HOPE FAMILY NEWS
Christmas in Hope Lima, Peru (Teck Keong & Team)
“Hope Lima is "quiet" during Christmas because it's more family time.
We are gathering with several families in the church for turkey and Chinese meat ball, food fusion this Christmas' eve.
First time having Christmas celebration with them, don't know what's going to happen..:)”
Photos of Christmas Eve party (below)
Hope Lima's blog (Teck Keong & Siew Yee’s)
Christmas in Hope Quito, Ecuador (Shen Teng & Team)
“Over here, we have been outreaching through sports and community projects. Last Sat (13 Dec), Peiru's English student came for our table tennis event and he said he will come again this Sat to help out in the orphanage.
We are excited about the new friends joining us during this Christmas season. Some of them are coming to help us wrap Christmas presents for the children in the orphanage. This Sat (20 Dec), we will be teaching the children Christmas songs in English and giving them Christmas gifts.”
Hope Quito blog's (Shen Teng & Peiru’s)
Christmas is Hope Santiago, Chile (Ee Lee & team )
“We had a fruitful and exciting CG yesterday (Dec 21). The theme was Navidad con las estrellas. The people were to come dressed like their favourite stars… The atmosphere was good and we had quite a number of first time guests. Praise God! It was great teamwork too as this was our first time doing an evangelistic CG together. We had lots of fun doing this.”
Pray for a core team to form by January and for new contacts who have desire to grow in the Lord.
Christmas in Sao Paulo, Brazil (CherrieMae & Marites)
“For us here, we are still acquainted with the Igreja Transcultural (Transcultural Church). We had a great Christmas celebration last Saturday night (20 Dec), exchanging gifts with our ¨Amigo Secreto¨(Secret Friend). We have to say something to inspire and thank the person before giving the gift to him/her and have to open the gift in front of everybody. It´s a wonderful experience celebrating Christmas in another culture. It´s our prayer that we will celebrate our Christmas with our own CG next year ….
God has been faithful in every way throughout our stay here. Thank you for all your prayers.
Desejamos o Natal mais feliz e um Ano Novo próspero e repleto de alegrias (We wish you the happiest Christmas and a Prosperous New Year filled with joy).”
They will be returning next month to process student visas. Continue to pray for them to secure entry vehicle and also to find accommodation in a place that is safe, economical and strategic.
Source: http://www.hopesingapore.org.sg/missions/
Hope London Christmas Celebration (2008)
This year, we hold separate services for our 3 centres in London – Ealing, Hatfield and London City. For our Christmas service in London City, it was held in a nice hotel hall near Victoria with excellent acoustic quality. We managed to invite a lot of local people, including friends from a Home for Homeless.
We started with a ice-breaking quiz game with prizes given to correct answers, creating a nice joyful atmosphere. This was followed by a traditional Carol singing session. We only had a small worship team, but the acoustic of the hall made the sound very beautiful indeed.
The European Group came up with a 21st century Christmas Carol – the famous Mr. Scrooge. The following outlines summarised the sketch:
- Scene 1 - Badness of Mr Scrooge
- Scene 2 – Spirit of the Christmas past
In vengence, he became an evil parking inspector who ticketed everything stationery, with or without wheels!
- Scene 3 – Spirit of Christmas present
- Scene 4 – Spirit of Christmas future
- Scene 5 – Scrooge realised his ways and turns good
He woke up in a sweat and scared. He realised his loneliness as well. He was determined to change his ways.The acting was of a high standard and very funny.
Pk shared a Christmas message entitled A Christmas Story, matching the sketch. The 3 main points were 1) Mr. Scrooge’s Story, 2) Mr. Scrooge’s Old Story is History and 3) Mr. Scrooge’s New Story is HIS-Story. It was well received. It ended with altar call and more Carol singing. Then separate groups invited their guests to dinner. We praise God for another wonderful Christmas!
Your brother,
Pastor PK
Hope London, UK (Website)
Hope Tokyo Christmas Service & Carols
Merry Christmas and best wishes to all churches in the Hope family. Hope of Tokyo celebrated our Christmas service with the theme of "[A] Christmas Gift for You" where 57 people came. Thank God for some new friends who made the decision to know and accept Christ as their Saviour.
After the party, in the midst of cold weather, we went to the nearest train station to sing Chritmas carols, passing out tracts and sweets to those who passed us by. We are glad to see that many visitors enjoyed singing with us for the first time.
We also had a year-end church retreat in Nikko. God touched our lives during the praise, worship, teaching and ministry time. Many people made the decision to offer their lives to the Lord to be moulded into the next generation of leaders.
However, the most joyful thing is, we already have started our first daughter church in Kanagawa Prefecture on January 4, with 14 people attending the very first service. Despite the challenges, we declare by faith that 2009 is going to be the best year so far. Praise the Lord.
May God bless you.
Chew and Masami
Hope Tokyo, Japan
Hope Hong Kong Christmas Celebration
It's the most joyful time of the year again! With Christmas around the corner, over 400 brothers and sisters and friends gathered together to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus at Hope Centre in Tsuen Wan. It was a combined service with the Hong Kong and Filipino groups. The day was surely a blessed one.
The theme of the Christmas Service was "So Far? So Great!” Pastor Gavin then gave a sermon about "The Greatness of Jesus Christ". Preaching from Isaiah 9:6, Pastor told us that our Lord is the wonderful counsellor, the mighty and powerful God, our everlasting father and our prince of peace. As He is so great and that He is always with us, we can rely on Him. Through Him who gives us grace, peace, and strength and wisdom, we can do anything. Indeed, all we need is the love from our Lord Father. Amen!
Praise the Lord, 16 new souls were touched by the Lord on this special occasion to receive Christ. It is truly the best Christmas present for them! Let us continue to pray for these new believers, that they will continue to experience the greatness of our Lord! The congregation rejoiced by singing a series of Christmas songs to bring the service to a close. Everyone sang and danced with joy! Christmas is in the air! Praise our King!
Pastor Gavin & Pastor Arlene
Hope Hong Kong (Website)
Hope Newcastle, Christmas 2008
In approaching Christmas, we often ask ourselves "what does this holiday really mean?" Is it a time to give presents of is the focus more on getting them? Is this holiday a time of rest - or do we need a rest-period AFTER Christmas due to the busyness of gift-hunting, meal-preparation, parties and the like? For the average Australian, all this clutter makes it hard to find out what Christmas is really about. So, in Hope Newcastle we tried to host a service that might make discovering the real meaning of Christmas a little easier.
Aussies generally know that the main message of Christmas has something to do with a baby, gifts and wise-men...so we tried to take a different angle in ways that your everyday person could relate to. This involved providing an atmosphere that visitors could feel comfortable in (using Christmas colours, themes and carols to set the scene) but then taking a slightly different angle through the use of mult-media clips. It was here that we all became onlookers watching a pair of humorous angels as they tried to understand The Almighty's 'plan of salvation' by working out WHY on EARTH HE would send His Son to, of all places...EARTH!!!
It was from this perspective that Chris proceeded to share a message called "Pure Genius". This message presented Christmas as God's idea of coming TO us in order to EXPLAIN HIMSELF to us by becoming ONE OF US (then of course, dying FOR us).
A number of visitors including people's family members and friends attended and overall we, in Hope Newcastle, had a memorable Christmas celebration finishing with a dinner together.
Chris & Ann-Marie Skinner
Hope Newcastle, Australia
Hope Perth Christmas Outreach
We just want to first of all thank God for an exciting, blessed and fruitful 2008 Christmas celebration that we had at Hope Perth!
This year’s celebration theme was entitled 'Celebration of Freedom’ with the purpose of celebrating the freedom we can have in all areas of our lives and the victory over any bondages through the empowering and loving relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ.
Praise God that we had more than 126 people attending the celebration service with the entire venue almost completely filled. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the service and the atmosphere was full of excitement, warmth and joy. This year’s special items included a contemporary stage drama, a choir performing various carols and a special Christmas lunch.
Most importantly, on this special occasion, many members, friends and visitors were truly touched by God’s sacrificial love as they heard the message preached by Ps Stephen.
It was a blessing for many brothers and sisters as well as those who worked together in unity during the preparation phase and contributing their talents, effort and time sacrificially to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. The event certainly encouraged the whole church and reaffirmed to them that God loves us and he is faithful at all times!
Pastor Stephen & Hannah
Hope Perth, Australia
Hope Melbourne: Special Christmas Outreach
Praise God for our recent Christmas service on December 21, 2008. Through prayer and perseverance, we managed to secure a theatrette inside Melbourne State Library to make it more special. As a church, we want to bless as many people as possible. The committee put up posters in many of the public places in Melbourne. Some people went further by asking the local council for permission to set up sound equipment for street evangelism on the day itself. They sang Christmas carols in multiple languages as well as sharing from the Bible to those passing along the street, while some went out to give invitations and share the gospel.
We were so encouraged to see an attendance of 263 people (more than the available number of seats) from the City and Darebin Centres including adults and children: it was a record attendance!
We give all glory to God as everyone enjoyed a night of singing carols, watching a drama presentation, sharing the love of the Lord and being encouraged by the message of how God gave us the biggest Christmas present we could ever imagine: the birth of His Son, Jesus Christ!
Praise God too for a total of five salvations and one rededication. We acknowledge the effort of our committee who put in lots of effort in organising this service and thank all members for their contribution in every way. Lastly, we would also like to praise God for His gift to us which is the true reason we celebrate Christmas. God is good, Amen!
Reported by Simon Hardy (HOPE Darebin)
Hope Auckland, New Zealand
The morning of the 21st of December was buzzing for Hope Auckland Christian Church as we celebrated Christmas. Despite the many members returning to their home countries for Christmas, the lecture theatre was filled with about 90 people there that Sunday. The packed service was opened with a fantastic hip hop dance (dancing and acting) and included many showcases of the talent in church with items such as an African song performance by the Voices of Hope, and the final installment in our three-part Christmas skit.
All these contributed to this year’s Christmas theme of Hope and led into the message. Despite all these festivities, it can be safely said that the best part of Hope Auckland’s 2008 Christmas were the 3 salvations we had over our three-Sunday Christmas build up!
Pastor Bernard & Angela Soh
Hope Auckland, New Zealand
