Please Pray for the Lord's Work Among Persians in London

Hello friends, please pray for us and our Persian friends here in London. Our long serving MTW colleagues David and Marcia, who've led the ministry to Persians here at IPC-Ealing for 13 years, had to leave to return to the U.S. permanently and quite suddenly last week when David was diagnosed with some significant medical concerns, after 40 years in the mission field.

Shanna and I have been helping David and Marcia with this ministry to Persians over the past year and gaining their friendship and trust, but they are absolutely gutted and feel that they have lost their spiritual parents. Many of them come to us already quite traumatised from their experiences in Iran and Afghanistan and their journey here to London, as well as the loss of loved ones and severed ties from their families and communities as part of the cost of following Jesus as saviour out of Islam. So this loss brings up quite a lot of unresolved past grief and trauma for many of them. We are deeply saddened by David and Marcia's departure as well.

We are trusting the Lord to continue this ministry to Persians now in David and Marcia’s absence. Some have said that they will no longer come if David and Marcia are not there, but we were very encouraged on Sunday to have a small group of about a dozen Persians come to church and our Persian Bible Study after the service, and even welcomed a new young grad student from Tehran named Sam, who just moved in down the street from us. We were also really encouraged to have two new Persian ladies come to our English class last night and invited them to join us for church and Bible study this Sunday.

Over the next couple of weeks, we hope to meet with as many of our Persian friends who are already Christians one-to-one as possible to care for them, as well as to encourage them to continue on in trusting the Lord together with us at IPC-Ealing. We also hope to meet with those who are still learning about Jesus to continue with us in investigating the Gospel.

Thank you so much for your ongoing prayers and partnership in bringing the Gospel to the nations here in London.

Ray and Sara: Teaming Up to Teach English to Spanish Speakers in West London

You guys are probably tired of hearing about just our family all the time, so we thought we'd do a post about some very special folks: some of our Free English Classes teachers, volunteers, and students! Each Tuesday night our team of teachers and volunteers made up of IPC-Ealing members and regulars arrive at the church at about 6:30 pm to get ready to teach English to folks from the surrounding community, many of whom are non-christians.

Pictured on the left are our dear friends Ray and Sara who volunteer every week to teach our most basic beginner level class together, which they've created completely from scratch. At first glance, Ray and Sara might seem like an odd pair to team up and teach English together, but Jesus seems to love bringing folks together in His church from different generations and walks of life. Ray is an 80 years young retired Northern Irish school teacher, principal, and basketball coach (he spent most of his teaching and coaching career in Canada before retiring back to the U.K.). Ray grew up as a Northern Irish Catholic in Belfast and came to faith in Christ later in life after living through "the troubles" in Northern Ireland as a younger man. Ray wakes up and reads his Bible and lifts weights every morning, and loves talking with us about American football and basketball, especially his beloved Notre Dame Fighting Irish, which we try not to hold against him!

Sara is 19 and was born and raised here in London after her Spanish mother Andrea and Ecuadorian father Mauricio met here, got married, and decided to call London home. So because of her unique story, Sara speaks perfect Spanish, as well English with a lovely west London accent, having lived in London her entire life. Sara and Andrea are relative newcomers to IPC-Ealing and members of our House Group Bible Study that meets at our home every Thursday night, and as a new believer who we have the privilege helping to disciple, Sara is hoping to be baptised at IPC-Ealing soon. It has been such an encouragement having Sara and Andrea as a part of our lives through church, House Group, and now Free English Classes every week!

On the far right is Elvira ("El-veer-ah") who's been coming to Free English Classes since the very first week we started offering classes back in January. Elvira is from Colombia, and on her first night at Free English Classes Elvira called her English speaking son to have him explain her situation to us. Elvira's son explained to me that he had heard about our Free English Classes on Facebook and that he was hoping we could help Elvira. He explained that Elvira lives with him and his family and even though she has called London home for over 12 years, Elvira does not speak any English at all, and because of this, is often very dependent on her family to be able to communicate with the outside world and do the most basic things in London.

After coming to class the first couple of weeks, Elvira was so encouraged by what she was learning and the relationships that she was building with others that she invited her niece Mariana (standing behind Elvira) to come along as well to Free English Classes. However, Elvira and Mariana spoke so little English that they were not even able participate very effectively in our beginners level class. We didn't know what to do or how to help them most effectively.

Enter Ray and Sara. With Ray's years of experience teaching school and Sara's perfect bi-lingual skills in both English and Spanish, they both had a heart for helping Elvira and Mariana and decided to team up to create a unique “basic beginners” curriculum to help them, so that hopefully they will come far enough along to eventually be able to join our beginners class. About three weeks ago, Fausto from Argentina (back centre) began coming to Free English Classes as well, and after feeling a bit overwhelmed in our beginners level class, and as a fellow Spanish speaker, decided to join Ray and Sara’s basic beginners class along with Elvira and Mariana.

It is such an encouragement to see how God is at work through Ray and Sara at Free English Classes. Please pray for them both, along with Elvira, Mariana, and Fausto. Due to the language barrier that exists, as you might imagine, being able to communicate the Gospel with them (which is a big part of why we are teaching free English classes in the first place) verbally is especially challenging for all of us but Sara, but we are trusting that over time the Lord will use our (and especially Ray and Sara's) service and care for Elvira, Mariana, and Fausto to encourage them to learn more about the good news of Jesus Christ along the way and over the long haul of building a relationship with them.

Free English Classes Update - We have Covid, but God is Still at Work!

The last three months have been a whirlwind and I think we owe you guys an update. Since another bout of Covid has given Shanna and me a little "forced downtime" this week, we can finally write something up. Back over the Christmas holidays, we shared with you that we were launching a new “Free English Classes” program for both men and women in the evenings, and helping to better resource the church’s existing women’s English classes that Shanna had already been helping on Wednesday mornings. Several of the ladies in the church have been doing this very faithfully for years, but had been feeling a little overwhelmed by coming up with new curriculum every week, and a bit short handed recently as some of the older ladies began to feel the need to step back from their role as their participation has become more difficult with age.

Well, after spending the Autumn researching options and recruiting and training a team of teachers and volunteers from within the church for the new co-ed class, we launched the new co-ed class in the dead of winter in mid-January and we have been absolutely amazed by what God has done so far. Since 17 Jan we have met weekly on Tuesday nights for the new co-ed class and have had at least 22 students every week and a record breaking 34 students tonight, in spite of Shanna and I both having to miss due to Covid. Prior to tonight, Shanna and I have been very hands on with all of the details, but our team of volunteers and teachers pulled it off tonight with flying colours and we are so proud of them all.

Even though all of our teachers and volunteers are church members or regular attenders at IPC-Ealing, with only 1 or 2 exceptions almost all of our students have been complete newcomers to the church who have never set foot inside our doors before. In fact, many of them have never set foot inside of any church before. They are from backgrounds ranging from across Asia including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan, Japan, and China, to European nations like Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Belarus, Hungary, Spain, and Italy. We’ve even got a little table of Colombians who speak almost no English at all who’ve been helped by our 80 year old Northern Irish friend Ray who speaks no Spanish whatsoever and our 19 year old Home Group member Sara, who will be getting baptised at the church soon. I think I may have to tell you more about this fun little group that Ray and Sara are helping in a future update soon 😉

This is what we’ve prayed and continue to pray for- for Free English Classes to be an opportunity for our church members at IPC-Ealing to interact with and lovingly serve our non-christian neighbours who live all around us, in a very practical way, and that helps them forge positive relationships with them for the furthering of God’s kingdom. And by God's grace we are already beginning to see this happen as Free English Class members have begun trickling into our Sunday services and Home Groups during the week like our new Ukrainian friend Julia and her daughter Mira who’ve come to our Home Group the last 3 weeks in a row now (another upcoming update perhaps?). Please pray with us as we continue to build friendships with the folks who are coming to Free English Classes and help those who are interested to make the transition into church life at IPC-Ealing and saving faith in Jesus Christ.

The women’s class has continued to go strong, and just a couple of weeks ago experienced a record attendance of 40 after experiencing record low numbers this time last year. However, due to the challenge of meeting during the day when many potential volunteers may be busy with work or family, they have unfortunately continued to struggle with recruiting new volunteers and teachers. Please pray for the Lord to raise up new volunteers and teachers to help with this urgent need.

Thank you for all of your continued prayers and for your partnership in the Gospel with our family here in London!