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| African Enterprise founder Michael Cassidy |
Our Very Dear Friends in Lots of Places,
This is Michael coming to you rather hurriedly on September 2nd just before I go away for 12 days to Johannesburg, Pretoria, and then Cape Town, and finally having four days in Namaquland in the North Western Cape with Carol looking at the beautiful profusion of flowers which come out every year in that scenic wonderland in that part of our country.
We return to Pietermaritzburg on September 12th and I do covet your prayers as I go into hospital on Tuesday, September 14th for prostate surgery. Thankfully I do not have a cancer problem in this regard but the doctor has recommended running repairs which will keep me in hospital for three or four days, after which I must lie low and take it fairly easy with no travel by plane or any extended distance by car for three weeks. So that is a little bit of an item on my horizon and I would obviously covet your prayers that all should go well and satisfactorily.
Now for some other bits and pieces of news about upcoming things and some of what we have been up to in the weeks since I last wrote. So perhaps let’s run the clock back to early July when my last letter went out.
1. NEW WINE CONFERENCE - SLIGO, IRELAND
Thank you so much for those of you who remembered me/us in prayer as we went into that wonderful event. We were picked up at Dublin Airport by Mrs Susan Philips who was on our AE Ireland Board and we had the first night in her home with her family in County Wicklow. Her husband Tim died some months ago and this has been very devastating for her. But she is full of grace and truth, courage, and the love of God.
We then went up to Dublin and stayed with David and Joy Ebbs, David being a Dublin businessman and another member of the AE Ireland Board. They had an AE meeting that night (Saturday, July 10th) and it was wonderful to find friends and supporters there who love our work, pray for us, and give towards the ministry. David and Joy then took us out to Sligo in Western Ireland and stayed for the whole week in the conference. They are such stars. At assorted free moments they also took us around to see some of the lovely scenery in that part of the world. In the conference itself I did a series of five major lectures on Prayer and this was an enormous privilege and a humbling opportunity.
There was a sense of the Lord blessing the ministry and I was so very thankful for the sense of joy and delight with which I was able to minister the Word. Many seemed to have been touched and came for prayer at the end of the different messages, as happened after each of the presentations in the conference. People, even in the church, have such needs and it is really wonderful when prayer ministry opportunities are seized so that people can be encouraged, prayed for and experience the Lord’s rich touch upon their lives. We saw that again and again and again. So thank you again so very much for your prayers. I feel the Lord really did answer.
2. BRIEF VISIT TO USA
We then shot across the pond to have a week with our daughter Cathy, son-in-law Jonathan, and their two bouncing bundles of fun, Andrew and Cameron. It was precious indeed to reconnect to our USA family again and be blessed by them. We also made connection to numbers of AE friends in that area, as well as the Maclellan Foundation, and then Cathy drove me the four and a half or five hour distance to Asheville and Montreat to have a very special time with Billy Graham. This was moving indeed and the great veteran evangelist, even at 92, remains so full of the love of Christ and a passion for the Gospel. I have attached a couple of photographs which I think are quite special and much to be treasured. It was a joy to share some Scripture with him and pray and reminisce and even laugh about old times.
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| Old friends Billy Graham & Michael Cassidy catch up. |
After saying our fond farewells to the dear man, we went over to the Billy Graham Training Centre at The Cove in Asheville and met there with Scott Holmquist, the Director of the Centre, and also spent some minutes with Wil Graham, Billy Graham’s grandson. Interesting that several of his grandsons are rising stars in evangelism already. And of course his son Franklin is now President of the Billy Association and has a vast ministry around the world both in evangelism and in compassionate actions through Samaritan’s Purse. His daughter, Ann is a great preacher and author as well. What a family! It was interesting comparing notes with Scott about The Cove Training Centre and the developing AE Leadership Training Centre. Interestingly enough both The Cove and the AE Centre were designed by the same landscape architect, Professor Carl Johnson formerly Professor of Architecture at Ann Arbour University in Michigan.
On the way back from the States we stopped in UK for two days to visit my sister Olave Snelling, who is Chairperson of AEUK and her husband John. It was a special joy also to have dinner with Philip Green, a very senior British businessman, who has a terrific heart for the Lord and the Gospel and for Africa.
3. BACK IN SOUTH AFRICA
Once back in South Africa we were quickly into the swing of things. I had a glorious opportunity on Saturday, August 7th of ministering to 1 500 university students who are part of Campus Harvest Ministries of the His People/Every Nation denomination. I have rarely been in the middle of such pulsating spiritual energy and Gospel vitality as in that conference. I felt hugely grateful to the Lord for giving me liberty of utterance and proclamation along with favour from those students as I encountered there. Beautiful hearts and open minds and souls. I take very great comfort and consolation for South Africa when I think of young people like that being released into our society which at all sorts of levels has exceedingly problematic components at work. We need to be praying for South Africa, dear friends. But pray especially for these Christian young people who have the future in their hands.
The following week we had the honour and privilege of Malcolm and Bertha Graham visiting us and it was such a special joy to host a celebratory dinner for them on Thursday, August 12th to give thanks for their 36 years of ministry to AE. This has been, as I have said before, a contribution probably without precedent in the whole ministry. We owe them just so much. Please keep them in your prayers as they move now into retirement, but with Malcolm also helping out in assorted ways as he can in terms of AEUSA. In that regard we are celebrating the ongoing progress in that office through our new Director Chris Doyle. Please hold him in your prayers as well.
I also praise the Lord for another teaching and ministry experience in yet another New Wine Conference in Pretoria, although this is not the same ministry as the one in Ireland. But it emerges out of a Leadership Institute established by a brilliant rising star in South Africa by the name of Segun Olanipekun. He is a Nigerian who has felt called to South Africa and he has a great emerging ministry based in Pretoria.
I was privileged to give two major addresses in this conference on the subject of South African Family Life. The first focused into How Did We Get Here?, in the sense of what have been the factors that have led us in South Africa into the situation we are now in where families are in such crisis? In the second lecture I was able to address what I feel needs to be taught and emphasized in the churches if we are to re-establish South African family life in new strength and stability. I believe that if anyone wants to have CD copies of these messages, as indeed also of the ones in Ireland on Prayer, then just write back to us and make enquiry.
We have also been greatly blessed with the four day visit of Rev Norman Hamilton, the new Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, and his wife Evelyn and daughter Julie. They stayed with Carol and me for four days and we were able to connect them to numbers of leaders in this area. Rev Hamilton is exploring the lessons we learnt in South Africa in bringing together both the personal and socio-political dimensions of the Gospel. This was a joyous privilege for us to share with this powerful and influential man of God and his family. Pray for Norman as he gives strong leadership not only in the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, with some 475 churches under him, but in the wider Christian scene as well.
4. BARNABAS GROUPS
At the end of last year after Carol and I had our December 18th episode on the road when the Grim Reaper could have taken us away, we have felt a challenge to rework some of our priorities. This has led me to cut back on executive and fundraising responsibilities and also to focus more into the encouraging of younger leaders in South Africa. Barnabas you will remember in the New Testament carried that name because he was “the Son of Encouragement.” I have accordingly selected some 70 younger leaders from around South Africa in five or six different cities and am beginning a process of meeting with these groups for the purpose of mutual encouragement in the Gospel, the things of the Lord, our own personal growth, and how we respond to the challenges of South Africa at this time. The first of these is today, Thursday, September 2nd in Johannesburg, and then the next in Cape Town on Saturday, 4th. The other four groups in different parts of the country will be meeting, Lord willing, in November. I so covet and would profoundly cherish your prayers for this new venture which I am hoping will really be a blessing to many of these younger leaders, and I know they will for sure bless me.
I have also had the privilege of meeting with a dozen or so Methodist ministers for similar encouragement here in Pietermaritzburg and as the Lord enables me to try and be a blessing to some of these pastors and clergy, so I will deepen in my sense of gratitude to the Lord for this privilege.
5. JUBA MISSION
Beloved friends, please, please, please uphold our upcoming Juba Mission to the Lord in prayer. This is set to run from the 18th September through to 26th September. Our brother Songe Chibambo, the AE Pan African Missions Director, plus John Shikuku, Leader of our Team in Kenya, have been majoring on the setup, with wonderfully able input from Darien and Vanessa Khlentzos. Our setup crew is there now and Songe flies in a day or so, much in need of prayer for strength as he is just coming out of the Nelspruit Mission as well. Juba, Southern Sudan has suffered profoundly, as much in many ways as any other major crisis area of the world. The church has been battered and bruised by different types of persecution and the need is really great for a breakthrough there. May our team be anointed with power from on High and may all possible blessings and anointing rest upon Stephen Lungu, our International Team Leader and CEO, as he leads that mission and is the main preacher.
6. INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIP BOARD (IPB)
This is another area of particular need for prayer. It begins on Friday, October 8th and runs through to Thursday, October 14th. This is a very, very important time for our whole Partnership as many major decisions are being made relating to the future. A venture of strategic planning and deep discussion has been called the Project Generational Change and we will be looking at the findings arising out of the initial work, all of which is designed to move AE as satisfactorily as possible into the future. Please uphold all of us in prayer through those days. We have probably hardly ever had an IPB of greater importance, particularly as there is to be some major restructuring taking place in the governance and organizational procedures of the ministry.
7. LAUSANNE III – the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation
Right after our IPB several of us move on to Cape Town where the Lausanne Congress gets underway on Saturday, October 16th and runs through to Monday, October 25th.
Please pray especially for the Chairman of the Congress, Rev Doug Birdsall, and also for Blair Carlson, the Executive Director along with his ever increasing staff in Cape Town as the countdown begins.
As of this moment there are 4 100 registered participants from 180 nations, along with probably some others to be added. Most are pastors, scholars, missionaries, evangelists, government officials, business people, journalists, medical personnel and who knows what else. The Cape Town 2010 participants represent virtually every stream of global Christianity and are united in their commitment to the cause of world evangelization. In addition to the formal participants the Congress will be joined by nearly 700 people who will serve as staff, stewards, media, special guests and observers.
The Programme Team, under the leadership of Programme Director Grace Mathews (Delhi) and Chairman Ramez Atallah (Cairo), met recently in Austria and report that all plenary speakers have submitted their Advance Papers for participants to read and respond to online to the Lausanne Global Conversation. To learn more about all the Congress preparations including reading the Advance Papers, if you would be so inclined or interested, please go to www.lausanne.org/prepare.
One very exciting thing to mention of the Congress is that there are at this stage 385 sites and 74 countries who have registered to host Cape Town GlobalLink events. This means that people all over the world can plug in on the Congress and participate in it at various levels. The Congress organizers are very encouraged to know that tens of thousands of Christians are participating in the Congress through these global links.
The book of Ephesians will provide the Biblical foundation and theological framework for the Congress. All participants, and anyone else obviously, who would like to are encouraged to read this great missionary epistle between now and the start of the Congress. If you wish to, you can enrich your own study by joining the Lausanne global conversation on Ephesians and this is how you would access it. Go to the website link which is registered as: http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/home/ephesians-study.
Something else.
There may be some of you out there receiving this communication who are not familiar with the Lausanne Covenant and by going to the Congress website you could read it. This Covenant (www.lausanne.org/covenant) is widely considered to be among the most significant mission documents the church has produced in the last 200 years. At Cape Town 2010, a new document will be issued, The Cape Town Commitment. This document will build on the work of the Lausanne Covenant with a fresh articulation of evangelical affirmations and mission priorities.
It is hoped that The Cape Town Commitment will stand in the line of the Lausanne Covenant (1974) and the Manila Manifesto (1989). John Stott was the chief architect of both earlier documents and Chris Wright, Director of the Langham Partnership International (John Stott Ministries) is chief architect of The Cape Town Commitment. Doug Birdsall, our Executive Chair, has said: “This is a critical moment for the global church, with pressures from outside and dissension within. We trust The Cape Town Commitment will be a clarion call for unity around the primary truths of the Gospel.”
If there are any of you out there who would like to hook up to the Congress by a satellite global link, please make your enquiries as to the procedures through the websites etc I have given you.
8. CONCLUSION
Well, dear friends scattered around in many places, that’s it for now. These are quite big weeks for us as a ministry and for the church worldwide with the Lausanne Congress hoving into view. It is so great to think of many of you hooking into all of this and standing with us.
I close with a blessing that Billy Graham often used to use: “Now may the Lord bless you real good!”
Carol joins me in sending you all our love and greetings and gratitude for your prayers.
Warmly in the love of Christ,
Michael
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