Dear Friends,
St Thomas’ has a long and generous track record of training up Gospel workers for the Lord’s harvest field both here and abroad and it’s my pleasure to share with you two exciting new upcoming opportunities.
First, our church has the privilege of being partnered next year by a fine and distinctly international group of young men currently studying at Moore College who will be joining our church as catechists in the following ministries:
- Sam Darmo (born in Iraq, married to Tania, going into 3rd year) – 10am
- Peter Blair (born in Northern Ireland, married to Jodie, going into 4th year) – 10am
- Michael Freeman (born in Botswana, married to Thalia, going into 3rd year) – 5pm
- Mike Woo (born in Malaysia, married to Eunice, going into 2nd year) – 5pm
They will be joining Jotham Booker from Germany who has already been helping out with our youth this year while studying at SMBC; and Jo Watts, who has just finished MTS at USyd, and is about to start her theological studies.
Although the training and equipping of these men and women is and should rightly be our first priority, there’s little doubt that we’ll also be enormously blessed by their fellowship among us. Please do make them most welcome when you meet them.
The second opportunity comes in the form of a request from my former ministry partners, Matthias Lohmann and Ron Kubsch in Munich, about whether we at St Thomas’ might consider financially supporting the theological education of an Iranian missionary, Mehrdad Sajadi, at the Martin Bucer Seminar, Munich, from next year.
Mehrdad is married with a two-year old son and was a lay leader in the Presbyterian church before being forced to flee Tehran for Germany last year because of his Christian faith. His training would cost approximately $32,000 AUD p.a. which would go both towards his studies and supporting him as a catechist/ MTS worker at our old church. Quite remarkably this would mean that Mehrdad himself would embody each of the three main areas of ministry we were involved in during our time in Germany (theological education, MTS local church training and the Afghan refugee church)!!
Matthias writes:
I don’t need to write to you about what the Lord has been doing among the refugees. It would be so good to have a young man who speaks their language and desires to become a pastor to help us care for this flock.
Simon and the wardens have given permission for this to be considered a “Special Project” (i.e. extra to normal giving). If you would like to contribute to Mehrdad’s support, you can make a contribution directly to our general fund (BSB 032099 Account number 250072) using „Mehrdad“ as the reference.
In His grace,
Mike Clark