8/9/2019 May Prayer Letter - Colour

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Miriam Ford, InterAction Worker – Brussels

May Newsletter 

 Avenue de la Couronne, 162, 1050 – Ixelles, Brussels, BELGIUM +32 470 579270

miriamford@hotmail.co.uk +44 7738 356096 

Lucy!

Hello! So the GBUs are kind of winding down for the summer now. Most of the students have a

pretty intense period of exams in May/June, and in the run up to that they have their ‘blocus’, basically a periodof time with either less or no lessons at all, in order to revise. It’s a time that Belgian students take veryseriously and so most of the GBU groups will finish during May. Where we can, me and Lucy are trying to domore studies to relieve the ‘responsables’ of the responsibility, and enable the groups to keep meeting for aslong as possible.

The Central group has started studying Colossians now

which has been great so far! Last week we looked at how

the church at Colosse’s problem was that they didn’t thinkthat Jesus was enough, but that the solution was to see howmuch MORE than enough he really is! The day we meet isabout to change back to Wednesdays which will hopefullybe more suitable for everyone during the blocus. I amleading the next study on Wednesday 5th May and wouldvalue your prayers for the preparation and leading of that. Ifeel more confident now with the speaking French part, butknow that I can do nothing in my own strength.

Woluwe put on a special joint soirée with the Catholic

society at the university in April. It was basically anopportunity to meet each other as we now share the samebuilding on campus for our weekly meetings, and also todiscuss the Bible. The two leaders worked together toprepare a study of sorts to discuss, looking at key passagesin the Bible about the Gospel and how it is a gift of Godthrough faith, and not of works. This sparked someinteresting debate on whether or not everyone will be savedin the end, and whether or not God’s love is ‘stronger’ thanhis justice. The GBU students spoke really well and faithfully,and always referred back to the Bible when answering

questions which was really encouraging to see. Apparentlythere were some complaints afterwards that some peoplehad felt judged. Grace-Ann said that she had replied toapologise if our attitude had seemed aggressive or

 judgemental, but that she couldn’t apologise for what wehad said because it is the truth. There are going to be twomore normal meetings at Woluwe before blocus.

ULB has been interesting lately, we’re studying John and every week seems to turn into a really deep

discussion about the sovereignty of God, and predestination vs. freewill. Whilst those discussions are hard, boththeologically and linguistically, the studies have been really encouraging, especially to see how the cross was

always in Jesus plan and how his ministry was working up to when finally “his hour had come”. One to ones inPhilippians with Agatha are also going really well and I think we’re both enjoying them and learning from them.We’ve only had one since getting back after Easter for various reasons, but it was lovely to catch up properlyand we looked at how and why our attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ. She also lead her firststudy at ULB in French last week, and is going to finish it next week as we didn’t get to the end due to theaforementioned in depth discussions of the sovereignty of God!

ÊTRE TÉMOINS: was the Focus seminar that

me and Lucy did! It went quite well and therewere about 30 people there. I survived talkingFrench in front of people and the feedbackwas mainly good… that it had been useful andbiblical. Negatives were that a couple of 

people answering questions gave some kookyanswers I didn’t really understand which itapparently might have seemed like I wasagreeing with :S and just some issues withclarity… we had to cut a lot of stuff out in theend because of the time, but we were on thewhole really encouraged by it!

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Personally , I am just generally having a great time here now! I

feel really content and genuinely love the people around me, it’sgoing to be hard to leave them! That is something to really thankGod for because at the start of the year I didn’t know as I wouldever get to a point like this! It’s just nice to be able to keep gettingto know people and spend more time with them socially before Iguess I’ll have to start packing!

I finished and submitted my second semester report for uni, itcontains the PowerPoint we used for the ‘Être Témoins’ soirée asan example of some work I’ve done, so it’s exciting to know mytutors will be reading it and hearing the Gospel at the same time!I’m spending quite a lot of time at the moment just looking forsummer jobs and have applied for a couple of EFL related thingsboth in the UK and in France, please could you pray that I wouldget something sorted sooner rather than later as it would be aweight off my mind!Please keep praying for the opportunities to speak to Quentin andKathleen about Jesus before I leave, I haven’t seen them very

much since Easter.

Plans for this month:

3rd-8th May : friend visiting! 

Weds 5th May : study at Central

(Colossians 1:24-2:5)

Weds 5th

May : staff meetingSat 8th May : a special focus to

thank Tim and Emily for their work

here over the last five years + a talk

by Erwin Oschenmeier on whether

or not it’s normal for Christians to

be ill/endure suffering.

Mon 10th May : last meeting at

Woluwe

Sun 16th May : GBU Prayer Meeting

Thurs 27th May : special staff 

meeting to talk about next year

with David et Marianne

28th-31st : friend visiting! 

Please continue to pray:

  Praise God for the soirée Focus me and Lucy ran, for his

help in preparing and leading it, for those that came, and

that what was shared might be useful and lead to

conversions.

  For students in the run up to their exams, that they might

still be able to find the time to come to the GBU, and that

they might do their work for the glory of God.  For me and Lucy preparing and leading studies, that we

would serve the GBUs faithfully and humbly.

  For David and Marianne as they continue to seek financial

aid to be able to work with the GBU next year.

  For me, Tim and Emily and their family as we have to startsaying goodbye to people and preparing to leave. 

  For the Focus on 8th May which will be discussing an issuethat several students have issues with and will not agreewith what Erwin will say.

WORD OF THE MONTH

‘ribblechips’ – a sort of crinkly/ridged crisp.(Leading to much laughter & description of things as ‘ribbled’) 

Thank you again for reading this and for your prayers. If you ever have any questions or want to know anything

else at all then please get in touch, all my contact info is in the head at the top of the first page. Or I sometimes

write more detailed accounts of things that happen on my blog.  

Love,

Miriam xx   www.ifesworld.org  www.gbu.be  miriam-ford.blogspot.com 

“…God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in

you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27)

Place Flagey, near my house.

Park Royal in the sunshine