Our missionary partners

St Andrew’s supports three missionary partners in prayer and through regular financial support through the Mission Fund. Please remember then in your own prayers, and if you would like to contribute to supporting their work, the Treasurer will be happy to hear from you.

Our current partners are:

Bibi Nédellec with Wycliffe Bible Translators
The Cools family with Mission Aviation Fellowship
Sutton Schoolswork

January 2018

Bibi's News

Back in Africa! Ouagadougou Centre

Shortly after my return to Cameroun, I was already on a plane to attend our yearly West Africa meetings in Burkina Faso.

Colleagues from all over West Africa were there, from Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo and of course ... Benin!

SIL entity directors as well as their Language Program Managers were gathered to discuss how best to plan for the next 3 years within that vast region.

Debbie (Hatfield) on the left sitting with the Niger director (right). This brought back memories as Debbie used to be the Lang. Program Manager in that country!

Debbie and Bibi happy to support the director of Togo-Benin (left) and his LPM (right) since we both worked there many years. David Wafo standing next to me just joined the Francophone Area staff and was learning lots of new things during those meetings!

I used to drive 'up' to Ouagadougou quite often with Ursula for training workshops in the early days of the Nateni project, so it is a place I feel I know and it is always fun to go back there. It struck me how dusty it was during our stay there, not only from the usual "Harmattan" dust coming from the Sahara desert at that time of year, but also because of more cars driving near our SIL center on sandy roads. They are planning to put on some tarmac here and there, thankfully!

Below, the entire leaders' group (West Africa):

To arrive in Ouagadougou, we had to land in several West African capitals, Lomé (Togo) being one of them! I managed to locate our old house (only because I have a lot of practice now!)

THANK YOU all for your interest in our work and faithful support,

Blessings,

Bibi

Bibi asks that you do not circulate this information without her permission, which she has kindly given for publication on this website.

Mission Aviation Fellowship: the Cools family

About MAF

Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) sends planes to transform the lives of the world’s most isolated people in need. They enable thousands of aid, relief and mission projects in really remote places, because that’s where some of the greatest human needs are.

In today’s ‘connected world’, the irony is that never have so many people been so isolated. Flying onto desert and jungle airstrips, lakes and rivers, tracks and roads, MAF’s light aircraft and their mission pilots go the extra miles to provide a lifeline.

Working in partnership with hundreds of other Christian and relief organisations MAF enables practical help, physical healing, and spiritual hope to be delivered to many of the most remote and inaccessible communities on the planet.

For 70 years, MAF has been flying for life.

St Andrew’s has supported MAF in various ways for many years, but in 2018 we decided to make the Cools family, working with MAF, one of our supported mission projects.

About the Cools family

As a young boy growing up in Belgium, Hans Cools dreamt of becoming a pilot. He never thought he would realise this dream until God started talking to him while on a mission trip with YWAM in Vanuatu, where they flew from island to island in a Twin Otter. God gave him a vision to reach the unreached by flying to the most remote places bringing the Gospel and other lifeline services. Hans was able to realise the flying dream in Perth, Scotland, where he completed his commercial pilot training in May 2012.

Hans’s wife Melissa was born in Edinburgh, but immigrated to Australia when she was five. She has always had a passion to reach the unreached and joined YWAM as soon as she finished high school. She staffed and led discipleship training schools, completed a School of Frontier Missions and taught English in China for a while. She is passionate about seeing the unreached reached for God’s Kingdom.

It was during their time in YWAM that they met and then got married in 2009. They now have two beautiful daughters: Olivia (2013) and Ameiah (2015).

Hans first contacted MAF during his flight training in 2011 as some students kept pointing him towards MAF. They were also able to meet some overseas staff who were on their home assignment around that time. God clearly kept on pointing towards joining MAF in the years to come, and after a lot of prayer they decided to apply officially. They started the process with MAF in 2015 and feel privileged to be moving to, learning from, and giving back to the indigenous people of Australia in Arnhem Land.

Hans and Melissa’s favourite Bible verse is ‘The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor’ Isaiah 61:1 NIV

Follow the Cools family on Facebook:

Sutton Schoolswork

Cat

Sarah

Sutton Schoolswork (SSW) is a Christian charity that is passionate about supporting students in Sutton to understand and explore Christianity and to develop spiritually, morally and socially.

Within the London Borough of Sutton there are 45 primary schools and 15 secondary schools and SSW aims to support all those schools in a variety of ways.

SSW has two full-time schools workers—Sarah Skinner who works with primary schools and Cat Hubbard who covers secondaries. They work with the support of volunteers and of Children’s, Youth and Family Workers from the many churches which support SSW.

Sarah’s and Cat’s activities reach 27,000 children and include leading school assemblies, teaching in RE and PSHE classes, running Christian Unions in schools and organising parent prayer groups. SSW also puts on two dramatised presentations: Discover Christmas and Easter Experience which are seen by hundreds of children every year.

Follow SSW on Twitter: