Dear Brothers and Sisters
The ACBM is pleased to commend to you this review of the areas of its labours on behalf of our brotherhood in God’s vineyard for the year ending 30 June 2015.
Foremost in our mind is a spirit of deep thankfulness as we look back over the past twelve months and contemplate the wonderfully evident good hand of our God upon the labours of the Mission. In His mercy and grace fieldworkers have travelled safely, funds have been made available to support the needs in far off lands and fruit has been brought forth to the glory of His name. So it is that we give all honour and praise to our Father in heaven for His abounding goodness and care.
The year has witnessed in mission lands the whole range of life’s experiences common to ecclesial life. Births natural and spiritual, sickness natural and spiritual, deaths natural and spiritual. There have been new initiatives and wonderful fraternal opportunities. There has been the distress of fearful natural disasters and of sad ecclesial issues. Some of these experiences have called for extraordinary levels of support and assistance and thankfully with the Father’s blessing funds and resources have been able to be provided. The Mission is especially grateful for the financial support which has been so generously forthcoming to provide assistance in the wake of Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu and the earthquakes in Nepal.
For our brotherhood preaching is imperative. It was the Lord who commissioned that “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations”. It was the Apostle who passed this responsibility on to Timothy with the words, “Preach the word; be instant in season and out of season.” And so the responsibility has come down to yet our generation living in the momentous end of days when time will soon be no longer. Dare we slacken our hand in the Master’s assignment? “Surely this is a day of good tidings. We do not well to hold our peace.”
Spreading the Truth to others is but the beginning of the Mission’s role. Paul the Apostle showed by example that newly established ecclesias must needs be supported. We find him travelling to distant parts “strengthening the disciples”. So today as the numbers of brothers and sisters grow across the Asia-Pacific area so the Mission’s ministration moves to become more and more pastoral.
The Mission in its unique way continues to provide a range of opportunities which allow every brother and sister to be a participant. There are those who support, there are those who plan and manage, those who correspond and keep in touch and those who go out into all the world. Each of these areas of service is absolutely dependant on volunteers. Our brothers and sisters in faraway lands need that support and help to continue. The Mission is a mechanism whereby the Christlike spirit of giving of oneself for others can come to the fore. The Mission is desperately short of those who can help onshore as well as those who might be fieldworkers offshore. Why not attend a Regional ACBM Meeting and find where you could volunteer your service? There are Regional contact details elsewhere in this Report. The reach of the Mission can practically involve us all. It is a work for God’s family. It is God’s work and “God loves a cheerful giver.”
Thank you brothers and sisters for your strong ongoing commitment to the Asia-Pacific Bible Mission.
In these last days may the Spirit and the bride continue to say, Come!
Garnet Alchin
Chairman ACBM National Committee
