Jacksons, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Jacksons – May 17th – Update 2  (excerpts)

by Robert MacNaughton

NetACT are exploring ways to work with other similar groups to avoid duplicating efforts and want Fraser to attend meetings in Kenya at the end of September.   

Fraser’s test of the new Mukhanyo library system went well last week.  He is still working towards a deadline of having the system live and running by Monday 3rd July. 

Allandale Restorative Justice is complete.  Men are confessing and taking responsibility for the first time.  Thank God for the 3 women who spoke of the crimes they had experienced and for the men who apologised to them as proxies for their own victims – healing on both sides.

Pray for those who took part in the Restorative Justice course as they go back to ordinary prison life.  Some of our team, former gang members themselves, hugely impacted the RJ men, showing it is possible to leave the gangs, turn to Christ and live a different, fulfilled life.  

A man in Maximum, only eligible for parole if he admits his guilt and apologises to his victim, insists he is innocent and would be lying if he said he committed the crime.  May he have the strength and faith, as a follower of Jesus, to tell the truth, even if it means that he forgoes any chance of parole.

The Restorative Justice process changes lives at a deep level.  Many inmates are crying out for it; frontline prison officers see the difference it makes.  Pray that the Medium A RJ will go ahead and that the person in a high position blocking this and other spiritually beneficial events will be moved aside and a godly person fill the place.

Blythswood, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Blythswood – May 17th – Update 2

by Robert MacNaughton

Daniel Centre

On Tuesday this past week, Balazs took the visiting Blythswood trustees to see the student ministry (Puluz) and the Christian Publishing and Café ministry (Koinonia) in Cluj and then the Elpis Christian Kindergarten facility and hour away before returning to the Daniel Centre for dinner with 13 lads, half of them ex-residents of the Centre.

On Wednesday they visited the Bonus Pastors therapy centre for recovering addicts with its 17 residents, mainly 18-50 year olds, before spending the night at Jimboliya to spend Thursday seeing around Adi’s ministry at Talita Kum.

On Friday they drove into Serbia to first see the Jovica church plant which faces a lot of opposition from the Belgrade Orthodox Church.  Saturday was for visiting the work of Dragisa and attending a service with about 30 present, mainly young people who had come out of an Orthodox background.

On Sunday, they were in Nis for a service led by a father and son team, Cedo and Emmanuel, from the Balkan Theology Faculty and visited an up-market gypsy encampment there before the trustees flew back to Scotland and Balazs to Cluj from Belgrade.

It was an altogether encouraging visit for all concerned as even Balazs himself had not been to all of these places himself.

Barnabas, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Barnabas Fund – May 3rd – Update 1

by Robert MacNaughton

Updates on the persecuted Church (excerpts)

Barnabas Fund, 26 April 2023

  • Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day was observed in Christian-majority Armenia and in other parts of the world on 24 April. Between 1893 and 1923 around 3.75 million Armenian, Assyrian, Syriac and Greek Christians perished in the Ottoman Empire in a policy of extermination of Christian minorities.  Pray that this will prevent further such atrocities.
  • An illiterate Christian woman and Muslim man were arrested and charged with “blasphemy” in the Punjab, Pakistan on 19 April. Asked to clear a store room at their school, they gathered waste paper and burnt it, not realising that some of the pages contained Arabic verses from the Quran.  School pupils and residents in the district raised the alarm and informed the police.   Ask that justice will be done for both.
  • Seven people from a group of eight were abducted on Sunday 16 April when returning from a church service in Benue State in Nigeria’s Middle Belt.  One of the group was spared abduction due to having a leg injury which would have slowed the kidnappers down.  Pray that the Lord will draw close to those abducted, strengthening them spiritually through their ordeal, and that they will all be released without harm.
Jacksons, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Jacksons – May 3rd – Update 1  (excerpts)

by Robert MacNaughton

Fraser continues to work with data from the old Mukhanyo Library system.   On testing a sample file of 100 records, he could only match 50 from external sources.   Moving the day-to-day running of the NetACT journal to a different organisation is coming to a head, with an important meeting on Thursday.   

Give thanks for answered prayer.  Last week we asked you to pray for Llewelyn in Maximum as his Muslim children stopped visiting him after he showed them his Bible study certificates.  His son visited at the weekend and told him he’d bought a house to give to his father upon his release.  So he would have the necessary address to go to rather than live with the sister-in-law who keeps pursuing him.  God honours those who flee temptation and live godly lives.

Pray that Howard can overcome his pride, start reading his Bible again and for the discipline, courage and awareness not to be sucked back into gang activities by roommates.

Restorative Justice starts on Monday at Allandale prison.  Thank God for the way lives will be changed.  The brother of Chantelle, who will be leading the main sessions, died in a car crash recently.   Pray for her as her scattered family struggles to get together to mourn and support each other.  

Quite a few of the Medium A regulars are due to be released on parole in the next few weeks.  Please pray they would go to places which will not drag them back into crime, find jobs and, most of all, find a Bible-believing church to attend.

Blythswood, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Blythswood – May 3rd – Update 1

by Robert MacNaughton

Daniel Centre

Balazs, because of his increased commitments for the overseas work of Blythswood, has given up much of the financial responsibilities of Blythswood Romania to Christina.  Agnes, Balazs’ wife, who currently runs a project for 30 impoverished Romanian families and also helps administer the aid being funnelled into Ukraine for Christian Aid, is also being considered for beginning a safeguarding project for Blythswood’s partners in the Ukraine.

There have been two new arrivals at the Daniel Centre, with one of them having spent a year independently in Bucharest after leaving the orphanage of his upbringing.  This year has obviously affected his attitude negatively.  There is also internal debate in the Daniel Centre as to whether Cosmin should be asked to leave because of his ongoing drug influence.

Blythswood board and trustee members visit Romania and Serbia next week to become more acquainted with the work there, only one of them having visited that region before.

Talita Kum

The trustees will spend a day in Jimboliya, acquainting themselves with the work of Talita Kum.  The owners of the land behind the Talita Kum houses, which Adi hoped to get for a sports area for the children, have given no indication of reducing their asking price for the land.

Barnabas, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Barnabas Fund – Update 2 – April 23rd

by Robert MacNaughton

Updates on the persecuted Church (excerpts)

Barnabas Fund, 12 April 2023

  • A church in Ondo State, Nigeria reopened on Easter Sunday, 9 April, 10 months after 40 worshippers were killed in an attack in June 2022. Mark the reopening, Bishop Jude Arogundade said, “Many people have even forgotten what happened in this church ten months ago … without the world paying attention.” 
  • Iranian Christians Homayoun Zhaveh, 64, and his wife Sara Ahmadi, 44, were informed on Easter Sunday, 9 April, that their third application for a retrial has been accepted by the country’s Supreme Court. Homayoun and Sara will have their case reviewed 9 May.  Homayoun, with Parkinson’s disease, and Sara, his main carer, have been in prison since August 2022. 
  • At least nine were killed in Christian-majority Chin State when Myanmar military jets bombed a school on 10 April. The head teacher and his wife were among the dead.  A week earlier, artillery shelling killed a 50-year-old man and injured five other people in a mainly Christian village in Shan State.  
  • Ten million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are in need of humanitarian assistance, a crisis exacerbated by renewed violence.  Hundreds of thousands of farmers – driven from their lands in provinces targeted by armed gangs including a jihadi group affiliated to Islamic State – have been unable to plant for the next harvest.  More than 600,000 have been internally displaced since June 2022.
Jacksons, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Jacksons – Update 2 – April 23rd (excerpts)

by Robert MacNaughton

The government has extended the visa waiver until the end of 2023 though changed visa wording implies we can’t leave and enter the country with it.  Our Wellington congregation were very pleased and the Drakenstein Maximum men burst into a round of applause!  

Fraser made better than expected progress with the Mukhanyo library data and he heads to Pretoria late June for training before the system goes live at the start of July.  Updating software on the NetACT servers did not start well but was sorted out 30 minutes after last week’s prayer notes were sent out. 

There are dates in May for the Restorative Justice in Allandale and we hope to hold RJs at Drakenstein Medium A (adults) and B (juveniles) this year – but there is opposition.  Pray.  

Hylma, Dawn’s 79 year old Drakenstein prison ministry colleague, hopes to relocate to England by the end of June.  Hylma has had a severe back problem recently but the men look upon her as a mother. Thank God for her 19 years of faithful service in the prison. 

Dawn will most likely take over the Tuesday Bible studies, if her non-South African status doesn’t cause problems.  If she has to lead, one-to-one counselling with the list of men who want to speak to her will be impossible. 

Men in Maximum and Medium A say their lives are being changed by these Bible studies.  Pray that whoever is blocking the RJ course in Medium A be removed and that the Drakenstein area manager change or be reassigned.

Blythswood, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Blythswood – Update 2 – April 23rd

by Robert MacNaughton

Daniel Centre

A mixed bag from the Daniel Centre.  Cosmin and Alex are on a final warning.  Though still on drugs, they are at least not using in the home and both have been more positive in helping and keeping their rooms tidy.  Alex now has a scholarship for free driving lessons.  Ionuz, who had been away for 6 months and returned in February , was fired from his Casino job for stealing.

Danut, with a slight disability, has become very polite and keeps his room tidy.  Damian, the delivery lad with three bikes, has become more negative and late with his various payments.  He is on notice to leave the Centre at the end of April.  André, very impertinent, is constantly losing jobs and blaming the employers for firing him.  He must find a job and stick with it by the end of April.

New arrival Emil is well behaved with a positive attitude and found a job within 2 days of arriving.  Another new arrival, Rares, is becoming less positive but has already paid a year’s rent for his room at the Centre.

Almost none of the lads attend the fellowship meetings with Danny and Sergiu but Sergiu takes some of them to his lively Pentecostal church with him every fortnight.  Sergiu himself is a university graduate and an ex-Daniel Centre resident who has a real heart for the lads.

Blythswood board members visit Romania and Serbia for a week this coming month.

Talita Kum

No updates from Adi this time.

Barnabas, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Barnabas Fund – April Update 1

by Robert MacNaughton

Updates on the persecuted Church

Barnabas Fund, 22 March 2023 (excerpts)

  • Uyghur house church pastor Alimujiang Yimiti (Alim) has been released after 15 years’ imprisonment in China and is now home with his family. Alim, a convert to Christianity from Islam, served as a pastor in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, until his arrest in 2008 for alleged anti-state activities.  He was finally sentenced in August 2009 after being subjected to two trials held in secret, with his family prohibited from attending.  Give thanks for Alim’s release.
  • At least 10 residents of a community in Kaduna State, Nigeria, were killed in an attack by suspected Fulani extremists on 14 March. The attackers also looted a shop before being repelled by police.   Around 84% of the Atyap people are Christians.  Ask the Lord to comfort the bereaved and heal those wounded in the Atyap community.
  • A Christian aid worker from the United States who was abducted by Islamists in Niger more than six years ago has been released. Jeff Woodke, 61, was taken by armed jihadists from his home in northern Niger, in October 2016.   Give thanks for the release of our brother and pray for his recovery following his lengthy ordeal.
  • The blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian Christian region within Azerbaijan, has been continuing for more than three months.  Residents suffer shortages of food and medicine, along with power and energy outages.  Pray for a peaceful resolution.
Jacksons, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Jacksons – April Update 1 (excerpts)

by Robert MacNaughton

Thank God for music.  We had three guitar players and an amazing session of heartfeltly sung simple worship songs before we started the actual class.  Whatever our circumstances, music can make such a difference.

Fraser is still struggling with the difficulties of setting up a new library system for Mukhanyo Theological College.  The amount of remedial work involved is now starting to impact some of his day-to-day work for other colleges.  Pray he finds a way to manage everyone’s expectations and that he’d be able to communicate what he needs from Mukhanyo in a very clear way which they will understand and fulfil.

Pray for one of the men at the Medium A Bible study.  He was sexually assaulted by a member of staff at a different prison and is being encouraged to make a case which he has reservations about.  Pray for healing, courage and wisdom.  Unless offences are challenged and brought into the light there will be no change, whether in the prison system or country at large, but it requires courage to do so.

Unless we hear from the Department of Home Affairs by this Friday (March 31st) we will have to leave the country the following week.  The men at Drakenstein prison are praying and have faith that all will be sorted out. Thank God that he holds our future, even when we aren’t sure where we’ll be.