Message from Zion Free Church, St Ives

Dear Friends,
 For the last few years we have been praying Matthew 9:37-38:

“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 
Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, 
to send out workers into his harvest field.”

And one of the ways in which the Lord has answered our prayers is by sending us Tinoda Mlalazi.

Tino was one of our neighbours from St. Albans, and was part of a youth group which we used to lead. She is currently on a gap year between school and university and decided to come and spend 3 months serving the Lord with us.

To give you an idea of how she has been involved, let me give you a snapshot:

Anchored - helping lead our 10-15s youth group on a Sunday evening, leading Bible studies and befriending the young people

Monday Group - helping Janet with these older teens, including hosting the group whilst Janet was in Sierra Leone

Tuesday Club - leading Bible studies, prayer times and games

Bookshop - serving all day on Mondays and on Saturdays

Sunday school - leading the children and young people during the services

Meeting up - visiting and getting know some older ladies from the church

From our perspective it has been great to have a younger person to be an example to our young people - someone who has survived school as a Christian, someone who thinks about wise interaction with social media, someone who can give #5 lessons for surviving teenage years as a Christian.

Tino also benefitted greatly from the regional Peninsula Gospel Partnership conference which was focussed on tools for getting the most out of God’s word and teaching it to others.

Sadly, Tino has to head back to St. Albans next week. But we are hugely thankful to the Lord for sending her, and indeed to her parents and Ridgeway Church for raising such a godly young woman.
 

On a personal note, it has been a huge encouragement to see how much Tino has grown in the short time she has been here. It has been wonderful to see her grow in teaching the young people, in living on her own for the first time, in getting to know a host of new people, and most of all getting stuck into serve in the everyday life of a local church.

We’re very thankful to the generosity of people who made her time here possible, and indeed to a local couple who reconfigured their living arrangements to accommodate her.

Building on the work that Tino has started, we hope to appoint another longer-term trainee to start in September 2019.



Please join us in giving thanks to God for Tino.



Wishing you all a Christ-centered and joyful Christmas.





Tim Dennick & the members of Zion