December Prayer Update

Finishing Enroute

This Saturday Katy and I bid farewell to ten other members of our enroute course, who are all now heading off to their various places of calling, from Argentina to Ethiopia! We became very close to these guys over the last month and it was sad to see them go.

Katy was not so sad to say goodbye to the moustache I had been nurturing during the month of ‘Movember’ - I can't think why! 

Christmas Market

We have been running Katy’s stall again down in a wintry Greenwich Market this week. It's been a great place to spot Christmas presents when business is slow. 

Link Visits

Veteran Cars outside Immanuel, Streatham

Last month we enjoyed our visits to two of our link churches Immanuel, Streatham and St Mary’s, Charnwood. We had a slow but entertaining journey through London on our way to Immanuel as we were caught up in the London to Brighton veteran car run. Despite an average speed of four miles an hour we were pulled over by the police on suspision of having stolen our car – it must have been the extra facial hair!

Neema on Vimeo

The Neema Crafts Centre

While back in the UK for their furlough, Andy and Susie Hart have been working tirelessly to raise the support they need for a new guesthouse at Neema Crafts. When they arrived back in September their target was £50K, they are now only £5K off this figure (PTL!). The guesthouse should encourage much-needed tourists through the centre.

It is well worth viewing the latest short videos about Neema Crafts on the Vimeo website: http://vimeo.com/15281476

If the link doesn’t work search for ‘Neema Crafts’ on www.vimeo.com

Prayer and Praise:

• Praise God for our tutors on the en route course who have supported us so well and for all of the top quality teaching we have received over the last 10 weeks
•  Praise God for helping Andy and Susie to raise money for the guesthouse.
•  Thank God for all the woodworking tools people have been generously passing on to us for the new workshop – pray this continues!

• Pray for all those heading out to their mission fields after Christmas, that they would be protected and sustained in their work.
• Pray for Andy and Susie Hart as they prepare to head back to Neema in January. 
• Pray we choose the right courses to study in our second term at ANCC.

Thank you for taking the time to pray for us and the work of Neema, you are a vital member of the team.

Love Ben and Katy X

Kirby Muxloe

This Sunday we really enjoyed our visit to St Andrew's church of the Kirby Muxloe Benefice. A friendlier congregation would be hard to find.

Speaking from the Anglican Lectionary was a new experience for me, but fortunately it was Ephesians 1 for All Saints Day which happens to be a favourite passage of mine. There were three ordained ministers on hand in case I slipped into heresy though.

Through a contact we made at Kirby Muxloe we hope to link up with 'Tools for Self Reliance' which is an organisation that collects old tools, repairs them and then sends them to developing world countries. However, if you happen to have any old chisels, planes or tenon saws that you don't mind sending on to Neema do let me know...the older they are the better.

Movember

All over campus this month men are disgruntling their wives by growing moustaches to raise money to fight prostate cancer. The annual event is called 'Movember' and has as one of its slogans 'every man deserves a little luxury' (see: http://www.uk.movember.com/). This is to appologise for any extra facial hair if we are visiting your church over the next few weeks.

 

Be still and know...  (from Katy)

Every term each pupil and staff member at All Nations College keeps the tradition of Week 5 ‘Quiet Day’. It’s just as you might expect, all the students are asked to keep this day in silence as a time for reflection prayer and Bible Study. All lessons, activities and duties are stopped for 24hrs, where even spouses are encouraged not to talk to one another. As you can imagine, some people find it harder than others!

As a ‘reflector’ on one of our latest personality type tests I embraced the day and loved the stillness and harmony of the campus. Just for a brief moment, all busyness and hurry stopped, as we took time to seek God. I just hope we are able to keep this important discipline once we have left All Nations.

Scarecut

The ultimate test of faith in one's marriage is to allow your spouse to cut your hair. As there will be few hairdressers trained in cutting 'wazungu' hair in Tanzania we are having a couple of practical lessons. This week it fell to me to give Katy's barnet a trim. After a brief demonstration from an experienced hairdresser, I was let us loose with the clippers.

While other couples around us got on with combing and cutting in quiet harmony, Katy was less assured of my capabilities as a coiffure. An hour of intense concentration followed, and not a small amount of front-seat driving, but I think you'll agree the style I have named the 'asymmetric bob' quite suits Katy.

Next week Katy gets her own back...

October Prayer Update

Dear All,

Please would you remember us in your prayers for the following:

All Nations CC, Easneye

• Praise God for All Nations Christian College.  We have really appreciated the committed staff members, all the other students and the 'En Route' course we are studying on in this first term. Please pray for extra strength for all of the mission partners in training here as they make such big transitions in their lives. 

• Thank God for the hard work and vision of Susie Hart - the founder of Neema Crafts. Susie recently won a 'Women of the Year' award (see http://mission.typepad.com/) . Please do pray too that this can raise lots of awareness for the project in the future.

• Pray we can raise enough support to go.  We are now at just about 2/3rds of our target figure, but without evidence of support we won't be going. So pray that more individuals can start to get a vision for being involved with what we are doing. See Links, 'Partner with us'

• Pray for courage, boldness and faith as we look to the future of Neema. In my old home church in Blackheath, someone reminded me recently of Joshua 1:9: "Be strong and of good courage; be not frightened, neither be dismayed; for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." A command given to Joshua, but an encouragement to us as we look to trust God more. 

• Pray that God can provide us with the right team of support in Tanzania and the UK. In September a new Bishop of Ruaha - Joseph Mgomi was instated. Please pray that he has a vision for the future of Neema as his predecessor did; his support will be vital. We are also putting together a panel of advisors from the UK, who may later make up part of the Neema Crafts UK trusteeship. Please pray for discernment in asking the right people for this and that those who take it up can have the time to commit to the project. 

• Pray that we can use our time at All Nations as fully as possible. As you may have guessed, Katy and I are really enjoying our time here at All Nations. Someone compared the En Route course we are doing to the 110m hurdles, because there is so much to cover in a short space of time. Please pray that we can read the most useful books and give time to reflect on things that will be most appropriate to our time in Tanzania, as well as have the energy to keep going!  

Thank you for taking the time to read through this. Your prayers are greatly appreciated.

Love Ben and Katy XXX 

Neema founder wins women of the year award

Click on the following website to hear Susie Hart, winner of the this year's 'Women of the Year' award talk about the work of Neema Crafts.

http://mission.typepad.com/

What is Mission?

J John said, ‘A missionary is not someone who crosses the seas, but someone who sees the cross.’

This week En Route has got us thinking about the nature of mission and reminded us of its centrality to the Christian faith.  We have looked at the commissioning of the disciples in all four Gospels, and at Jesus’ perfect model for mission. One of the most encouraging aspects of the week were ‘The Bible’s Big Story’ in which were reminded of the big picture of the Bible and God’s overarching plan for brining hope to the world, first through Israel and ultimately through Christ.

It has been fascinating too to find out about the ‘majority church’ and to reflect on how the huge expansion of Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa and China will influence faith and mission in years to come.

A Barnabus in Homerton

St Barnabus , Homerton

This Sunday Katy and I enjoyed our first visit to St Barnabus, Homerton. We were close to not finding it on time as we’d lost all our directions and our sat nav had packed-up a week before.  After some ‘laying on of hands' prayer the sat nav was miraculously healed and another congregation was able to hear about (and smell) the wonders of ele-poo paper!

This church visit was particularly special for me as their curate, Naomi Nguruvi had been a good friend and encouragement to me during my time in Tanzania in 2004.  It was fascinating and helpful to hear about her cross-cultural journey from Tanzania to England and how she was lead into becoming ordained, something that is still impossible in her own country.

Hello All Nations!

This week was our first at All Nations Christian College, where we will be studying for two terms. It has been great to meet students from around the globe and profound to worship God with brothers and sisters of so many nationalities and cultures.

We are living in a corridor in the old ‘Easney Mansion’ (pictured) with four other young couples - of whom Katy and I are the oldest! The house was built originally for the Buxton family who played a key role in the Abolition of Slavery Bill - in fact you can find a Buxton on the back of a five pound note.

When the family moved into their new home in 1868 they received a letter from "Granny" expressing the prayerful longing that the building "might be ever inhabited by faithful servants of God ... that Christ might be honoured and served there... and that this place be a fountain of blessing to the church and to the world". It is great to see men and women around the college living out the answer to this prophetic prayer.

mmmm...cake

Turning 30 en route 
The other morning I opened our bedroom door to find someone had imprisoned us with a lattice of loo roll. This was just one of a number of pranks and humiliations received at the hands of my fellow students to celebrate my turning 30.

A large Nigella chocolate cake from Katy more than made up for this, despite having to wear a pink dressing gown to our first ‘En route’ class. En Route is the name of the 10 week course katy and I are completing this term, in which we will be developing our awareness of different cultures and world religions and how we relate and integrate in our chosen contexts.

Investing in the Future

Leighton Ford said: 'For the sake of the many invest in the few'. Last weekend Katy and I enjoyed a day entitled 'Investing in Mentoring' run by Paul Wilcox, a man who has invested his life into mentoring and discipling over 50 young(ish) men around the country.
 


Paul speaking at All Saints, Worcester

 We're all used to the idea of mentoring partnerships from Jethro and Moses to Yoda and Obi Wan. The day inspired us to think about how we might invest into our own mentoring partnerships and how this might 'maximise the grace of God' in our own and others' lives. Katy has been a mentor for the last few years and would say that it has benefited her own spiritual life as much as her mentee's.

'Mentoring is an intentional, dynamic relationship of trust'. The picture shows Paul explaining how mentoring can be like balancing precious crystal glasses on a tray. As long as the mentor keeps his eyes fixed ahead (on Jesus) he can help to take the mentees where they need to be.

Paul is currently writing a book on mentoring and I will post a link to this when it is published - as one of his mentees I'm hoping he won't mention me as a particularly difficult case.

Business Link
If you have ever considered setting up your own business Katy and I would both recommend signing up to a three day 'business -link' course. They are -currently- well subsidised by the government (so very cheap!) and give you a really good overview of things you'll need to consider; from writing a business plan to marketing, book-keeping and tax. It was also fascinating to meet such an eclectic bunch of entrepreneurs on our course with business ideas ranging from shoe design to burlesque entertainment ... though no pictures I'm afraid!

Business link offer many other courses and services and can be found on:  http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg

Link Church Weekend

We have had a real answer to prayer this week. Katy has found just the right person to take over her business. Rather than losing all of her hard work, a care-taker manager will be stepping in to run KatyRay for the coming few years. In an attempt to build up enough stock for Christmas, Katy has been frantically trying to stitch up 180 cushions by tomorrow! 

Completed project - cause for choclate cake at W&C

I am very sad to have had my final week at Williams and Cleal. Though I hope to come in for one final day to finish my Mindy cabinet.

We enjoyed visiting two of our link churches yesterday. The first, Holy Trinity Barrow-Upon-Soar hosted us for their 9.45 service. It was a new experience for us processing out of the vestry with a robed choir, and to be seated at the front as guests of honour felt very Tanzanian! Everyone there was hugely welcoming and bought loads of Neema produce in support of the project. 

Neema stall does well at Holy Trinity B-U-S

Having enjoyed a sizeable bring and share lunch, we headed down the M1 to my old family church St John's Blackheath in time for the evening service. It was a trip down memory lane for me as I saw many of the guys who had seen me through my teenage years in the congregation. St John's already has a strong link with the Diocese of Mara, Tanzania and we hope to stay connected to projects like 'Go Make A Difference' in the future, see: http://www.gomadintanzania.org.uk/

Crafts at Bath Spa

Some Raku Results

The last three days at Bath Spa Uni have been great fun. I'm not used to being all arty and experimental, but I was forced to be by our excellent ceramics teacher as he showed us just how many possibilities there are with slip casting and Raku.

Katy and I now need to figure out an appropriate technology version of slip-casting for Neema as some of the resources (such as deflocculant!) may be hard to come by.  Raku firing definitely seemed more appropriate however, and we are looking forward to seeing what we can do with Neema's mud kiln. 

Katy's day of book-binding went well, with very professional looking results. If anyone has an old bookbinding press lying around then we'd love to find a use for it! Otherwise I'm sure can make our own out there.

I have just added a links section to this blog. Katy's website is worth a look >>>

Prayer Update – August 2010

Hi and welcome to our first blog! We hope to keep you updated each month with what's been going on and what you can pray for as we look to move to Neema Crafts, Tanzania in April. 


Latest News

Some of the Core Trainees 

In July, we completed our ‘Core Training’ with CMS at All Nations Christian College in Hertfordshire. This was an intense fortnight of workshops and seminars that focussed on understanding different cultural value systems (and reflecting on our own) , creating successful communities and giving us practical advice for mission.

One of the best aspects of the fortnight was to live in community with other partners in mission and to hear their testimonies. Throughout the week we broke into smaller prayer groups and we were staggered by the number of specific prayer requests for each other we saw answered.

The Neema Crafts Stall 

Having finished our Core training, Katy and I headed north to Newark, where we spent the week selling Neema Crafts products at the market place. It was great to see how popular the Neema products were. The highlight of the week was spending each evening with Andy and Susie Hart (the founders of Neema) and hearing their incredible stories from Tanzania. The low point came when our two man tent flooded very early one morning! Fortunately, a couple from St Marks, Harrogate rescued us with a more waterproof one.

Theo (2) and Amy (9)

Katy and I have since been in Cornwall for a week with my family where we spent nearly every day on the beach playing cricket and digging holes with our nieces and nephews.

The Next Few Weeks

On Friday, Katy and I will meet with our new committee members to discuss future plans for Neema. It will be really important that this is group is able to have the vision and wisdom to guide Neema in the directions God would have it go in the future. 

My No.7 Plane 

Next week we will be going to Bath Spa University to learn about slip casting, book-binding and raku-firing; all useful practical training for Neema! I will then complete my final week cabinet making at Williams and Cleal and Katy will finish her screen-prints for her business - www.katyray.co.uk. After this we have a 3 day Business Link course to attend and on the 22^nd of September we will be moving to All Nations to begin our ‘En Route’ missions training.

Prayer points:

Please pray with us...

• That we can have a successful first committee meeting and the new members can feel inspired and excited about helping us to steer Neema in the future.
• That we have teachable spirits and pick up useful skills for Neema.
• That God can lead us into making the right decision on the future of Katy’s business
  
• That our move to All Nations goes smoothly

Thank you for you support.