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‘Hey, Dad, the sermon today was 1 hour 7 minutes and 20 seconds long. All in Portuguese.’

My gap-year daughter was on her regular Sunday collect-call home from her short-term mission placement in Brazil. ‘So I spent the time memorising the books of the Bible. Do you want to know what they are? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus….’ My first thought was: ‘I’m paying for this call while you rattle off all the books of the Bible’. My second was: ‘Isn’t it great that my teenage daughter wants to knows her way around the Bible?’

EN: How would you sum up the success of A Passion For Life 2010?

TH: A Passion for Life 2010 was hard work!

Mission is hard work and it costs us to do it. It means that we stick our heads up and make some noise in our communities; it means inviting people to events and therefore introducing the risk of being known not only as Christians but as Christians who believe some serious things and want other people to believe the same.

Ray Porter

Date posted: 1 Jun 2013

Bill Lees died on March 14 in Reading where he had lived since 1966.

His earlier ministry in Malaysia had continued to be a major part of his life so that it was appropriate that the main address at his Thanksgiving Service was by Dr. Philip Lyn from Skyline Church, Kota Kinabalu, East Malaysia.

I lead a pastoral team with a Christian charity, Mission Care, which provides nursing and residential care for vulnerable adults in South East London.

Over 800 students each day in February heard compelling presentations of the Christian faith.

Richard Cunningham (Director of UCCF: The Christian Unions) spoke at the university mission in my first year as an undergraduate in Cambridge 17 years ago, and the student evangelism bug that I caught back then hasn’t left me. So it was especially thrilling to see him welcomed back by the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU) to speak at their ‘What Kind of God?’ mission event from February 4-8, alongside Os Guinness (respected author and social critic).

Can prisoners be transformed by the gospel? In theory, we know the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. But here are three recent examples where that is exactly what has happened in practice.

‘C’ came from a church background but had lost his faith when his little nephew died. By the time he was released from prison he had rediscovered his relationship with God and was committed to serving him in the mission context in a local church. ‘J’ decided, when he came to prison, that it was now or never in terms of finding out about Christianity. He will be baptised shortly, and is seeking to give his life to Jesus. ‘S’ has been a Christian for a number of years but has struggled with drugs. Although very knowledgeable about Jesus, the basics of his faith have been rebuilt, and he too is now considering baptism. That is a major step for him, because, as he says, ‘It’s a once and for all’ — when he is baptised, there is no turning back to his old ways.

Edith Rachel Merritt Seville Schaeffer was born in Wenzhou, China, to missionary parents working in the China Inland Mission.

Though she lived in China only until the age of six, she retained vivid memories and a life-long love of China. The family moved back to the States and, while attending Beaver College, she met Francis Schaeffer. They were married in 1935. He had three pastorates in the States in the then Bible Presbyterian Church, with her always completely involved. Their daughters Priscilla, Susan and Deborah were born during those years while their son Franky was born in Switzerland in 1952.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 May 2013

I grew up in a boarding school. My father was a boarding school house master, and we lived on the grounds of this community.

I did not grow up in a manse or vicarage or parsonage. My children, of course, are growing up ‘Pastor’s Kids’ (PKs). How can I help them flourish in that environment?

Ray Porter

Date posted: 1 May 2013

Andrew Butler, who died from cancer in Taiwan on March 2, had served for 40 years with OMF International.

St. Andrew’s Parish Church, Leyland, packed over 70 events into an amazing nine days under the umbrella of ‘Life Week’ in March.

A team of 12 students from Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, led by the enthusiastic octogenarian evangelist Dr. Michael Green, spearheaded the mission. The church and surrounding venues were consistently packed as exciting and varied events drew in many from this enclave of South Ribble Borough, Lancashire.

A young Nigerian boy looks out of his bedroom window. Hoping to see the flash of headlights. Hoping to hear the sound of tyres on the gravel drive. He isn’t waiting for the postman to deliver his shiny new bike. He isn’t waiting for his mate to collect him for the long-awaited cinema trip. He is simply waiting for his mum and dad to turn up to take him home — the mum and dad he has never met.

He waits his whole childhood. He thinks he would have made quite a good son, despite his high energy levels. He certainly would have made them proud the day he won his Olympic medals, or the day he was awarded an MBE for services to athletics. But Kriss Akabusi spent his whole life in foster care and care homes; potential parents visited him, but none picked him.