Blythswood, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Blythswood Update – March 30th 2022

by Robert MacNaughton

Daniel Centre

Development work is progressing slowly at the Depot.

One of the lads at the Centre who had joined the Centre in 2021 for only a few days before going to Germany had returned recently to Cluj and asked the Centre to get an ID card for him.  When the Centre manager took him to the government office, Alex was arrested as they left.  He had been a wanted man, on the run for theft.  Now 3 other lads at the Centre are running scared, all having been charged with theft in the past and appealing.  If they lose the appeal, they will go to prison like Alex.

Some of the Ukrainian refugees at the apartment have now moved on to Germany, but have been replaced by 3 ladies, 2 children and a grandmother.  The father of the children is a driver in the Ukraine and would like his family to now return to their home town there, but his wife still sees it as too dangerous.

Romeo, the 1 Centre lad to have moved out to his own apartment under an EU scheme, is doing well.  Istvan has now left his relatives, but they have sent him to Germany to work and he is in a mess there.  Daniel has suspended his studies till September but is working hard on a construction site in the meantime.

Talita Kum

Blythswood are still raising money for the TK3 and TK4 project but would prefer to give up on the EU grant which would have tied them to the current Council building.  That has all kinds of issues with the current Council in Jimboliya, so the present strategy would be to move the TK3 and TK4 project into the TK2 building.

Barnabas, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Barnabas Update – March 30th 2022

by Robert MacNaughton

(excerpts)

50 Nigerians killed and 100 abducted in Kaduna

Barnabas Fund, 29 March 2022

At least 50 people were killed and more than 100 abducted, including a church minister, when nine villages in northern Kaduna State, Nigeria were attacked late on 24 March and into the early hours of 25 March.

A church and homes were razed, around 30 vehicles set on fire and cattle stolen during the assaults on the 9 communities.

Former Kaduna State Governor, Ahmed Makarfi, said the violence was especially distressing as it came soon after more than 30 Christians were killed on Sunday 20 March in attacks on 4 villages in southern Kaduna State by suspected Fulani militants.

Makarfi, a Muslim, said both atrocities were a “stark reminder of the perilous times we seem to be in”.

“They are as abhorrent as they are condemnable,” he added.  “No group or individual should be allowed the latitude to reduce human life to this or any other level of insignificance.”

He urged government and security agencies to come up with a new strategy to end the violence.  “It is my earnest prayer that we don’t witness this again in the state,” added Makarfi.

Jacksons, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Jacksons Update – March 30th 2022

by Robert MacNaughton

(excerpts)

Give thanks for a powerful week of Restorative Justice at Allandale Correctional Centre.  The 5 men in Dawn’s group came with the desire to change. 

One man admitted his guilt after hearing testimonies of 2 very different victims of rape and male abuse – a man can’t run away from what is said before him in an RJ situation.  He now wants to apologise to his victim. 

The work is gruelling (6 hours a day, Monday to Saturday).  Pray for spiritual, emotional and physical health.  Thank God for the good welcome from the prison staff.   The tables are set up –  we don’t have to wash up at home for 30 people.  It makes a difference.

The Andrew Murray Centre would like to use NetACT to make an online catalogue available for Andrew Murray’s personal library housed on their premises.   Pray for Fraser’s progress re-organising the Hugenote College online learning system.

Andre Pekeur, Drakenstein Medium A chaplain, last week sustained serious burns needing skin grafts and may lose the use of one hand.

5 men following Jesus in Drakenstein Correctional Centre try to live for Jesus in difficult circumstances.

Our passports, old and new, all arrived safely.  Fraser can now plan a NetACT training trip to Namibia and no longer needs a PCR test to travel in either direction.  He may soon do training at Morija Theological Seminary in Lesotho. 

 The first in-person AGM for 3 years is being planned for Johannesburg in June or July without NetACT founder Jurgens Hendricks’ experience to guide us.  The office staff are trying to source funding for flights from the many countries which contain member institutions.

Blythswood, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Blythswood Update – March 16th 2022

by Robert MacNaughton

Daniel Centre

Hungary’s Africa Fair has been interesting but not greatly productive for Blythswood’s Kenyan NGO.

Development work still drag on slowly at the Depot.

The lads at the Centre should prepare their own food once they have found work, some three of them have not been looking for work and still expecting the Centre to provide food for them.  They have not been taking this well.

8 adult Ukrainian refugees and 5 children have now taken up the offer of the apartment behind the Centre and have even offered to help out at the Centre but Balazs and their night supervisor Sergiu had asked the three Centre boys who are not working to help get the apartment ready for the refuges and the lads were very rude and unwelcoming to the Ukrainians who fortunately could not understand the insults being made in the Romanian language.

Three new candidates for the Centre have now been interviewed, but all of them from the same Gherla orphanage where the three recalcitrants also came from – where they spent most of their time on the TV and computer games.  Much prayer is now needed in those areas.

 Talita Kum

The December deadline has now passed for getting an EU grant in time to build TK3 and TK4 and so the project will have to be abandoned.

The taxes levied on Talita Kum last year have been repeated this year.  Adi has now regrouped the Talita Kum 1 children into Talita Kum 2 to save on energy prices which have now doubled with the present crisis.

Barnabas, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Barnabas Update – March 16th 2022

by Robert MacNaughton

Believers in authority in Christian-minority lands  (excerpts)

Barnabas Fund, 15 March 2022

On 4 March Priya Rajan, a 28-year-old Christian woman, was sworn in as the mayor of Chennai (Madras), India’s fourth largest city and the state capital of Tamil Nadu.

This is Mayor Rajan’s first official post, and she demonstrates a genuine desire to help and serve the people of her community.

Similarly, last month saw the appointment of a Christian, Boulos Fahmy Eskandar, as the head of Egypt’s highest court. 

Remember in prayer Mayor Rajan and other believers called to positions of authority in Christian-minority contexts.

In January 2021 another Christian, Listyo Sigit Prabowo, was appointed as National Police Chief of Indonesia.

It is to the credit of India – and to any country where Christians are a minority – when Christians are able to seek and to hold high office.

We are called to pray for “all those in authority” (1 Timothy 2:2), but we must particularly remember our brothers and sisters called to such positions in Christian-minority contexts.

We can pray that the Lord will grant them wisdom, keep them safe, and make them witnesses of Him as they serve their nations and their communities.

Jacksons, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Jacksons Update – March 16th 2022 (excerpts)

by Robert MacNaughton

The webinar on Chinese and Islamist influence on Africa went smoothly.  

 Hugenote College supplies space on their online learning system for other organisations to offer continuous professional development courses and have asked Fraser to create a separate system dedicated to the CPD courses. He had a positive meeting with the other NetACT staff yesterday, defining the role NetACT is to play in the church in Africa and will now tweak the way the internet library portal is set up. 

Dawn is leading Drakenstein Bible study for 2 weeks.  Khanya asks for prayer that his eyes would be healed to see well enough to read his Bible.  Ebrahim told God he would fight a man in his room who was always trying to demean him.  The next day the man was found with a dagger and put under discipline elsewhere in the prison.

There’s support and enthusiasm from inmate to governor level for the music group there.  This could well be an acorn which develops into an oak.

Pray for Taskforce of God, a group of former prisoners, holding several meetings at the Zebulun church.

From next Monday a Restorative Justice course will be run in Allandale prison in Paarl.  Please pray for stamina. 

Our passports are safely on their way back to us.  Pray they reach us in good time.

Blythswood, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Blythswood Update – March 2nd 2022

by Robert MacNaughton

Daniel Centre

Balazs and the Hungarian volunteer were able to accomplish all that they had set out to do in Kenya – the volunteer helping set up chicken and fish farms, and Balazs getting the building projects underway and counselling the 6 recipients of Hungarian scholarships for further education.  They now await planning permission for the school extensions.  Balazs and Louisa leave for Hungary’s Africa Fair today and return on Sunday evening with potential chaos at the border because of the Ukrainian crisis.

3 of the Centre lads have had varying degrees of suicidal thinking, Soreen being the most serious.  Istvan has left the Centre against their advice to spend a week with friends who have young children and has been warned that he will now no longer be allowed back to the Centre.

The Centre are offering the apartment behind it to Ukrainian refugees but most refugees are staying close to the Ukrainian border in hope of a return home or are heading through Romania to the West.  Agnes has herniated discs in her neck and they are considering both Romania and Hungarian options for treatment or surgery.

Talita Kum

The December deadline for getting an EU grant for building TK3 and TK4 is fast approaching and there is a serious likelihood now that the project will have to be abandoned.

Barnabas, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Barnabas Update – March 2nd 2022

by Robert MacNaughton

Christians driven from their home in Laos

(excerpts)

Barnabas Fund, 25 February 2022

Villagers drove a Christian family of twelve from their home in southern Laos in anger at the family’s practice of a “foreign” religion.

On 9 February the family home in Savannakhet province, was burned down in the attack.  Tensions were already apparent after the family’s father died on 4 December 2021. Villagers physically prevented the family from using the village cemetery for the burial.

The family had also been evicted from the village in 2017. “They don’t want us here. They say they don’t like the religion of a foreign country.”

An official for the district gave assurances that a police investigation into the incidents was underway but suggested that their “initial information is that this is a personal conflict, not a religious one”.

Other Christians pointed out that the village chief had participated in the attack at the funeral and lamented the lack of response from local authorities.

“The police always side with village authorities and other villagers too, so we have nowhere else to turn for help.”

Christians have been the victims of similar attacks in rural areas of Laos, a communist state with a predominantly Buddhist population. 

The country’s Law on the Evangelical Church, approved and signed into law in December 2019, gives Lao Christians the right to conduct services and preach throughout the country and maintain contacts with believers outside Laos.

Jacksons, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Jacksons Update – March 2nd 2022

by Robert MacNaughton

(excerpts)

The Hugenote College academic year has now started.   Pray for new students from disadvantaged backgrounds. College life can be a culture shock for them.

NetACT has just discovered a new member we didn’t know we had!  Pray that their ‘halting’ start with NetACT won’t affect their current encouraging enthusiasm.

Dawn’s offer to start a music/song-writing group at Drakenstein Maximum has been encouraged by the Head of Education there.  Today Ebrahim in Maximum said that in 2021 he’d prayed that God would send someone to help bring music to Maximum.  He sees his prayers answered.

The men need self-awareness to appreciate how their victims feel. They can still find it hard to understand why victims react as they do years after the crime.  

A recent expense has been sending passports back to the UK to be renewed.  Almost the exact amount for courier and renewal fees has been unexpectedly given.  This sort of thing happens too often to be a coincidence.

Today Oliviero in Drakenstein Medium A told Dawn that, at the weekend, he spoke on the phone to his sister who was trying to get in touch for five years. She’d been in hospital with drug related issues for most of the time.

Daverick in Maximum, a member of the 28 gang, came to Bible study 2 weeks ago to find out more about Jesus – he spent most of his life outside trying to suppress emotions stirring within him.  He hasn’t yet decided to commit but is reading his Bible and considering it.

Dawn leads the studies for the next 2 weeks as her colleague Hylma is on holiday.  Pray for God’s help in preparing the sessions.

Blythswood, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Blythswood Update – February 16th 2022

by Robert MacNaughton

Daniel Centre

Balazs and family have come down with Covid when he was due to leave on 15th for Kenya to start the building programme that they had received funds for from the Hungarian government and also from a Romanian donor.   He was due to have a PCR test on Sunday 13th, get the results on Monday 14th and fly out if tested negative.  A volunteer was scheduled to fly out with him to set up a Tilapia fish farm to help the school there to self-finance in future.

All the lads at the Daniel Centre are now back at their jobs after having had to self-isolate for Covid.

There have been no other significant developments at the Daniel Centre since the last update.

Talita Kum

There is nothing new to report on Talita Kum for the time being.