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.
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