22Nov 2023 by Nigel Ring

Donna Bloomfield shares insights about working with the poor

Poor
Donna has been a good friend of mine for well over 20 years. We worked together for a few years and I now chair the ministry she leads in Burundi, Hope for Tomorrow Global. Margins2Mic is an initiative of Andy McCullough's. Andy has been involved in reaching people in various 'unreached' nations for many years and is passionate about relating to people cross-culturally. In response to his invitation Donna shares about her history with 'The Forgotten People' in Burundi. She also gives some very helpful insights about how to view and relate with people who are 'disadvantaged'. Click on photo:
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12Aug 2021 by Nigel Ring

Burundi – Community development amongst least-reached people

Poor
Recently I interviewed Donna Bloomfield, a very good friend, while she was in Burundi. This was for the Unreached Network of Newfrontiers to help potential church planters get a feel of what working cross-culturally implies. In the interview Donna talks about her calling and vision, and tells of the amazing ministry God has given her among the poorest of the poor. She is seeing hundreds of people becoming followers of Jesus and being empowered to become food-secure for their families using Foundations for Farming as pioneered in Zimbabwe by Brian Oldreive. https://vimeo.com/565020638 This is a tremendous example of ‘good practice’ in working cross-culturally. I think you will be inspired. Hope for Tomorrow Global is a charity (which I chair) but the ministry is firmly embedded in the church which has…
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17May 2021 by Nigel Ring

40 years on… 23. Dream big dreams

News, Poor
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…
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22Apr 2021 by Nigel Ring

40 years on… 22. Remember the poor

News, Poor
This blog series is a personal recollection of the first 40 years of Newfrontiers, not a definitive history. Those who know me will be aware of my love for and involvement in ministries with those who are poor or in need, and it is to this I will now turn. The exceptions In the 80s and 90s ministry with people who were living in some form of poverty was not a high priority for most Newfrontiers churches. Yet there were some notable exceptions as I discovered when, one year at Stoneleigh, I interviewed, during one main meeting, some key people for whom ministry with those in need was their passion: Piet Dreyer from Project Gateway in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, Angela Kemm about the townships in Cape Province, South Africa, and…
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03Sep 2020 by Nigel Ring

Church workshop project to help rebuild Beirut

Poor
Help the church in Beirut! I am delighted to profile an initiative taken by Martyn Dunsford's SeedFund to help a church in Beirut to set up a workshop to help rebuild houses in that devastated city. They urgently need funds to achieve what is needed. Are you able to help? Read on! The explosions Tuesday August 4th at 6pm there is a loud noise in the sky. Joy Basta living in Beirut looks up to the sky thinking it is a thunderstorm but the sky is blue. He realises that something is wrong, very wrong, so he runs to protect his family.  Just nine minutes later a second explosion caused by 2,750 tonnes of exploding ammonium nitrate sent a supersonic shockwave from the port of Beirut that devastated the city, shattered…
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12Aug 2020 by Nigel Ring

Can you help me please?

Poor
I am attempting to raise £5000 to contribute to the medical expenses which must be met by a friend whose son is in a coma in Zimbabwe. For obvious reasons, having experienced the trauma caused by head injury with my own son, this is a need that touches my heart. As you read this I really do not want you to feel under any obligation to donate. But if you felt to do so that would be a huge blessing. Here is the situation. [caption id="attachment_7750" align="alignright" width="260"] Za's life until recently[/caption] Za lives in Zimbabwe, the 32 year old son of a close friend of mine. 15 years ago he was head-injured in a car crash. In June this year he collapsed and went into a coma, where he…
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