cont.....
They were both now members of MAF Canada.
David and Lorraine were asked set up a new day school in Dar-es-Salaam and Haven of Peace Academy opened in September 1994 with just one class, after much hard work, adapting and equipping a suitable building. The school was established primarily to serve the children of missionaries and aid workers to enable families to stay together while their parents continued to work in Tanzania. However, there was soon a waiting list as parents of many nationalities and faiths (or no faith) came to appreciate the genuine care the children received and the fact that making money was not the school’s main aim. It was made clear to all parents that his was a Christian school and all children would receive Christian teaching. I remember being told about one Russian boy (I think the son of a diplomat) who went home and taught his family how to pray!
Some of you will remember the way God led the development of that school, the search for a new site and the growth of the school to the point where it was ready to provide a secondary as well as a primary education (David and Lorraine were able to visit the school in 2009 and see pupils they had taught as five and six year olds graduate, now vibrant Christians.) It was at this point that David and Lorraine flet God wanted them to hand over the work in Dar-es-Salaam and in 2002 they returned to the UK. After six months home assignment in the UK and Canada they came to live in the then empty manse in Dover Rd, Folkestone, while David studied for the Baptist ministry at Spurgeon’s College in London.

He was appointed student pastor at Thetford Baptist Church in Norfolk in 2003 and became their full time pastor when his training was complete. He and Lorraine ae very happy in their ministry in Thetford. They have built the church up and were hoping to come off Home Mission support. However, several deaths and families moving away have reduced the congregation, and consequently income, recently. When Andrew and I saw them in the summer they were almost expecting to be told the church could no longer support a pastor. Happily, Home Mission has come to the rescue and the future now looks more certain.

Please continue to pray for David and his ministry. People come and go in the life of churches and it is easy to lose track of where God has led them. Folkestone Baptist Church was a staging post in David’s Christian journey. I wonder how many others who have passed this way through Folkestone Baptist Church have gone on to serve God in interesting ways?

Ann Tolputt

PRAYER POINTERS:
Please pray for David and Lorraine as they continue to do the Lord’s will in Thetford.
How many other people can you think of who have left the church here for new adventures? Please continue to uphold them in prayer also.
Have you ever worshipped at another place for a significant time before coming here? Try to maintain old friendships and pray for the fellowship that once sustained you.

Kath Koster writes again
Robert Moffat
Many people are familiar with the name of David Livingstone, but I suspect fewer know much, if anything, of his father-in-law, Robert Moffat.
He was brought up near Edinburgh by Christian parents who filled his mind with missionary stories. After time as an apprentice gardener, and a short experience as a sailor, he determined to join the London Missionary Society. He was rejected initially but a second application was successful.
In 1816 he and eight others were set apart at a London chapel for the work of LMS. One of those was John Williams who died in the South Seas at the hands of cannibals. Robert set sail for South Africa arriving in 1817 aged 22.
The Government officials frowned on missionary activity as being likely to provoke unrest. The journey into the interior was dangerous and arduous – he almost died on several occasions of poison, starvation and lions.
His first attempt to establish a mission station was on the Orange river. Here his first convert was the most notorious bandit and murderer in the country. His name was Afrikaaner, and on Robert’s return to Cape Town with a transformed Afrikaaner, people were stunned by the change in one who had been a terror to so many.
Two years later Mary Smith arrived, to marry Robert, and they set off for Bechuanaland where they toiled together for 50 years, becoming a wonderful husband and wife team. The local tribe was gripped by witchcraft and demanded that they leave, but they refused, gaining surprised respect for their bravery. However, it took nine long years before the first converts were baptised and a church established.
Robert applied himself to learning the language, eventually translating great hymns into Tswana and then Luke’s gospel, and then ultimately the entire Bible. He took a translation to Cape Town for printing, which the printers refused to do. So he got a printing press and learned it’s use, to do the work himself.
He returned to England (where Livingstone heard him preach) to get the New Testament printed there.
The whole translation of the Bible took 29 years in all. He also translated the Pilgrim’s Progress into Tswana.
He developed a friendship with the king of Natabele (now Zimbabwe) who was a vicious tyrant, yet respected Moffat for this work. His own son John Moffat was one of the first missionaries to work among the Matabele.
Robert and Mary had seven children. Five were involved in missionary service. Robert thought education very important in missionary strategy. After 53 year’s service in Africa the couple returned home and for the last 13 years of his life he travelled through Britain promoting missionary work in Africa.
More have heard of his famous son-in-law, a great missionary explorer and campaigner against slavery, David Livingstone, but Moffat was more of an evangelist and translator and has the honour of being the first to translate the complete Bible into an African language.

MOLLIE MESSENGER MEETS.....
Kenyon Morrison. Kenyon works for the NHS and is nurse who specialises in care for those with HIV/AIDS. We find Mollie and Kenyon in the Home Ground coffee shop in the Old High St, Folkestone.
MM: Wow. Gingerbread cappuccino!
KM: It’s nice, Mollie.
MM: Your work must be demanding, Kenyon. Tell me about a typical day.
KM: (chuckling)- typical day? I wish I could, Mollie! Each day is so different. My job involves the day to day visiting of client to offer nursing and medical advice and also to help emotionally. I am also involved in furthering research – I link in with one of the London teaching hospitals.
MM: What about yesterday, then, Kenyon?
KM: Ah yes. I saw Wilma (not real name). Wilma is a nice lady. She is always tired and needs help with claiming the right sort of help. She cannot cope with her seven-year old son and he is showing signs of misbehaving at school. We need to get help in for them both before the situation worsens.
MM: Oh. I didn’t know that a nurse would do that. I thought you went in and changed dressings and stuff like that.
KM: We do that as well, Mollie.
MM: What got you into HIV work, Kenyon. Did being a Christian influence your decision?
KM: HIV and AIDs are a real problem, Mollie. Even now there is a prejudice against those with the condition, I am sorry to say, by some Christians who adopt a holier than thou attitude and feel people who are infected have brought this upon themselves. Of course, there are those who live a promiscuous lifestyle, and they need to think about living their lives differently, but we should not be judgemental.
MM: Do you differentiate between those who have been infected by, say, a blood transfusion or an unfaithful spouse, and those who have multiple sexual partners?
KM: No, Mollie. I do not. I do sometimes find it difficult as I cannot always recommend abstinence as strongly as I would like to.
MM: Is your faith being compromised?
KM: I don’t think it does, Mollie. My colleagues are respectful of my faith and I think some of the stories about Christians in the NHS being somehow picked on are misleading. That said, it is hard demonstrating the love of God and trying to pass on the message of how he wants us to live our lives as something good, not restrictive. Many young people, and not only young people, are having a good time sleeping around and see no reason to stop. They see God as a sort of paternalistic spoilsport. It’s not only HIV. There are all sorts of sexually transmitted diseases out there. I don’t condemn. I am not without sin myself so will not cast a stone, so to speak. But God is God, and we are not. We need to listen, and realise that sleeping with multiple sexual partners is not what our bodies or our souls were designed for. I am a single man myself, and of course celibacy is hard for me at times.
MM: It’s in the things that are hard that prayer becomes real, doesn’t it, Kenyon.
KM: Sure does, Mollie. Mind you, there are stresses that married people face that I don’t have to. Snoring partners, unruly children... at least I know that no-one is going to snatch the duvet at night.
MM: (laughs) Tell me a bit about the research, Kenyon.
KM: We are linked with St. Thomas’ hospital in London. Some of our patients are on drugs trials being pioneered at that venue. It has made a real difference for many people.
MM: Great. Tell me, Kenyon – do you have a song or hymn which inspires you?
KM: I enjoy the spirituals, Mollie. The one that always uplifts me is “Oh Happy Day”,

PRAYER POINTERS

Please pray for all those who are affected by HIV/AIDS. There are numerous websites to look out to find out more about these conditions.
Please also pray for the various research units in the country and for those like Kenyon who come alongside people at a vulnerable time in their lives