CHURCH PLANTING IN AUCKLAND NEW ZEALAND
Interview with Pastor Bernard Soh & Angela Soh:
This is a special interview with Pastor Bernard and Angela Soh on how God called them to relocate from Singapore to Auckland New Zealand to pioneer a church in 2001. Hope Auckland is a growing multicultural church with 21 nationalities from around the world. Pastor Bernard and Angela are happily married with three children (Stephanie, Rachel and Jared).
Bernard Soh:
Hi. My name is Bernard Soh, and here is my wife Angela. We’re overseeing the church here in Auckland, New Zealand. We started off in the year 2001, with about seven members and thanks to God for his faithfulness and his grace, he has added to us right now close to eighty members. So praise the Lord, praise the Lord.
Angela Soh:
Yes it’s really exciting! Back in 2003, we started the university student ministry. There were just three people and we started with that. The Lord just brought the people and the group has grown and grown over the years, we’re now averaging about forty university students covering two campuses in Auckland itself so it’s really great. There are people from all walks of life from different countries and it’s just exciting to see the students really committed and serving God.
Bernard Soh:
We thank God also for the family group. It has grown double in number so thank God for them. They also come from different walks of life and God has been great to bring all these different family members to come. Also, with the family group added in the extra for the children’s ministry.
Angela Soh:
And two year ago we started the youth ministry. We just had a handful of high school students but now it’s grown and we have between fifteen to twenty high school students, spanning about five high schools in Auckland. It’s really exciting because these kids have such a big vision; they want to have students saved from all the high schools in Auckland, that’s more than a hundred of them. And also we have the young adults ministry. We have young working people, and you know some of them have come from our student ministry. They’ve graduated found work and are working now and its exciting because they too have such a strong desire to serve God in their lives.
Bernard Soh:
Thank God that we have such diverse nationalities in our church. We have close to about twenty plus nationalities in this church of ours in Auckland. We have Kiwis, Africans, coming from Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria; we also have some islanders such as the people from Samoa and also Fijians. We have people from Asia, from all the different countries in Asia, so we thank God for all theses diversities that we have and praise the Lord. God wants to do great work here especially at the churches also located at the Auckland universities, where we can reach out to more of these overseas students.
Angela Soh:
You know New Zealand is a beautiful country, the land of the long white cloud, land of milk and honey. We would love for you to come visit us come anytime, you are more than welcome to Auckland New Zealand.
Bernard Soh:
And let me just added in, my wife is a good cook. Come and join us!
