Dear Friends of Eastern Europe Renewal: 

The Peace of the Lord be always with you.

Sorry it has been so long. This is the first prayer/news letter in 2010 and it is already May. You should have received my schedule for the next 3 months recently.

Mary and I are well. Mary was 82 last month and I will be 62 on Sunday.

The preaching class continues in Basel and a new one has started in the Church in Lausanne. The classes are very different from each other but both are fascinating to me and, I hope, profitable to the participants. In Lausanne we work on general leadership skills: Reading the Scripture in public, announcing and introducing hymns and songs, apologetic conversation skills, etc. as well as exegesis and public speaking.

The occasional work and contact with the JAHU Church in Biel continues fruitful and enjoyable. They do very good work there for God’s Kingdom.

I’ve been teaching 3 times in YWAM schools; twice in Switzerland and once in Canada. In February I was a week at English L’Abri, teaching, preaching, counselling and going to the Blueprint Christian Artists Conference in Wimbledon, London. A 3 week visit to L’Abri is planned for the summer with side trips for outside teaching.

The work in the Lausanne Church continues very well. We have been talking about having a series of lectures for the public. Please pray that we will start moving forward on realizing this. Thanks. We finished the preaching series on Malachi and have begun Galatians. The people are hungry for teaching and some even talk about the sermons after Church – a rare thing in my experience.

The Recorder lessons are having a good effect and I seem to be getting slowly better. In some ways I’m outgrowing my present teacher and am looking to transition to another one. Occasional opportunities to perform come up from time to time, which is good practice, especially for the nerves.

In February Marsh Moyle, a long term colleague, and I went to Slovakia for a week of teaching. There was a public lecture with a surprisingly large turn out and days of teaching and discussion with one Church and its denominational Youth Leaders from around the country. Marsh is planning a large conference in Kiev for January and I plan to be involved.

Last month I went to the New Word Alive conference in Wales to lecture on creativity and apologetics. They made an excellent MP3 recording of two of the talks, which I could send you if you are interested. After the conference I had some time with dear friends Ally and Anna Gordon in Wimbledon and did a lecture discussion for the Navigator leaders in their home not far away. We are hoping to do another Navigator evening sometime.

Many of you prayed for my travels during the British Air strikes and the volcano in Iceland. Normally I would have gone to Canada and Wales for 1 week but I felt I should go to both for 10 days this time. Because of this I flew home from Canada on the day between the weekend strikes and my flight left England on schedule 3 hours after the airport opened. Many would regard these events and sequences as coincidental. I do not. In my view they are providential and God should be thanked. Thank you for praying.

I have become convinced from preaching on Philippians 4:1 and looking at First Thessalonians 2:19 that our reward in the New Creation will be the reality and beauty of other people that has been enhanced by our prayer and care. (Not mansions or harps or gold, etc.) It motivates me to invest more prayer and care in others.

Many thanks to those who support our work financially. Even though I had a huge dental bill this month all the bills are paid and we are very thankful.

Be in touch if you can. God bless and keep you.

Much love in Jesus, Ellis

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Copyright © 2010 Ellis Potter.