God speaks
It was 3.15am on March 23rd 2000. I was in Conakry, the capital of the Republic of Guinea in West Africa. I was there to visit a church that had been planted with Sierra Leonean refugees a few years earlier; they had fled over the border to escape the horrors of civil war. I was suddenly awoken with ‘Dream big dreams’ ringing in my ears. Audible? I am not sure, but it was very real. This posting is, thus, very personal.
It was only the third month of the year and yet, since Christmas, I had visited South Africa, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone before reaching Guinea. I was monitoring some of the ministries to whom we, as a family of churches, had given money, a necessary discipline under UK charity law.
As I lay there in the bed (I was sharing with Terry Murphy – bed-sharing with my travelling companion in Africa is an experience I had become used to, though never much enjoyed!) when God spoke clearly to me. This ‘dreaming’ was about the poor. He told me that I was to help Newfrontiers churches outside the UK to increase their engagement with the poor in their communities and that I was to help them do this to a high standard. I felt him give me the vision to facilitate at least 80% of Newfrontiers churches to have active involvement with the poor within 5 years. In many nations I visited there was no need to urge them to do so – their local communities were conspicuously ‘poor’. But in others such ministries could be seen as ‘optional’, not an integral part of their raison d’être. God went on to say that I was not to tell Terry (Murphy) about this but was to return to the UK and have this sense of leading weighed by Terry Virgo and his team. So, despite this encounter with God I remained silent until I arrived back home.
Weighing this call
There is a lot of detail that followed but suffice to say that when I shared this first with Terry, then the UK apostolic team, and finally an international team that was meeting at that time, the calling was confirmed and I was commissioned to launch a five-year initiative, Act Together. This was to be outworked through churches, not to be a separately constituted ministry or charity. We believe that people who live in poverty or in need can be significantly reached and helped through churches. In and through such communities broken hearts can be bound up and people can be set free from the captivity of circumstances. They can be comforted and strengthened to stand tall. They can be encouraged and built up to become mature ‘oaks of righteousness’ (Is 61:1-3).
Forming a team
But I was not equipped to do this alone. I needed people who were available to provide some of the expertise I lacked. I was privileged to know Penny Relph already, as referred to in the previous blog, and she agreed to join me. Sadly this was to last for only a few months before she died of cancer. I was also joined by Nick Priggis who had significant training and experience of working as a development worker in Africa, and by Donna Bloomfield, who had received a similar commission from God at almost exactly the same time as me as she came to the end of establishing a school Burundi ! God works in wondrous ways. It is a joy to have retained friendship with these two 
wonderful people about whom I have reported in earlier blog postings. Nick now leads a church in Shrewsbury with a significant ministry empowering those who are poor and in need of training into employment, Hope Initiatives. He wrote about this ministry in my blog in 2019. He has also written two books: Establish the Work of our Hands and Families Matter. Donna is back in Burundi where she is being used mightily to uplift and empower some of the most destitute people, as shown on the Hope for Tomorrow Global website.
Next time I will start to share about some of the experiences I have had since 2000 in becoming involved with churches in different nations.