Back home we had prayed for the ministry among young people, including a youth camp, so it was great to hear that a number of young people had decided to become Christians.

We have also been encouraging people from our small congregations in the Trafalgar area to support the Eliezers’ work. While the parish council makes a contribution to CMS, this can seem rather remote, so in our services we have shown pictures of the different outreaches in operation. We collected $400 towards a music ministry with young people which we were able to present to the church when we visited.

It was encouraging to see a small school that had been started for children who don’t get to the free morning school, such as the flower sellers who need to sell their produce while it is still fresh. Two of the girls gave us small garlands of local jasmine made by their mothers. As well as the usual lessons, the children also learn English and how to look after themselves. Some of the children gather on Sundays to hear more Bible stories and learn specifically about Jesus.

In our parish, we are doing a lot of outreach to children and families. Like in Cambodia, the challenge is to connect in meaningful ways with the families as well as with the children. Perhaps we’re not so very different, after all.

You can hear from Inpa and Vana Eliezer first hand at Summer under the Son next January.

Branch Matters

October 2014 Vol 8 No 9

Your Church, their Church, our Church

CMS VICTORIA630 MITCHAM RD MITCHAM, 3132

03 9894 4722PO Box 2150

RANGEVIEW, 3132vic@cms.org.au

cms.org.au/vic

Your Church, their Church, our Church

Goodbye and thank you!

Not Spoiled by Beauty

Open Hands, Soft Hearts

The Spring Dinner

Diary

Victoria

Kids’ church time,Cambodia

Mission

At Trafalgar our link missionaries are Inpa and Vana Eliezer. They, like us, are part of a small church and we share a deep

desire to reach out into our communities with the Good News of Jesus.

Both of us use simple community development principles in our work. In Cambodia, Inpa and Vana’s Celebrating Church seeks to integrate entrepreneurship and life skills training. In Trafalgar, we reach out to people through community activities like a garden produce swap, art classes for young people and a men’s breakfast.

A group of young people from Celebrating Church come together three times a week to cook and share lunch. Not only do they learn healthy cooking but it provides a time for encouragement and friendship. Some of them live locally but come from poor families, while others live in the very simple church boarding school. The meal they cooked the day we were there was delicious!

Rev Sue Jacka (extreme L) is the rector of St Mary’s church, Trafalgar. She and her husband, Ross, recently visited CMS missionaries Inpa and Vana Eliezer in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She discovered more similarities than differences.

Not Spoiled by BeautyEditorial

Revd Wei-Han Kuan is CMS Victoria’s State Director.

He leads the staff team, recruits new missionaries and is keen to encourage Gospel-shaped mission wherever he can.

Staff

One of our missionaries was recently surprised when he learnt that I majored in English

poetry in my Arts degree.

Among my claims to literary fame are that I had some poetry published in my gap year before university; and that, as an undergraduate, I had afternoon tea with Seamus Heaney the Nobel Laureate for Literature whose work I was proposing to investigate in my honours year. I was so nervous that all I could say to him was, ‘More tea, Mr Heaney?’

Here is a poem, actually a song, that I would like to tease apart for you this month. It begins with these lines:-

You got a face not spoiled by beauty I have some scars from where I’ve been You’ve got eyes that can see right through me

It’s a love song. One in which the admirer is looking at his lover’s face, which is ‘not spoiled by beauty’. Perhaps it is scarred. It is nothing the world would look at. But then, neither is the singer’s. He carries the scars of life too, and his lover has eyes that can see right through them, perhaps even to the heart of the hurts he carries.

“ ... It is nothing the world would look at ...”But the irony is that the song’s refrain is thus:

And this is a song, song for someone This is a song, song for someone

The identity of the lover is unknown. The idealised lover to whom the song is being sung is also unknown. The song is tinged with a longing for a better world, a more perfect relationship, light instead of darkness for each of us.

Another verse borders on preaching to the listener:-

If there is a light you can’t always see And there is a world we can’t always be If there is a dark within and without And there is a light, don’t let it go out

That last line is a plea to keep hoping, to keep searching, to keep looking for that light even if we can’t quite see it yet. What reason can the poet give us for keeping on hoping and searching? Here is the final stanza:

And I’m a long long way from your Hill of Calvary And I’m a long way from where I was and where I need to be

It turns out that the poet actually knows who his lover is after all. He refers to his Hill of Calvary – his lover is Jesus the Crucified One. It is Jesus whose face is not spoiled by beauty, who carries the scars of Calvary, who has eyes that see right through us.**

“ ... the scars of Calvary ...”This song is a song for Christ the Crucified. This plea, this sermon, is for the listener to hope in Jesus, to persist in pursuing that light that only Jesus has.

Up to the middle of this month, 500 million users of Apple’s iTunes music software will be able to download, completely free, this song and others from Songs of Innocence, the latest album from the Irish superstar rock band U2. It’s all part of Apple’s latest marketing ploy.

But imagine if even a tiny percentage of those 500 million were to respond to Jesus! Pray that many will! Download and listen yourself, and be prepared to give a reason for the hope in this song, and in you.

**Isaiah 52:14 - His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being, and his form marred beyond human likeness

After more than eight years’ faithful service to CMS Victoria, Jothi Chintapalli is moving on.

Jothi joined the staff in January 2006, bringing to the task of membership co-ordinator not only her skills in IT but a heart for people.

That heart for people has always shone out, especially in managing and looking after the many volunteers who, in countless ways, keep CMS running. It’s clear they will miss her, and certainly not just for the endless supply of coffee and cakes on mailing days.

And her most satisfying technical achievement? “Moving the database!”

When Jothi started, CMS managed, somehow, on a database system which was little more than a list of names and addresses. During 2007 we planned for a move to ThankQ, so in January 2008 while everybody else was at SUTS, Jothi was left alone in a silent office to move the data - which she did, with even a few minutes to spare!

“ ... not to worry ... but to trust the faithful one ...”Working in a small team with varying personalities brings its own challenges, but throughout it all she has learnt, as she puts it, “not to worry about my own faith but to trust the faithful one. And I could always rely on Peter Fraser to make me laugh!”

Was it easy to take the decision to leave?

“Certainly not,” she says. “But God didn’t just put me here to do the job. I’ve been able to share my exposure to missionary people with my children, seeing them start to understand what it’s really about. That’s an immense blessing, and I know there’s something new that God has for me in the next phase of my life.”

Jothi’s last day in the CMS office was 26 September.

Goodbye and thank you!

Full House for the Spring Dinner!

Mission

Open Hands, Soft Hearts

More than 160 members and supporters crowded into the warmly lit and decorated chapel at One Community Church, which had been turned into a dining space for the occasion, thanks to the hard work of events co-ordinator Andrew Astley and his team, as well as our One Community hosts.

Billed as a meeting of East Asia and East Africa, the two key speakers were John Morshead (Tanzania) and PB (working in a number of East Asian countries).

John described in some detail the challenges, joys and rewards of teaching theology in Dar es Salaam, revealing that the understanding of a typical student may be far from what we might expect in Melbourne.

The title of PB’s address was Blessed to Live in Australia, but in a deeply considered manner we were shown how misleading that common statement is. “Matthew 5: 10 does not say ‘blessed are those who live in comfort and have a holiday home,’” he said. “It says ‘blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness...’”

“...comfort ... is dangerous...”PB then went on to tell us of Christians around the world, including many personally known to him, who have been persecuted even unto death for the sake of Jesus Christ. “It is indeed comfortable to live in Australia – but it is blessed to live where persecution happens. Comfort is seductive, but it is dangerous to our faith.”

It would have been easy to end the evening merely replete on food and friendship: happily this vital, biblical perspective enabled us to depart fed more profoundly and enduringly.

Event

Cath Berryman is Chief Financial Officer for CMS Victoria.

Here she reflects on the generosity discovered in dusty files and in God’s word.

As we moved offices a few months ago, one of my jobs was to sort through a filing cabinet full of old, dusty files. I was dreading it, but as I started to read I was transported to another time and place. Those files told story after story of Gospel-minded people who not only gave with soft hearts throughout their lives, but whose generosity made them open handed and strategic when it came to the decisions they made about their wills**.

“... story after story of Gospel-minded people ...”Those decisions are still impacting CMS Victoria today in a significant way.

The bequests we receive are invested well, and each year the income we receive from those investments funds a proportion of our administration costs. The graph below shows that by July 2016 we anticipate that our investment income will more than cover our administration costs, a great provision of God!

Our hope and prayer is that God would inspire such a level of generosity in us that our investment income will grow to cover not only our administration costs, but also our staff costs, so that every dollar donated will directly support the Gospel ministry of our missionaries.

By the time you read this, I will have been in my role at CMS for almost nine months. In that time I

have learnt so much that my head hurts and even though I’ve been stuck in the detail for much of the time, every now and then God reminds me to look up and consider the awesome generosity of our friends and supporters.

Two thirds of CMS Victoria’s income in 2013/14 came from individuals and churches who gave generously and sacrificially:

One of our big prayers as we look to the future is that God would increasingly call people to serve Him as missionaries with CMS; in fact we are praying for God to double the number of missionaries! How amazing it would it be for us to partner, pray with and support 32 missionary couples, families or individuals!

But while I’m rejoicing at that thought, the accountant in me is crunching the numbers. Taking into account that presently we raise about 70% of the total cost of sending and supporting our missionaries on location, God’s answer to our prayer to double our missionaries will present quite a financial challenge!

And so we’re praying another prayer alongside the first.

That God would double our supporters and our income from donations; that God would raise up a whole new generation of people who are fired up about CMS’ vision to see A World that Knows Jesus; and that God would transform them and us to have open hands and soft hearts (Deuteronomy 15:7-11).

**I encourage you to read John Altmann’s great article, ‘Planning for Generosity’ in next month’s Branch Matters.

Donations 67%

Estates, bequests 16%

Investment 9%Other 8%

$250,000

$200,000

$150,000

$100,000

$50,000

2014 2015 2016Investment income

Administration costs

Missionary Care Fellowship At Holy Trinity Church, 106 Church Road (corner Doncaster Road), Doncaster.

Wednesday 8 October, John and Jill Morshead will share both medical and theological training news from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Come at 10 am for morning tea before the meeting.

Contact: Maurelle Thompson 9850 6850.

Diary

Giving Electronically

To support CMS financially is easy. There are three options:

Direct Credit: Westpac BSB 033-112 Account 280677 Put the name of the fund or missionary in the transaction description field. This is the favoured option - it costs nothing to process, so all your dollars go to support CMS!

Direct Debit: Go to www.cms.org.au/vic/give/directdebit, download the form, complete and send it to the office.

Credit Card: go to give.cms.org.au and follow the prompts. We pay a fee on each transaction with this option.

Prayer for the Muslim worldSt Andrew’s Hall, 190 The Avenue, Parkville First Friday of the month with staff and residents. 6pm pot luck dinner for 7-9.30pm prayer.

Send an sms to 0488 101 470 if you’re coming.

Summer Under The Son January 2015 Booking for both the Melbourne conference (Monday 12 - Thursday 15) and the SUTS Youth Camp (Saturday 10 - Thursday 15) has now opened - visit summerundertheson.org to reserve your places!

The Melbourne conference will hear Bible studies in 2 Corinthians by Dr Rikk Watts, Professor of New Testament studies at Regent College, Vancouver. The keynote speaker is Dr John Azumah, Associate Professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, Georgia, USA who will speak on Islam and Christian mission.

At the Youth Camp, Bible studies will be led by Kieran Carr (6pm minister, St Hilary’s, Kew) and Kate Boughton (Children and Youth, St Jude’s, Carlton).

Steve and Jenny Sonneman (Pakistan) and Inpa and Vana Eliezer (Cambodia) will share news of their ministries. L and J (East Asia) will describe their call to work amongst international students.

1MPG (First Monday Prayer Group)

Prayer for God’s worldwide mission at 630 Mitcham Road, Mitcham.

Monday 6 October, BYO lunch at 12.30pm and then we pray for the hour 1-2pm. All welcome.

Contact: Ken Wong 9725 2824.

SPRING FEST

Tuesday 21 October, 10:30 - 12:30, at St Mark’s Church, Camberwell.

Hear John & Jill Morshead and enjoy fellowship while supporting the invaluable work of MMA.

For more details of either of the above MMA events, contact Ruth Judd on 0417 357 675.

ORGAN RECITAL

Hear top New Zealand organist Martin Setchell.

Sunday 12 October 2pm.

St Mark’s Church, Camberwell.

Admission $20 adults, $15 concession - all proceeds go to the work of Medical Mission Aid.