July 2008

Once again I would like to take this opportunity to give a basic review of how we are going in the various parts of the world where the Challenge newspaper is produced. Thank you to everyone who prays regularly for the work of Challenge and to those who continue to give fi nancially to our work, we are very thankful to the Lord for each of you. There is no doubt in my mind that the growth and development we have seen with the Challenge newspaper in recent years can be tracked back to the faithful prayers and sacrifi cial giving of the many folk who support our work around the world.

1. Australia and New Zealand - We are delighted to welcome Andrew Trezona onto our team to take on the promotion and development of the Challenge newspaper both here in Australia and New Zealand. Andrew has been working extremely hard to make contact with churches and indeed introduce himself to pastors predominately in Western Australia at this stage. We would value your prayer in the raising of his support and for your ongoing prayer for his wife Karen and their fi ve daughters. It is a huge change for them as a family and we are very mindful of the wonderful gift they are to the work of Challenge.

I have just returned from a trip to New Zealand with the Director of Multi Ministries in South Africa, Harold Peasley. We had a very encouraging time where God enabled us to speak at various Afrikaans churches in Auckland. They were very warm to the ministry that was brought to them and the three churches we had dealing with, have indicated their desire to support the work of Challenge/Multi Ministries in South Africa for which we thank God. Also I took the opportunity to re-establish our negotiations with the Challenge Weekly newspaper, which is a Christian newspaper as against our own paper being an outreach paper for the non-Christian. It was very encouraging to have a number of churches express their keen interest in receiving copies of Challenge so we are praying that God will open the door once again.

2. South Africa - We are enormously grateful for the wonderful partnership we have with Multi Ministries, headed up by Harold Peasley, and also for the staff at Multi Ministries who do an outstanding job in getting out the gospel and training the locals. We continue to get the paper out every two months into South Africa, which also includes our prison edition which continues to meet with responses of up to 600 letters per month. It is amazing what God is doing with such a publication and I can only say that none of us at Challenge dreamed of what God had in mind. Please pray for the work of Multi Ministries and for Harold and his team. Please pray for the fi nancial needs of this ministry; there is a huge demand placed on the staff of 20 working from that offi ce.

3. Botswana/Zimbabwe/Zambia - These countries continue to be a real encouragement also in the distribution of the paper. At a recent outreach Conference in Zimbabwe it was wonderful to hear of the distribution of the paper and the many souls that were reached with the gospel through school ministry etc. One of the key ways of extending the infl uence of this outreach is through the distribution of the paper. The Director of Multi Ministries in Zimbabwe, Jabulani Mudena, sent an email recently which said they were getting an awesome response to the paper for which they thank God, as do we.

Great things are happening with the response to the paper in Botswana where we work with Andrew and Sandra Freeman. They are a wonderful Australian couple who are highly committed and organised in getting out the gospel, training the locals and doing everything they can to resource the small Christian church in Botswana.

We have a new arm of the work in Zambia where we work with a ministry called Pro Christo Global Outreach which is headed up by Coen Schultz. He and his wife Suria do an incredible job with a wonderful team of missionaries throughout Africa. It is our great desire to continue providing 20,000 papers every two months and ultimately grow it to 50,000 as we would like to do also in Zimbabwe and Botswana. We would value your prayer for Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe as they endeavour to gain more papers to do the task that God has called them to do. Please pray for the ongoing finances for these countries as we work with these strategic ministries who are doing an amazing job.

4. Malawi/Kenya - We are rejoicing in the Lord with our fi rst edition of the Chichewa/English edition of Challenge for Malawi. We are working with Christian Missions in Many Lands headed up by Jonathan and Ruth Newell in Malawi. It was wonderful to receive an email recently from Jonathan indicating they had a most encouraging response to the paper and would like to double the print run from 10,000 to 20,000 per edition. Please pray with us for Jonathan and Ruth and their Challenge committee as they pick and choose articles and help us edit a culturally relevant edition of the paper. Please pray also for ongoing finances for our Malawi edition of the paper and that God will continue to use it in a special way.

Kenya continues to be a real blessing as we work with Peace Makers Fellowship International headed up by Pastor Paul Dondoh. Paul regularly sends us amazing stories of salvation through the use of the paper. Through the recent upheaval in Kenya God was able to use Paul and his team to share Christ with many people while placed in an IDP camp. Please pray for Paul as he is under a great deal of pressure as he oversees 18 churches, as well as managing the distribution of the Challenge newspaper which has been around the 30,000, and combined with this looking to fulfi l his role as a teacher. We do praise God for Paul, his wife Ann and their two children. Please pray for ongoing finances for bikes, bibles and also for an increased print run for not only Kenya but also surrounding countries

5. South America/Uruguay - We are working in Argentina and Uruguay with Word of Life Ministries. In particular we are working with Will and Ale Herndon who are a wonderful couple and incredibly committed to getting out the gospel. We are putting out 20,000 papers at the moment into Argentina which is a proverbial drop in the ocean and we are hoping to see this grow as we forge a closer link with the paper through Word of Life Ministries. Will and Ale have recently moved back to the Word of Life Bible College in Buenos Aires, and we are excited about the opportunities of getting into a greater part of Argentina with the paper, and then using that as a stepping stone into other parts of South America. Please pray for this couple as they work with the local churches. One of the huge struggles they battle with is the infl ux of groups like the Mormon Church who are literally pouring millions of dollars into South America to gain converts. Remember them in prayer for their ongoing personal support as they have many things on their plate. In November this year I am looking to attend the Word of Life Conference in Buenos Aires where most of the Word of Life missionaries from South and Central America will be meeting. At this Conference it is hoped we can forge negotiations where we can get the paper into every single country in South and Central America in the not too distant future. Please pray for the Lord’s leading in this manner, for His wisdom and for His funding to do the task.

6. North America - It has been amazing to see the development of the United States edition of the paper. We had not foreseen what the Lord had planned in terms of this edition. We have been going for around eighteen months now with the paper, and have seen it go from a handful of papers to the most recent edition of just under 50,000 copies produced. God is opening up other doors for us at the moment in the cities of Chicago and in the southern states of Alabama, Tennessee as well as across to Albuquerque in New Mexico. We are very encouraged with these opportunities as we get the paper into various spots around the large land mass of the United States. Please pray for Doug and Mary Cornelius who are doing an amazing job in promoting and developing the work out of Cincinnati. We are very thankful to the Lord also for the church at Urbancrest Baptist as they are our headquarters in USA.

7. Future Projects - We have a number of future projects on the go at the moment. I have just recently returned from a brief trip to India with Jonathan James from Asia Evangelistic Fellowship. Jonathan is an amazing man with a great heart for the gospel especially in places like India, Malaysia, Thailand, and Burma and so on. It is a great joy to forge a partnership with AEF in India and to be able to produce a gospel newspaper with a name change. AEF in India is called Destiny Communications so we will change the name of the newspaper to Destiny Good newspaper as a compliment tool to their gospel radio ministry. Please pray for Jonathan as he heads up what is a large organisation and he would greatly value pray for his wife and family as they have all sorts of challenges being involved in such a busy ministry.

The other opportunity that has presented itself is the production of an Arabic/English edition of the paper for Egypt. We have gained a very good contact from one of our supporting churches (Hope Baptist church) in the United States. One of their members is originally from Egypt and is very keen to see a gospel newspaper going into Egypt. Please pray as we visit Egypt in December that God will open up special doors for us to get the paper out there.

Well you can see friends there is much happening and we are enormously grateful for all that God is doing. Many thanks for your prayer and fellowship in getting out the good new of Jesus Christ.