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Lazarus' Church and grave in Larnaca
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During his sabbatical in December 2011, Roger felt God leading him to travel to Cyprus. Since then an amazing combination of events led to the first ever CMM official visit to Cyprus, for an island-wide mission. The whole tour was spearheaded by the amazing Simon and Pauline Holloway who were the vision behind it, and they were supported by a network of others, not least Richard Fairhead, who let the team stay in his flat.
The team was made up of Roger, Mary, Devon, Helen, Yvette and Mick. Yvette was not originally intending to come to Cyprus - the soloist was Kathleen, but her daughter sadly had a horseriding accident, so Yvette stepped in at the last moment - an amazing answer to prayer.
Here is the story of the visit, told in emails by Helen!
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| Sorting the bookstall over breakfast |
Update 1:
Hi Everyone,
A quick email to update you on how we're all getting on in Cyprus (also will form a helpful reminder when I come to write my blog in a couple of months time!).
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| Richard loading the van |
The flights were good, and we were met at the airport by Mick and Richard. Mick has come with us from the UK, and Richard lives here in Larnaca. He's a former BBC sound technician, and he's doing all of the sound for our tour. He has a holiday let flat below his house that four of us are in, and Mick and Devon are staying elsewhere.
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| Larnaca Community Church |
After lots of rehearsals yesterday, today we had a very full day beginning with a worship seminar at Larnaca Community Church. There were about 40 there, many of whom were also in the choir, and they were really receptive. Roger's seminar about creative and prophetic worship went down a storm, and really paved the way for the prophetic time in the performance tonight.
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| Larnaca Community Church Choir |
After a lovely lunch at the house of one of the choir members we returned to Larnaca Community Church for a choir rehearsal. The choir were brilliant - they were mostly new to choral singing, so were full of life and energy. The two priests particularly - Annas and George - were great fun and stole the show. For this performance, Richard's son Tim sang the role of Jesus, and a local girl, Angella, sang the part of Mary. She had worked so hard to fill in the role just in case we couldn't bring anyone to replace Kathleen we gave her the opportunity to sing tonight. She is a particularly fine actress (and gave me loads of ideas for future performances!).
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| Devon, Angella and Yvette with the choir |
There was a lovely huge audience (apparently there was a waiting list for tickets) and they seemed to enjoy themselves. The church were really geared up to pray with people afterwards, and there was a lovely buzz in the church.
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| Richard in action |
Please pray for tomorrow. Roger is having to take the whole service at Larnaca Community Church - they had originally asked the whole music team not to play, but Roger managed to get some of them back! He doesn't like to both lead worship and preach, so it will be hard work. He will have Mary and Yvette with him. I travel with Mick and Devon to Ayia Napa. Assuming we can find it (they don't seem to be good at giving directions here), I'm preaching and then we'll do a ministry song, as well as sing O the deep deep love of Jesus at communion. I don't have powerpoint, and there are a number of people in the congregation who don't have good English, so it will be tricky. There are also a lot of Filipinos there, so worship is poignant and challenging for them at the moment.
Then we have an evening with Devon, which should be good fun.
Helen
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| Tim singing the part of Jesus |
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| Annas and George |
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