New Hope Community Services
Some prayer updates from New Hope:
In the next week we have two new families moving in. One is a single mom from Eritrea with 3 young kids - ages 5,4 and 2. They will bring a lot of energy to the building! The other is a young Arabic speaking couple - the wife is from Ethiopia and the husband is from Sudan. They met as refugees in Lebanon. Please pray for these new families as they are welcomed into our community and adapt to life here. We received dozens of applications for these vacant apartments - the need for affordable housing for refugees is great.
One of our residents was a beautician in Afghanistan, and was targeted by the Taliban because her profession was "unislamic". This month at New Hope she has used her gifts to be a blessing to all the women in the building - cutting hair, painting nails, and sewing dresses! It is wonderful to see how people can flourish when they are given freedom to be themselves.
Pray for our annual fundraising gala on October 22! Better yet, pray and attend! Would love to see you there.
The genesis of the event, which will hopefully resurface, came from conversations between Pastor Darin Philips [Lead Pastor of Oceanview Community in Ladysmith] and Krista Penner [Team Lead: Leadership Development at the Fellowship Pacific Ministry Centre]. The instructional sessions were delivered in tandem by Krista and Regional Director, David Horita who took the opportunity to remind all in attendance of his honest Vancouver Island upbringing. Their two very engaging sessions were entitled: Culture, values and your team dynamic; and, Your personal leadership paradigm.
More than 25 were in attendance, some having travelled for more than half an hour! Most of the day’s attenders were staff team members from one of five churches:
● Oceanview Community, Ladysmith
● The Meeting Place, Nanaimo
● Parksville Fellowship Baptist Church
● Courtenay Fellowship Baptist Church
● Campbell River Baptist Church
The morning began with an introductory prayer mingle and a challenge from James 5:7-11 encouraging us to be patient when things look discouraging. The day was wrapped up with a celebration of communion. Time was also dedicated to the reiteration of Fellowship Pacific’s Mission, Vision and Values, including a reminder to continue to strategically pray for the goals of our 2022 Mandate to be realized:
● 30% increase in congregations
● 2,500 identified leaders in training
● Every church instituting an intentional discipleship plan
● People coming to Christ in every church every year
The lowlight of the day was a game that was played midday designed to expose team members to the confusion that results when objectives are not clearly understood or communicated. If any other ‘area’ of our region is interested in putting a day like this together, please be sure to mention your interest to Krista and talk it up with whatever congregations are within easy driving distance...
- By Dan Cody, Team Lead, Church Management Solutions