Johnny & Joanne Gilchrist in New Zealand
Click here to view Johnny and Joanne's April 2012 newsletter
Johnny and Joanne, with their daughters Gabriella (3) and Briony (1) live as missionaries in Tauranga, New Zealand, reaching out into the local community in a variety ways, through their local Elim church. Johnny has been employed by the church as Children's Pastor for 3 years.
New Zealand is similar to the UK in many respects. It has a history of Christian influence, so as a result most people are materially rich in comparison to the rest of the world and live their lives according to Christian values. However, like the UK, most of the population enjoy the benefits of their Christian heritage without knowing their creator on a personal level. Consequently, they are among the toughest kinds of people to reach with the gospel - like Jesus said in Matthew 19:24 'it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.' As a result, much of their work is building relationships with people and they try to make that connection through such ministries as Tiny Boppers (a music and dance session for pre-schoolers that reaches approx 200 families a week) and coffee groups. They run Alpha courses to provide a place for people to come who are searching for God. Johnny runs mentoring groups for 10-13 year olds and also runs the Sunday morning programme at Elim Christian Centre. They also try to reach out to their neighbours and regularly visit and help those of their neighbours who are in need.
When asked to summarise their past year in particular, Johnny & Joanne said: "We have seen God take the little that we believe we have to offer and used it to transform others around us - we have seen many children make commitments to follow Jesus and a growing number of adults too. We also have the privilege of mentoring and discipling them into mature Christians who are then able to reach out to others too." Their dreams for the future include running a bus service to bring in children from all over the city, running more parenting and Alpha courses and taking the older children on a short-term mission into Asia or the Pacific
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