finish my carefully crafted sentence of explanation Gina interrupted with the biggest of smiles. “Give her the room. I have freedom now. I’m free and she’s not – please give the room. I’d love for her to have the room.”

My Christmas present: To be further down the track in understanding what real freedom is. I guess sometimes we think freedom is the absence of conflict and pain and the ability to have total control over our lives. Gina has neither and yet can stand before God and others and say I’m free. Of course, it helps me understand a little more about this baby born in a stable who didn’t have a room either.

Kerry

Other news ………..

Here is the BrightHope News letter – a mission partner of ours CLICK HERE

Here is the Delhi Bible Institute News – another mission partner CLICK HERE

And some news from Christian and Catherine Moreau in France Click Here

And some news from Richard and Nancye Yarrall in Los Angeles (read on for this)

Dear friends at The Anchor

Christmas time!  We had a good celebration with our Latino folk at church yesterday with carol singing, Christmas message, a few items and then some gifts for the children.  In recent weeks we have seen a few saved and there are about 5 or 6 who want to be baptised.

A newsletter we sent out last month highlighted our Colombian Workers’ Fund.  During the last few days we have received thank you notes from Colombians working in Bogotá, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga and even India thanking us for gifts received and for some, gifts coming at an opportune time.  These notes talk of Colombians being saved and baptized, assemblies growing and new buildings being rented or built.  The Lord is building His church in Colombia and it is wonderful to have a part in it with these workers.

Next year, 2010, the World Cup Soccer Championship will be played in South Africa.  Our colleague Pedro Dillon is already working on a souvenir evangelistic booklet to be published in both English and Spanish with our target group being Latinos in North America.  We will be involved in the follow-up for the offer of a free Emmaus Bible Course.

A big thank you for your continued fellowship and prayers.  Your gift of $400.00 was received a few days ago.  The gift is very much appreciated and we thank the Lord for it.

Merry Christmas.   With love in our Lord, Richard & Nancye Yarrall 

Our Summer Newsletter  Click Here

Some Summer reading  Church Today  or Alive or Christian Woman

Some Summer Listening  - check What we are singing under the Resources Menu at the top of the screen or listen to a sermon that you may have missed during the year under Download Teaching Sessions

Its not just what you know – Its what you live

We are planning to run an exciting new programme in our small groups starting mid February.  The weekend will also be based on the same topics.

r12 is a guided pathway for Christian growth based on Romans chapter 12, where the apostle Paul begins outlining the personal and practical applications of the doctrine he lays out in chapters 1-11. Paul describes the Christian life in five categories: relationship with God, with the world, with ourselves, with others, and with non-believers. 

Each of these categories has a response, that the Bible says is a sign of a mature and equipped follower of Jesus Christ. In the r12 discipleship programme, there are ten studies and we will look at these responses: Surrendered: Separate: Self Assessment: Serving and Supernatural

The Newsletter is here ……….CLICK here for the NEWS