Praise:
Please join with us in thanking the Lord for His goodness and grace:
- The Ladies Conference on the North Island and in Christchurch on the South Island was a huge success and great time of blessing . The Conference with Pam Markey was attended by over 125 women across the two day conferences. These were the first ever National Calvary Chapel women’s conferences in New Zealand and hopefully, the start of a new yearly event to minister to the Ladies of New Zealand. The response was so overwhelmingly positive that we are looking into staging a weekend conference for Ladies, rather than just a day conference.
- The Lord’s blessing on CCBI this semester, we are now about 8 weeks into this semester and this is the first free weekend for the student body. This has been a season of ministry, we have participated in several outreaches with Christian Surfers of New Zealand, staged and served at the National Ladies conferences, been on involved in as significant amount of street evangelism on the streets of Rotorua, we had the privilege just this week of seeing three souls come to Christ on the streets of Rotorua. Praise the Lord for His blessing.
- Praise the Lord for the growth in the student body , we have not only grown in numbers but we are growing in heart and depth of our walk with the Lord.
- Praise the Lord for His provision for the ministry and for us personally as we serve here in the South Pacific Rim.
- Thanks the Lord for an exciting 50th Birthday trip as a family to sydney to celebrate Gwyn’s significant event.
Prayer
Please join with us and seek the Lord’s wisdom and guidance:
- April 3rd – 8th will be our first ever speakers week , Pastor Rod Thompson (Murrieta Conference Centre), Pastor Andrew Russell (Calvary Chapel Melbourne Australia), Pastor Kris Baines, (Calvary Chapel Christchurch) and Pastor Nick Field ( The Street, Wellington, New Zealand) will be joining us for a week of teaching and ministry, please pray for anointing, wisdom and God’s blessing as we seek to dig into the word and be refreshed.
- April 29th – May 7th – Outreaches- During this time we have teams of students who are going on outreach throughout the region. Josh Hughes will be taking a team of students to serve with Calvary Chapel Christchurch, helping out and serving in the clean up and aftermath of the earthquake. Jake Wilmoth will be leading a team to Sydney, Australia to serve with Mark Redden & Brad Hall as they both plant churches in different areas of the Northern Beaches of Sydney. I will be taking a separate trip to Japan, to teach at worship conference and minister alongside Calvary Chapel Okinawa. The conference theme is “Worship in Hard Times“. A theme that was chosen long before the recent and poignant events in Japan, a theme which so applicable to this time in Japan. Please pray for the Lord’s wisdom, guidance and provision as we prepare for these times of ministry.
- CCBI is growing and all our problems are the good kind !!!!! with more students, we have greater needs in terms of transport – please pray with us for the Lord’s provision of a van for the school so we can transport students and go further a field on outreach.
- We are currently close to our maximum on accommodation at the facility we use here at Lakes Ranch, We will be here for our September semester but in all likely hood if we continue to grow, we will probably outgrow the facility here and may need to turn students away. All in all we need the Lord’s wisdom and guidance for the next step. In light of the growth in the ministry and the opportunity and need to stage conference and ministry event like the Ladies conference, our heart is to seek the Lord’s provision for our own facility, which would serve as bible school and ministry conference centre. Please pray for God’s wisdom and guidance as we seek Him about this.
- Provision for our staff, for Josh, Jake and Tecla as they return to the states to renew fellowship with friends family, to raise support and renew their visas before returning for the August semester. Please especially for Jake and Tecla as they will be having a baby during their time back in California, for safety provision and health for mum, baby and even Jake.
- For the Walsh family, for rest refreshment in the ministry and wisdom. We are at the stage of needing to find alternate accommodation, so please pray for God’s guidance in this process as it will require some changes for us in our finances and how we organize ourselves in terms of CCBI. Our hope would that we would be able to find a place that would give us enough space to store the CCBI ministry equipment over the break between semesters.
- For Pastor Steve Jones, Pastor of Calvary Chapel Hamilton, New Zealand – Steve faithfully serves as pastor of the Calvary Chapel in Hamilton and also is full time hill farmer running a significant farm in the Waikato. As a founding member of the board of CCBI , Steve is great servant , this June we are helping to facilitate Steve attending the Senior Pastors conference in Murietta, please pray this will be a rich time in the word and ministry for Steve and for blessing on him and the family as he travels to the conference.
- For Calvary Chapel Rotorua & Pastor Scott Clifford, as well as growth in CCBI, CC Rotorua is growing significantly in size causing no end of problems with no free chairs in the sanctuary – What a great problem, we have just taken on the lower unit under the church with the intention of developing it as a ministry centre , for youth ministry, offices and a coffee shop. These are all great opportunities and steps of faith, please pray that we would have the wisdom , that we would hear the Lord’s voice on how He wants us to proceed in this venture.
- Please pray , we actually have no idea what we are doing, but we desire His Glory and an inheritance for messiah at this end of the earth .
Thank for co-labouring with us in prayer for the ministry.
Mark & Gwyn
The Walshes Blog 