Hi friends, please find the short version of prayer and praise below.
For those who want more detail, the stories and pictures are below.
Praise:
- Praise God for good results from Karis’s recent cardio MRI in November.
- Praise God for energy and health to teach and disciple here at North Cotes College (NTM).
- Praise God for a great Christmas and New Year break with family.
- Praise God that the Mengen churches got together for their first conference and they had an encouraging time.
Prayer:
- Pray that the classes Simon teaches would be what God would want to communicate and full of His truth. Pray they would be relevant to the student body and excite them to fall more in love with Jesus.
- Pray for Annika as she helps Simon marking tests, does admin and take care of the kids and home. Pray for Annika in particular as she looks after the kids and pray that we will both train them to be men and women of God. Annika also administrates the website and Facebook pages for NTM.
- Pray for us as we disciple the students in our home group. They have become dear friends and are a real blessing to us. Pray for wisdom as opportunities arise for discussion and discipleship.
- Pray for our teaching team here at North Cotes College that God would continue to help us love one another and aid us to strive for unity. Pray that we will be authentic examples of the truth we are teaching!
- Pray that Karis would stay in good health and continue to thrive.
- Pray that we will get all the information we need to make a decision on future overseas church planting ministry. This would either mean a return to PNG or a new start in Asia Pacific.
- Pray for the Mengen church; they recently had their first church conference made up of the different church plants. This was an encouraging time. Pray for existing leaders and teachers to be strengthened and for new leaders and teachers to emerge.
“Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!” [Psalm 96:3]
Happy New year to you all! Thanks so much for your continued prayer and support in helping us to reach the unreached with the Gospel.
Click below to see pics and get more detail!
Christmas and New Year:
We have had a good break from our ministry here at NTM bible and missionary training college on North Cotes (NCC – North Cotes College). It was good to be in our own home to celebrate Christmas; this was the first time in 4 years in our own (temporary) home. We had Annika’s parents with us for Christmas (Sonni and Julie) as they are also missionary’s with NTM and are here teaching at the college. Simon’s parents were with us for 6 days over New Year and it was great for us and the kids to see them and do some fun things together.
Current ministry:
The past semester was busy but it was great to be teaching Gods word to missionaries in training. Simon taught the Doctrine of God, the Holy Spirit and Hermeneutics. We also have the joy of looking after 7 students from the biblical studies course; we meet with them every Monday night in our house and talk together, debate, discuss Gods word, play games and eat lots of good food. It is wonderful to be involved in their lives and see them grow. Both Annika and I are learning and growing where God has us just now.
Work this term: Right now Simon has just finished teaching Epistle survey and will also be teaching most of Romans (ch4-11) later this term. Please pray for preparations for teaching Romans as it is a critical book for understanding salvation and the Christian walk.
On January Simon will be speaking at Upney Baptist and also going to N.I. on the first week of Feb. He also has some more pending speaking dates as we move into February and March.
From February on we will be taking deputation meetings: We would love to come and visit you or your church to update you on what we have been doing and how the coming year may hold some big changes for us! Please do get in touch with us and book a date. Mostly we are free to travel on Sundays but are open to other options also. Email: simon_flanagan@ntm.org
Kids and future ministry: At the beginning of the year Nya had been struggling academically but with a little extra help she has bounced back and is doing great and enjoying school! Noah is a bundle of energy, from the time he wakes up until he goes to sleep he is on the go! Karis keeps us all laughing. She goes to nursery Monday – Friday at the bible college and is learning colors, numbers, etc. Judah is now nearly 8 months old and is growing like a weed. He is a real joy and is royally spoiled by his 3 older siblings!
Karis MRI results: Many of you will remember that we had a thorough MRI angiogram done for Karis up in Glasgow back in November. The results from that were overall very positive. Her cardiologist did notice a slight narrowing of the vein that was created during the second operation. This is not a concern and most likely will never need treated as they expect other veins to open up as she grows. Worst case scenario is that she might need something done to it when she is a lot older (11-12 years of age). However the docs expect new vessels to grow to compensate for this. This is good news in general and we are very thankful to God for Karis’s level of health. Our current ministry at NCC is temporary and we want to make decisions regarding a return to PNG or a new start in Asia Pacific as long as the doors are open. Please do pray with us. A return to PNG would mean continuing at NCC until Aug 2017 as the leadership have asked us to wait until after that date until we return. We have been advised that we should be concerned about the medical challenges and the ability to have a consistent ministry and stability for our kids if we returned to PNG. As you know Asia Pacific is also a possible new move for us and whilst medical provision would be more readily available it would mean new languages and culture study; this is also a big challenge. We are trusting God to lead, open and close doors and also confirm these things through our home churches and NTM leadership. Please do pray for wisdom. We have only one more piece of feedback to get back which should be with us by the end of January and we trust we can make a decision shortly after that point.
Mengen Church
Please keep the Mengen church in your prayers! The Mengen church has recently hosted a two day conference for two Mengen churches and the one outreach –attended by lots of people. This conference was entirely the work of the Mengen church and it was great to see them host and run this. The aim was to develop unity between the churches and to challenge believers and unbelievers alike. Right now the Mengen church has begun a fourth outreach and are considering a fifth.
1) Please pray for the health and energy levels of bible and literacy teachers as they would seek to teach and disciple. They have done too much and felt burnt out in the past – pray for wisdom.
2) Pray that as they spread out into new areas the home church would remain strong and progress in maturity and fully support their missionaries.
3) Pray that these new church plants would grow deep in God’s word as they are taught and discipled. Pray too they will have lots of enthusiasm to learn to read and write as a new literacy program starts.
4) Pray for wisdom for our partners the Laureti family and Rebecca Preheim as they advise and encourage the church.
5) Pray for Rebecca as she translates Gods word and has been making great progress. Right now she is translating the book of James.
6) Please pray for these two sisters –M and M; both married to believers but thus far have been kept from the teaching of God’s Word because of a very powerful, dominating mother who is an influential leader within the cargo cult. But in recent days, both of these ladies have experienced the power of God in divinely saving them while giving birth to children and as a result are warming to the gospel and attended the above conference where they were challenged again about their need for Christ. These ladies husbands are desirous to be used of God in the teaching and proclamation of God’s Word but are being hindered because of their wives.
Thanks for your prayers for our brothers and sisters!
Reach conference March 2016
Our annual REACH conference is happening March 18-20 this year! This conference is for 16-30 year olds to come along and grasp the vision for the needs of the unreached around the world. If you would be interested, or know of anyone that would be PLEASE do get in touch. We would love to see you here! Please get in touch if interested!!
BOOK EARLY PLACES GO FAST AND IT’S BOOKED OUT EVERY YEAR!
Thanks so much for your prayers and support!
Simon, Annika, Nya, Noah, Karis and Judah