A baptismal service is always an occasion of great joy and expectation and Sunday 15th March was no exception when we received Weng Tak Poon for baptism. His fiance Penny and mum and dad were present to encourage him and they supplied this lovely photograph commemorating the occasion.
Over the past few years at AP we have shared a giant Christmas card and used the money saved to buy chickens, goats, bicycles and other useful stuff for people in developing countries.
This year we’re doing something different. We’re going to buy a brick-making machine for Reuben N’gwala, a Tanzanian pastor who worshipped with us while studying in Glasgow for three years.
Reuben N'gwala
The brick-making machine will help Reuben to build accommodation at a Bible College in rural Tanzania, upgrading the living conditions for the students. The machine presses bricks from a mixture of earth and cement, reducing the amount of cement needed (ratios of around 1 part cement to 14-18 parts earth), enabling the bricks to be made on-site, reducing the energy needed to manufacture the bricks (they are cured, not fired), and enabling the buildings to use less mortar as the bricks are shaped to be interlocking. Overall the machine should reduce building costs by over 20%. The machine can continue to be used by Reuben’s team for other building projects in the area, generating much-needed income.
Making interlocking bricks
We’ll post here how we get on!
At long last the moment came when our pastor Jack Quinn was commissioned to give half of his time to minister to Adelaide Place and the other half to develop a ministry amongst the business community in conjunction with Business in Glasgow (BiG).
To assist the church to do this we called Ronnie Hall to be our assistant pastor and on Saturday 20th October both Jack and Ronnie were commissioned to serve the Lord in these capacities over the next three years.
It was a moving and challenging occasion led sensitively by Rev Andy Scarcliffe, Mission Advisor to the Baptist Union of Scotland. Rev Stuart Blythe of the Scottish Baptist College challenged the gathered church when he encouraged us to exemplify the Lord Jesus in “Word and Signs†in our collective ministry.
The highlight of the evening was when members of the church and wider Christian community in the city laid their hands on Jack and Ronnie and, with prayer, commissioned them to these new ministries into which God has called them.