Gwen & Mags Prayer & News June 2013

5th June 2013
Paraguay, PRAY

Gwen & Mags Prayer News recently received into the SAMS office:

Dear Friends,

Thankyou for praying so faithfully for us. We are aware of how much you help to support us in that role. This last month has been a very difficult time and we have been even more aware of our need of prayer in these times.

We have had a few very difficult issues to deal with in school which have resulted in us having to ask two people, in two separate incidents, to leave. These situations are never easy and we all feel the loss of a member. Even so, we know our battles are not really with flesh and blood and know that this is a spiritual battle and one that God can use for our good and also for the good of the school. These situations make us even more dependent on the Lord and our desire is that we should act fairly and with Christian principles so that the Lord can work in us making us even more like Him and so strengthening our testimony to those around us. Please continue to pray for us and the school.

There have been some good moments too! We have continued to celebrate the decades and the top primary classes depicted the 80’s with a fantastic show which was enjoyed by all. This next week we move to the 90’s with the new century coming a few weeks later!!
As part of our celebrations we want to redo the bathrooms for the children in the Annexe school which are as they were built 40 years ago. We had a jumble sale at the beginning of the month and despite the rain raised over a thousand pounds.

Mags has once more been to the sports camp in Brazil, this time with the younger secondary pupils. They took over 50 pupils to play sports with some Brazilian schools. Amazingly they won quite a lot of their matches! They had a fantastic time and returned to school this week. The 9th Grade boys even beat the monitors in Basketball.

The primary and secondary pupils are now coming to the end of exam time and now reports are due! Gwen is pleased with the way her infant class are progressing and enjoys her hour a day there. She also takes a 6th grade group on Tuesday afternoons. This will increase a little in this new month as Rachel Rudman is going to England to get married before returning with her new, Paraguayan, ex pupil, husband!
Mags is busy with her maths classes and very thankful for the help of Sarah Clarkson who, somehow, arrived in Paraguay at just the right time!!

Preparations are well under way for our 50th anniversary celebrations. The children are all practising marching for our school’s march down the main street in town on June 22nd. It seemed an odd idea to us but something people here do! Anyway, we hope to use it as a time of witness with singing and then a talk. This coming Friday we are all going to our sports ground to practise marching and this time it will be the whole school and staff!!!!!

Our big school supper will be on June 28th in the evening. This will be a big event and there will be room for over a thousand people including ex pupils, parents and staff and some of the older pupils. Some of the ex pupils who are parents are organizing this for us. Please pray that our celebrations will be honouring to God and might reach out to others. During the week of June 22 to 28th we will have other events too like an ex pupils’ service where we hope Bishop Greg will speak, a school service where Bishop Ken Clarke from SAMS Ireland will speak, the supper where Bishop Peter will speak and also a Gala night.

Thankyou once again for your prayers. We are planning to come to England at the end of the year and hope to visit some of our link churches in January. If you would like us to visit please get in touch with us via e mail. We won’t make it to everyone but hope to see as many as possible.

God Bless and Lots of love,

Gwen and Mags xx

Bolivian Consecration

17th May 2013
Bolivia, PRAY

Archdeacon Raphael Samuel was formally consecrated as the Diocesan Bishop of Bolivia at a Sunday morning service at Cristo Luz Del Mundo (Light of the World). The Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone of the Americas, the Rt Rev Hector  “Tito” together with the Bishops from Peru, Uruguay and Paraguay led in the consecration of the new Bishop of Bolivia.

The election of Archdeacon Raphael Samuel as the Bishop of Bolivia represents a landmark in church missions in that he is the first Asian missionary to be consecrated Bishop in the Spanish speaking Anglican world. Bishop Raphael Samuel, is a Singapore clergyman sent by the Diocese of Singapore to serve in Bolivia. He and his wife, Michelle, are the longest-serving missionaries in the Bolivian Anglican Church.

Raphael, a Singaporean Tamil, was born in January 16th 1957. He was raised in a traditional Anglican parish and received Christ when he was a teenager. He hails from several generations of Anglicans and was educated in a Methodist school. After formal studies, he joined the Singapore Navy in 1974, after which he responded to the Lord’s call to serve in the Anglican Church in 1980.  At this juncture, a life-changing experience of the Holy Spirit, left a deep and lasting impression on his life.  As part of his preparation for full-time ministry, he studied theology for 4 years at Trinity Theological College, where he and Michelle met. The communal setting at St Peter’s Hall, an Anglican institute for ministerial training in the campus at Trinity, served as an integral part of his formation as a priest in the Anglican Church.

In 1991, the national director of Bolivian Church, Rev Greg Blaxland, visited Singapore with a view to raise missionary candidates for the work in Bolivia. At a meeting with the Singaporean clergy, he shared the need for ordained pastors to serve as missionaries in Bolivia.

Raphael, a pastor of a congregation, had already considered the possibility of serving in Latin America prior to Greg’s visit to Singapore.  A few years earlier, SAMS Australia’s General Secretary, Rev Ted Newing had counseled him to pray and wait for the Lord’s timing. The invitation from Bolivia came as a confirmation of God´s calling to serve in Latin America. Bishop Moses Tay, the former bishop of Singapore, played an active role in forging links between the diocese of Singapore and the work in Bolivia.

Raphael, Michelle and their 3-year old son, Elijah, arrived in Bolivia in January 4th 1993. He and Michelle spent 6 months studying Spanish and the intricacies of cross cultural work at the Maryknoll Language Institute in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Since then, Raphael, has worked actively in the Bolivian diocese on several levels. He served as pastor of a congregation in Santa Cruz, and as Archdeacon of the diocese; has helped the Bolivian church acquire diocesan status, started new works; raised leaders, and assisted local clergy to assume the leadership of the congregations. Raphael completed his Masters in Theology in Spanish in 2010 and is working on further post graduate studies in the area of family counseling. His wife, Michelle, is actively involved in various ministries in the church, especially in the area of worship and the creative arts. Their son, Elijah, is due to graduate from a university in Singapore this year.

SAMS is excited about  Raphael’s appointment and we encourage all SAMS prayer supporters to pray daily for Raphael and Michelle within this new phase of ministry

Paraguay Prayer Calendar May June 2013

8th May 2013
Paraguay, PRAY

Dear friends,

Thank you for your faithful prayers over the last few months. The Lord is gracious and kind and there is much to be thankful for and of course many challenges! The dengue fever situation is the most serious that the country has ever faced and as yet there is no significant break in the hot weather, so we are praying for cold weather to come soon thus killing off the mosquitoes that carry dengue. Everyone is pleased that the elections were peaceful, please keep praying as the government transition takes place over the next few months.

On a personal note our first month this year back in Paraguay has been somewhat like the pack of Liquorice Allsorts that I gave Peter for his birthday a week ago – ‘contents: varied and interesting!’ We are off to Bolivia for a week on Monday and the rest of May looks set to be busy too.

Thank you again for praying, may the Lord bless you,

Blessings, Peter and Sally

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