Phil Eagling Newsletter January 2002

Volume 3, Issue 1 January 2002

G’day from down under,

Sharon and I hope this finds you all well. We pray for you constantly, that God is using you to bring lives to Him. We trust that this New year will be a year where we all grow stronger and more fruitful in the Lord. We pray that God will bring you all more inner peace.

This New Year brings us some new challenges, some new opportunities. One such opportunity is the festival of the family, of which begins on March 1st and ends March 3rd. This is a weekend of revival meetings for the community.

Please can you all put this time on your calender to pray for the speaker and the people who attend. The speakers name is Bill Newman.

This year I hope to begin a Kids club, it still is in the planning stages. Please pray for this idea to become a reality.

We would also like for you to pray that there would be willing workers from the church. This is one area that seems to be a hard task to find people willing to offer their service, but we know that with God everything is possible.

Please also pray for the leadership of the church. That they will capture the vision, and take on a committed approach to ministry.

If there are any churches who support us in need of a mission to support for VBS or camps please think about possibly supporting us. This past year we had two churches drop their support from us without telling us why. We are certainly trying to understand why this has happened. But we are still in the dark. The work here is certainly not without its challenges, but we have also seen God bless us as well. So please prayerfully consider our need. We have to recover some lost support soon. Our planned trip to you all this year will certainly help us to try and gain some new support.

Speaking of that trip, we are still planning it, and we hope to let you all know of our final arrival time. We are hoping to be in the States in the latter part of this year.


God bless,
yours in Christ,
your Aussie mate,


Phil Eagling.

Happy New Year to you all! I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas. I am still trying to figure out where the last year went! It just flew by. Savannah is now 2 and a half [where did that year go] and we are counting the days for the "terrible two’s" to end!! Just kidding [well not really]. She is a real little girl who knows her mind and it’s terribly hard to refocus it once she has her mind set on something! She is presently doing swimming lessons once a week and is now starting to enjoy it. The first few weeks were a bit teary but she is going well. She also is going to a 'kindly' one day a week, that gives her some interaction with other kids.

This year it looks like I will be taking over as Sunday School teacher, so that will be a challenge! The present teacher is having heart problems and needs to take some time off and take it easy. There are very few children in the church so the age group will be from Savannah’s age to possibly a ten year old. I would appreciate your prayers about this as I am a bit daunted at the moment.

We are starting up our ladies group again in a couple of weeks this year I would really like to see it change and become more than a social outing or craft night. We always had a devotion but I would like to see it develop more. We have now taken on the responsibility of supporting the Bible society and sending Bibles to third world countries. We are still supplying "care packages" for the women’s shelter in town. We have been told that the ladies really appreciate the toiletries and how they are put together.

I would really like to see something happen with a young Mum’s group. It is so hard when you are the only young Mum in the church [that isn't working]. So hard to find people that want to help. There are a lot of retirees in the church and that makes it hard to get some projects going. We have so many ideas, but they seem to go by the wayside because we have no help. Sorry for ‘whining’ I would ask you to pray for our frustration at the moment. We thank you for you prayers and support. Will talk to you next time.


God bless,


Sharon

How to speak Australian and other information about Australia

Gday from down under. I hope you are all well. My daddy told me again that you are all cold right now, that just does not seem right. He said that there would be some of you that would probably think the same way.

If you look at our picture below you will see that we are dressed to suit the hot weather. Mummy said that Christmas day was one of the hottest in years.

My daddy said that when the New Year came we would have to stay up and wait for it to happen. I thought that was rather funny because my mummy said that we all missed it. So what are we in right now? Ha ha. My mummy explained to me that we did not make the one second past 12 midnight on New Year’s eve because we were all a bunch of oldies (old folk), who couldn’t hack it (have the strength) to stay up past eleven.

My Dad said that this was due to the fun we had in the hot weather at the beach that day.

Did you know that in Australia there is a game called cricket. And this is a game that my Mum says it drives her up the wall. I really had to ask myself how could a cricket drive my mummy up the wall? Ha ha.

My dad is very passionate about this game called cricket because he yells at the TV when someone gets out. My question is how can the people possibly hear him yell at them?

My dad says that there are some grown up dads over there that do the same when they watch the football. I guess dads are the same world over, well at least in America and Australia.

I am swimming now, or rather I am getting lessons, and think that is just ridgy digde (cool).

Well I need to go now, dad is jumping around really happy, that his cricket team won.


May Jesus be the peace you need,
may you all seek Him,
love,

Savannah.

• Franklin Christian Church
• Franklin Christian Church Missions
• Philip Eagling in Australia Missions
• The Mission field: Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia

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