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My dear friends, It is a joy for me to connect with you through this letter. It is an opportunity to strengthen our relationship and review our ministry. Our Lord who called us all to work in His vineyard is always true, enabling us to see His promise being fulfilled in our lives. By His immense grace we have completed nine months in this year, and are entering into the tenth month. The Lord Jehovah is the Alpha and Omega; He is the beginning and the end. He is the God of the past, the present and also the future. He is the Lord of all ages. So let us fix our eyes on Him, hold His strong hand, and keep running our race on this earth with faith and perseverance. To quote Warren Wiersbe, ‘the future is our friend when Jesus is our Lord’. Here is some spiritual insight from the Bible to apply in our lives this month in particular. Let’s focus on King Solomon, based on II Chronicles 7:11-22. Once the Lord appeared to King Solomon in the night and told him that always His ears would be opened to the prayers of the people, and His eyes and heart would be always there to forgive their sins and bless them. He expressed only one condition – that is, the king and his people should walk before the Lord, faithfully obey all His commandments and observe His laws. After that, King Solomon followed everything according to God’s law. This pleased God and He blessed him more and more. He built a grand royal palace. He built cities for his chariots and horses! Store-cities to store produce from the fields. Rebuilt villages, and fortified cities with walls and gate! He made a great throne with ivory and with pure gold. His goblets were of gold! 1 The household articles in the palace, were made of pure gold. Nothing was made of silver, because silver was considered of little value in those days. From far countries he brought gold, ivory, apes and silver once in three years! The king imported chariots and horses from Egypt and other countries. Thus when King Solomon opted for a God-fearing, meaningful, holy life – God blessed him abundantly. It is encouraging to learn that King Solomon never allowed his wealth to come in between God and himself. He was cautious of not being led to pride and selfish attitude. He never shifted his eyes from God. It is astonishing to note, when God asked him to ask for whatever he wanted, he did not ask for wealth, long life, and victory over enemies. In all humility he only asked for a discerning heart to govern the people and to distinguish between right and wrong. Almighty God was pleased with his wishes. So He not only gave him the wisdom but wealth, name, fame and honour also. I Kings 3:4,5. He never lived for his own with selfish attitude, but opted for common good. My dear friends, what is going to be our focus this month? Are we really going to lose our self, by nailing our inner sinful man to the cross to die? Not I Lord, but You. Do we still value worldly things highly? Or focus on heavenly things? Let us wait and receive heavenly wisdom from God like King Solomon. In this new month, let us have a new perspective in our faith journey. Let us be encouraged by the promise of our God. The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs in to it and is safe. Proverbs 18:10. Let us praise God for the following: the village church that we built at R. S. Mangapuram of CSI – Thiruthani Pastorate that was dedicated by our Beloved Bishop the Rt. Rev. Dr. J. George Stephen on 24.09.2016. God has been so good to us during the progress of the building project, providing us the money needed at every stage. The church is so beautiful and spacious. The Bishop was so happy – he appreciated our initiative and thanked the congregation for their generosity. As a Pastor I feel it is my duty to thank Mr. Stephen Michael to whom the Pastorate Committee entrusted the responsibility to be the Project In charge. He spent so many days at that village with the engineer, and took so much of pain in visiting the spot so many times and the result - a glorious new church for that poor community. I thank him very much for the effort he has taken for this great cause. Many of our members came forward to sponsor doors, 2 windows, altar railings, communion vessels and stained glass and so on. We gratefully acknowledge the same and pray that God will reward them accordingly. Church roof repair work: As we all know, our church roof used to leak during rains, and because of this, we lost two of our TV monitors donated by two of our members. It was also a threat to the stability of our church building and used to be very slippery, causing concern over the safety of our members. The Pastorate committee took up this matter too and sanctioned the estimated cost of about eight and a half lakhs and the work got over. We express our sincere thanks for the efforts that Mr. Stephen Michael showed towards this. Cemetery wall building work: The eastern wall of Quibble Island cemetery collapsed during the tsunami, and another part went down during the heavy rains last December. And to safeguard our property, we had to negotiate with the Adyar Poonga project officers, and they too co- operated with us. Our Secretary Mr. Benjamin Hastings, our Treasurer Mrs. Gemina Martin and PC member Mr. Ranjan Selvakumar showed keen interest in visiting the spot when the work was going on. I praise God for their involvement in His ministry. Let me close with the following lines: Happy moments, praise God. Difficult moments, seek God. Quiet moments, worship God. Painful moments, trust God. Every moment, thank God. May God be with you all, and bless you abundantly. Be assured of my prayers. Yours in His joyful service, Rev. D. Richard Ambrose Jebakumar Presbyter-in-charge. 3 4 WISDOM OF THE AGES One of the best story-tellers I have ever known was my paternal grand-uncle Y. M. Paul David, a retired Headmaster of Margoschis High School, Nazareth and honorary Presbyter from the Tirunelveli Diocese. A confirmed bachelor, he spent his evening years with us, and was a great blessing to my family. Thanks to those pre-Internet days, thatha (as I affectionately called him) had the most interesting anecdotes and stories to tell, drawn from his vast repertoire of experience. Born in the early 20th century, he had seen it all – from pre-independent India to effects of post-war hardships – and would narrate the same in explicit detail. It was through him that I learnt about Neil Armstrong landing on the moon and how they recreated that event on the Margoschis school ground, complete with a mock lunar module and two boys dressed as astronauts lowered from a rope tied to two tall buildings – back in 1969! During World War II, he was a student at Meston Training College in Madras and would recount in vivid detail about the night when Madras was almost bombed by Japanese planes, of how the police went around the city on horseback, urging everyone to ‘put out the lights’. It was also through him that I learnt about the missionaries like Bishop Neil and Amy Carmichael who changed the destiny of many underprivileged children, the kind of frugal lifestyle they led and the meager yet exotic possessions they had – not to forget the many humourous stories too. Looking back, I realize that my experience was all the richer only because I had the time and inclination to listen to him. Through these and many other stories I learnt so much about life, God’s abounding grace and His faithfulness through all generations. Yes God intends that every generation share with the next about the mighty acts of God. “One generation commends [God’s] works to another,” says the Psalmist (Ps. 145:4), echoing Moses’ earlier instructions to “remember the days of old . Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you” (Deut. 32:7). 5 It is every Christian parent’s duty to foster faith in a child. As parents and grandparents, maybe we could point out God’s design in nature, tell a story about how He has helped us, or invite a little one to thank God with us when things go right. God can work through us to tell of His goodness throughout all generations – and now is the time to do it! Fabiola Jacob 6 The magnificent Mateer Memorial Church at Thiruvananthapuram, photographed by Santosh Moses is our cover feature this month. About the Church Built in memory of Rev. Samuel Mateer (featured in ‘Heroes of Faith’ on page 26), a committed missionary of London Missionary Society (LMS) who did exemplary and dedicated service for 33 years from 1859 to 1891, in the Trivandrum Mission, this beautiful Church is home to one of the oldest congregations in South India. The origin of the Trivandrum Church dates back to the arrival of the Rev. John Cox, the first LMS missionary in Trivandrum, in 1838. He obtained land at Kannammoola for establishing the mission station of the LMS. Prior to this, Trivandrum city, being the abode of Ananthapadmanabha, was out of bounds for missionaries and no church was permitted to be built within the city.

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