Dear friends and Christian family.
Let me share my heart with you.
It is becoming harder for me to participate on tasbeha.org, and to fufill many of the other ministries that are to close to my heart. There are a growing list of things that I feel burdened to do, but less and less time in which to do them. Over the last few days I have been working especially hard and this has prevented me doing almost anything else.
I have to work full time as a web and database programmer, and I am very grateful to God that he has provided me with enough work to pay the bills. And I am even more grateful that he has called me, entirely unworthy as I am, to the ministry of the priesthood. More even than to the priesthood, but to a missionary priesthood which allows me to bring the Gospel to people who have not received it before, and to baptise converts to our Orthodox Faith on an increasingly regular basis. But I have also greatly enjoyed visiting tasbeha.org and perhaps I have been able to help a few of you here, while annoying many others. I am well aware of the limitations of my service.
And this is why I ask for your prayers. I must work for my living at present, but this is increasingly preventing me from fulfilling the ministries that I am increasingly burdened with a sense of responsibility for. What am I to do? What does the Lord require of me?
On top of that, I am also aware that I need to have a group of people around the world who will pray for me on a committed basis. And so I have created a form on my web page where I am asking people to subscribe to a monthly newsletter that will describe what I am doing as a missionary priest, and what my missionary congregation are doing, and those things that we especially need prayer for. Do not only pray for me that God's will might be done, but also visit the page and sign up for the newsletter.
Those who are engaged in Christian ministry find themselves under attack. And the enemy does not like it when he sees people being baptised into the Orthodox Faith. We need your prayers on a sustained and committed basis.
But also consider if there are financial and material ways in which you can support our missionary ministry, both mine as a priest and my congregation. Many of you pray for us already, some of you have provided the great encouragement of material assistance to our congregation. But it is not clear to me whether I should be doing more and that God will provide the resources which are needed, or whether I am dreaming of things that God does not yet want me to do.
Do not only read this request for prayerful support, but do please pray for me and us. Do please consider if others you know, who will no read this request for prayer on tasbeha.org might also want to support us in prayer and in financial and material means, and send the message to them. It is important that this need is shared with those who can and will do something about it.
I value your prayers, and I certainly need them. I am not ashamed to come to you and ask for them as spiritual children and brothers and sisters. What is the Lord's will for us? How will he provide all that we need to serve Him as He wills? I have listed on the website some of the things I do have it on my heart to be doing, but which I am presently not having the resources to accomplish.
Please visit our website and pray earnestly for us. Please sign up for our Mission supporters newsletter. Please consider how you can help us find the support we need for our missionary work.
http://www.orthodoxmedway.org/mission_supporters.phpFather Peter
Comments
i will Pray for u and you ministries and for sure the Lord will help u and guide u,
and choose the best things for you.
You are in my prayers and pray for me too! :)
Gb
Remember us in your prayers :)
May the Lord help me to support His mission.
I have increased the values listed.
Do please consider who else might be willing to support an Orthodox missionary and Orthodox mission. And pass this prayerful request on to them. I know that many of you on tasbeha.org are only young, but who do you know among Orthodox adults who are concerned for the mission of the Church.
Please consider letting them know about this need.
And if you haven't signed up for the prayer newsletter then please visit our site and leave your email address, and ask others to consider doing so as well. The site address is
http://www.orthodoxmedway.org/mission_supporters.php
God bless you
Father Peter
Dear children, should I be discouraged? 132 people have viewed this thread. 52 have gone on to visit my website. But only 6 people have subscribed to the Mission newsletter. What am I doing wrong?
God bless
Father Peter
I had copied the updated files into the wrong directory.
Does anyone have advice about how this mission could be drawn to the attention of any Orthodox grant making bodies? Or if any exist to support missionary work?
God bless
Father Peter
I'll take a look now. You are never a bother.
Father Peter
http://www.orthodoxmedway.org/OM_News_March_2011.pdf
so that people can get an idea of what we are trying to do. This first newsletter is 2 pages long. I think that it will settle down to 4 pages in due course.
God bless
Father Peter
PK
What does God want? What should I do? How should others respond to this need?
My prayers are diligent for your priesthood and its success. I pray that a flock will increase around you and participate in the Orthodox life.
You know what my thoughts are, since I have expressed them too many times.
I am signing up for the newsletter, and I have placed a monthly donation that you can count on for the ministry.
I hope that every person append the comment and commitment towards a financial monthly backing along with their kind comments and prayers.
I ask that Coptics act like Orthodox with Faith and Works, and not like Egyptians who talk, talk, talk.
I know that my God and the Father of us all will not forget the sacrifice of time in prayer and the sacrifice of financial support.
To all those who would like to support but cannot, indeed to all, please pass on this need to any people who are in a position to be supportive. I am not ashamed to come before you all as a suppliant for the sake of the Gospel.
Father Peter
But I have also greatly enjoyed visiting tasbeha.org and perhaps I have been able to help a few of you here, while annoying many others.
What?! Annoying? I think not. You are one of the best tasbehian posters alive!!! ;D
I suscribed. ;)
I understand that you have a desire to fulfill God's will and to do to the best of your ability to live and act like He has taught us in the bible.
I want to be like you.
I am sending an email to the Servants and the Clergy of the church in hopes some support with be sent.
My mom tells me this saying: Nothing is impossible or far from God (Mefeesh aya ha3gah b3ayd ala Rahbenah)!!!!
I am praying for you and will always.
PPFM Also
CopticStrength
Dear children, should I be discouraged? 132 people have viewed this thread. 52 have gone on to visit my website. But only 6 people have subscribed to the Mission newsletter. What am I doing wrong?
Woo hoo! I was one of the 6! ;D
Mabey eight.
May the number increase until ten times 10 thousands of a million!!!!!
If that makes sense......can happen one day, nothing is impossible!
We are up to 12 prayer supporters so far. May your prayers for this service be heard.
Father Peter
Have subscribed and donated.
If not too many join we donaters then I can increase it.
You are the only Orthodox priest who 'walks the walk' so I am happy to support your mission in whatever way I can.
I long for a climate in this country where those I know and love will consider Orthodox Christianity as a possible option. As you know, they are nearly all Buddhists and enthusiastic ones!
We have the same vision of an Orthodoxy which is a natural choice for British people.
May God grant it in our times.
I pray that God uses whatever any of us can give of our time and finances to bless you and your mission to bring the Orthodox faith to the people.
God bless you
Father Peter
Please do not become discouraged, Father Peter! You wrote that 400 people have approached you in the last few years about Orthodoxy, but you cannot help them as you'd like to due to other demands on your time. I think I would focus on the first clause rather than the second, because the first is perfectly understandable (you're only one man, after all), but the second is a miracle -- 400 people want to know Orthodoxy! That's a very good sign in a non-Orthodox country, isn't it?
You do the work of God when you help one person just as surely as when you help one hundred.
The discouragement I feel is that all that is stopping me from serving the many rather than the one is the lack of support to be able to serve full-time.
If a protestant missionary went to Africa he would normally not have to work full-time for long hours to provide for himself and his family but would be engaged full-time in missionary work. But at present everything I do must be in the very little free time I have, and I grow increasingly frustrated and sense that this is no longer God's will but that He wishes that I be engaged in the work of a missionary priest full-time.
For that I need the prayerful and material support of many others who will become partners in this mission, wherever they live in the world. I don't have other demands on my time in the sense that I am very busy with other ministries, I just don't have the time because presently I am having to work more than full-time for provide an income.
God bless your support, it is much appreciated and will be rewarded.
Father Peter
PK
Many Orthodox priests have to work, but it has become impossible for me to do the ministries I believe I am called to while also working full time.