BH Bulletin - Wednesday 20 January 2021

Thought for the Day by Chris Dalton (BH Member)

Another Word

​It’s a strange thing but people seem to have real difficulty living in the present. Worriers live in the future...come to think of it so do dreamers! The news and Captain Sir Tom have repeatedly pointed us to a better day that’s coming.
Those with a severe case of nostalgia and sometimes those with a deep sense of guilt live in the past. It’s easy to look back with either fondness or regret – sometimes a mixture of both. I wonder how you will look back on 2020?

But there’s another word that’s really important and that’s, ‘NOW’.

Something amazing to consider is that God lives in the perpetual ‘now’. God doesn’t live in the past or the future because in eternity there is no time but the present moment. That’s one reason why God knows everything because everything is NOW to God...and why when we sing ‘when we’ve been there 10,00 years’ it’s delightful nonsense as is ‘10,000 years and then forevermore’. It does, of course, convey a great idea. 😊 In eternity, in heaven, we will truly live ‘now’ - perhaps for the first time.

One of my favourite verses, which God drew to my attention many years ago, is Exodus 6:1a,
“Now you will see what I will do.”

Moses had come to God complaining that since he’d been sent to tell Pharaoh to let the people of God go, things had got worse not better, “O Lord, why have You brought trouble on Your people?” Instead of just having to slave away making bricks out of straw now they had to go to look for the straw and still make as many bricks or get beaten!! And, said Moses, “You have not rescued Your people at all.”

That’s when God pointed Moses to the ‘now’...and from our vantage point we can look back to what God did as He led His people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, especially remembering Passover and what that prefigured - Jesus, our Passover Lamb.
                                                                                              
God had, and still has, a plan – it wasn’t immediately obvious to the Israelites and may not be obvious to us but our part is to keep praying to Him, trusting Him and looking for where He is at work and noticing what He’s doing, now.                                                                                          Is there someone or something for which you’ve been praying - maybe for years??          Perhaps God is highlighting this verse for you, today, saying, “Now you will see what I will do.”

It’s not helpful to live in the past and useless worrying about the future...especially as we can have certainty about our home in heaven when we put our trust in Jesus’ finished work on the cross.

So, let’s live NOW, in God’s strength, in the power of His Holy Spirit and keep watching and praying so that we can rejoice together as we see what He does next.

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A Few Grains of Truth by Ian Barclay

​We still have some copies of Ian’s book in the church office for sale.
If you would like to purchase a copy please email the office ([email protected]) and forward £5.00 per copy direct to the BH bank account 40.52.40 Account no. 00016162. 

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News from Susanna Baldwin

Dear friends,
One of the great blessings of Christian fellowship is that we never have to make big decisions alone. I’m very thankful for all those who prayed and offered me wise counsel over the last few months as I worked through the question of whether and when I should go back to Ethiopia.
The general consensus from these discussions was that ‘now’ would be a tricky time to begin life as a newbie in Addis Ababa. Both the public health and political situations remain quite fragile and uncertain, and various key members of my team, who like me relocated to their passport countries when Covid hit, have not yet returned to the field. We hope that things will start to look better in the second half of 2021, especially once the upcoming federal elections (which seem likely to be particularly tense this year) have come and gone.

During this waiting time, God has graciously opened up an opportunity for me to serve with Wycliffe in a different capacity. For the next few months I will be joining a team based in Darwin, in Australia’s Northern Territory, working on a project called the ‘Plain English Version’ (PEV). The PEV is an English translation of the Bible designed specifically for Aboriginal Australians who speak English as a second language. It’s an important strategic project for Indigenous language communities, as it not only provides them with an immediate resource to use in their churches, but will also form the basis of their own mother-tongue translation projects into the future.

​Against what seemed like considerable odds, I was able to secure a flight from the UK without being cancelled or bumped, and touched down in Sydney yesterday morning. I’m very conscious of the privilege it is to have made this trip when many thousands of Australians are still stranded overseas (do pray for them—I’ve been hearing some awful stories of the struggles facing those who are unable to return). I’m now in mandatory hotel quarantine for two weeks and look forward to catching up with friends and church family after my release. :)
My co-worker on the PEV project, Kathy, is going to be in Sydney over most of February and March, so I will do some training and work with her here initially before heading up to Darwin to join the rest of the team. We’ll continue to monitor the situation in Ethiopia over the coming months, and await God’s guidance on when will be the right time to down tools and head back to my assignment there.

Thanks for your continued partnership with me in my (ever-changing) Wycliffe adventures! I’ll look forward to sharing more about the PEV project once I’m settled into the work. As ever, I would love to hear how life is looking for you at the moment, and what I can pray for you.
In Christ,
Susanna

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