Church organisers were left in the embarrassing position of running of out of chairs to seat the number of people attending. The church was packed to capacity with 46 adult visitors plus another 20 teenagers and children. Church members were outnumbered by 4 to 1!

Retired miner Geoff Robinson told his story about working down the pit at Wheldale and Allerton

Bywater mines near Castleford and how he found Christ to be a living Saviour. Church pastor Rev David Bisset gave an evangelistic harvest message.A delicious miners’ supper of Cornish pasties, mushy peas and chips concluded the service. It was served by young people from the church.

Church Secretary Andy Dalton said the service and supper had proved to be a great occasion, had evoked many memories and provoked tremendous interest. He said

“This harvest festival was certainly very different and thoroughly enjoyable. It proved to be an effective key for evangelism amongst a community which is traditionally hardened to conventional methods of outreach.”

He said he was sure that the idea could be adapted and used by other churches in the UK. He went on to thank the IMM for all their support. The church was able to forward a harvest collection of �100 to the work of the IMM.

The International Miners’ Mission (UK) also currently supports Christian outreach to miners and their families in the following countries:

CHILE (Rancagua/copper mines)ROMANIA (Tirgu Jiu/lignite mines)

ETHIOPIA (Shakisso/gold mines)SIERRA LEONE (Tongo Field/diamond mines)

UKRAINE (Donbas coal and salt mines)

Thank you again for all your prayer and financial support.

We thank those supporters and fellowships who send gifts to support IMM, and those whose ministry is prayer without which our work would be much more difficult. Prayerful and/or practical support for any of IMM’s work is always most welcome. We

would be delighted to arrange for a speaker to visit your church or fellowship to tell you more about our work.Contact David Shillitoe at: IMM, 53 High Street, Kimpton, Hitchin, Hertfordshire SG4 8PU

or by email: dshillitoe@minersmission.comPlease visit our website at: www.minersmission.com

The International Miners’ Mission (Glynn-Vivian Miners’ Mission Incorporated 1906) is co ltd by guarantee 90484 and registered charity 221853Registered office: 53 High Street ~ Kimpton ~ Hitchin ~ Hertfordshire ~ SG4 8PU

The International Miners’ Mission

The Safety Lamp“Introducing Miners to the Master”

A fter meeting up with Kurt Feurer (IMM Switzerland) in Budapest on the evening of Thursday 9 th October 2008, Tim, Ian, his

wife Ronna, & Kurt drove from there to T�rgu Jiu on the Friday. The total distance is slightly less than 400 miles, the first 100 of which is on motorway, but driving on Romanian roads is quite an experience. Including stops it took 10 hours! Ian and Ronna stayed with Cornel and Sanda Hudulin. Tim & Kurt stayed with Nicu & Claudia Traistaru.The Baptist Church at Tg Jiu had organised a “conference” for miners and their families on the Saturday and during the morning session Kurt gave a presentation on the work of IMM in Zimbabwe and Tim a general presentation on IMM. During the afternoon session Ronna sang and Ian spoke from Job 28, on the subject of wisdom. There was then time to do a bit of exploring in Tg Jiu. In the evening we were able to share a pizza together and talk more with the evangelists, Marian and his wife Gabi, and Nicu and Claudia.Cornel Hudulin has progressed well since his terrible accident but is still in a lot of pain. He is now able to

walk a little by himself, but cannot stand for long and, because he needs to keep his legs straight, also

finds sitting difficult. However, we thank God for the progress that has been made. Cornel is positive about the whole experience and there has been much answer to prayer.The Sunday morning service at Tg Jiu was very special because it was a baptismal service. It began just after 9.00am when photos were taken of the

thirteen people to be baptised (above) together with friends etc., followed by a prayer meeting until 9.45am. The service proper began just before 10.00 o’clock. There was lots of singing, which Romanians love and the church has an excellent choir. Tim brought greetings to the Church from IMM

worldwide. Cornel preached from his wheelchair (above) but later stood up.The baptisms themselves were inevitably emotional; amongst the 13 people witnessing to their faith in this wonderful way was a mother and two teenage children, three sisters two of whom were twins, a man of 80 and a younger man who had grown up in an orphanage.

Rejoicing in Romania!a report by Ian Dring andTim Pigrem (IMM UK)

Pastor Cornel Hudulinwith his wife, Sanda

Issue 294

December 2008 & January 2009

The service finished with the baptism candidates receiving communion. In all the service lasted three hours. It was a privilege and joy and a blessing for us all to be present at such a wonderful

occasion. In many ways it is the fulfilment of the aim of IMM; God has been using the evangelists in Romania to make known his message of saving love and people have come to true faith.After lunch we drove about 10 miles to the village of S�mbotin where services are regularly held at the home of a member of Tg Jiu Church. The meetings are held outside in a courtyard, weather permitting, and we enjoyed beautiful weather throughout our stay. A small group from the Church also go to these meetings to lead the singing and on that beautiful Sunday afternoon we heard Robin Mark’s song, “These are the days of Elijah”, sung in Romanian!Ian preached with Viorel Ghita’s wife Mihaela translating (right). Before leaving we were all given a bag of apples. On the way back to Tg Jiu we stopped at a small plot of land in the village of S�mbotin which the Church has bought for the sum of about �300 and they have a vision to build a chapel here for the village. Romania is basically a poor country and most people do not have cars so it can be very difficult to travel to church unless it is local. It is estimated that the whole project will cost around �16,000 with members of the Church doing lot of the work. Inflation is a problem in Romania and there is the possibility of buying materials before the end of 2008 at a price that will go up by 15% in the New Year.We returned to Tg Jiu for their evening service at which Ronna spoke and Kurt and Ian preached. A long but wonderful day.On the Monday Nicu had arranged for us to visit a huge opencast mine at Rovinari, one of 17 in the area. At independence there were many more including 34 deep mines but only 4 are still

functioning. The mine at Rovinari employs 3,800 people but overall about 78,000 miners have lost their jobs following the closure of uneconomic pits.The coal mined at Rovinari is lignite (brown coal or soft coal) and is sent straight to a power station on the same site. The circumference of the mine is37 km and it has reserves of 50 million tonne. Giant equipment like that shown below, enables them to

go down 105 metres and the seams of coal vary between half a metre and 7 metres in thickness. We were able to view one “face” approximately

3km long which is gradually moving across the landscape. On one side are the heaps of spoil and on the other trees are being felled and overburden (i.e. topsoil) removed prior to the coal being mined. Ten million tons have been extracted over 18 years. The Director of the mine kindly spoke to us for thirty minutes giving us this information before we were taken on a conducted tour. A small village had to be demolished because of the mining and we were able to visit the new houses which have been put up to look after the displaced miners and their families.In the afternoon we were able to discuss the proposed IMM international event in Romania in 2010 before sharing a meal together in the evening.On Tuesday morning we departed from Tg Jiu for the long journey back to Budapest. This included driving up the beautiful valley down which the Jiu river flows and later getting a real sense of rural Romania when we passed through a village where a huge market was taking place with consequent massive traffic jams.It was wonderfully encouraging to be able to make this visit to Romania, to renew fellowship and make new friends and see the work at first hand. The evangelists have a real passion to see the work of Christ go forward. Please pray.

Issue 294 - December 2008 and January 2009 Page 2

Harvest Out of the GroundA report by Andy Dalton, Morley Community Church

Issue 294 - December 2008 and January 2009 Page 3

The theme of coal mining became the subject of a unique harvest festival for a church in West Yorkshire.Morley Community Church is a small congregational church in the town of Morley, West Yorkshire. Their congregation numbers just 15 souls – when they are all there!The town is still a close knit community. There is little evangelical witness. The last coal mine closed in 1968. The church finds evangelism hard going – apathy, disinterest and a preoccupation with materialism are characteristic of so many residents in the town. However, there is always great interest in the town’s history.

This became the key for a novel idea for outreach. They decided to run their harvest festival on Morley’s mining heritage. It proved to be their major evangelistic outreach of the year.Before the summer, they contacted a number of organisations. First port of call was International Miners’ Mission who agreed to send a power point presentation on the work of the Mission.The Morley Local History Society provided information and pictures of Morley coal mines. Church members were amazed to discover that the area once boasted 20 operating pits.A local Elderly Craft Group was contacted. The volunteer pensioners agreed to knit jumpers, scarves, gloves, woolly hats to be used by the International Miners’ Mission amongst orphan children from mining families in the Ukraine. Their hard labours eventually saw six boxes of beautiful clothing produced and despatched.They also embroidered a Morley Mines Tapestry recording the 20 working pits which once employed

hundreds of men in Morley. They carefully embroidered this over the summer at their weekly meetings. A local shop framed it for permanent display (below).

The North of England Mining Museum at nearby Wakefield provided historical artefacts for display on the day. The local newspaper published an article in advance of the harvest festival and also ran a mining photographic quiz. The prize was a box of harvest produce and Christian literature which was delivered to the winners by the church pastor.Attractive publicity was prepared and distributed –with a particular emphasis on inviting those who had played a part in assisting in preparation for the event.Everyone was thrilled when a capacity congregation gathered on the Sunday evening for the Harvest Out Of The Ground harvest festival and supper. As they entered the church they were greeted by welcoming stewards dressed up as colliers (right). Guests saw a display of coal surrounded by mining memorabilia which contrasted with the traditional harvest display of fruit and vegetables. The knitted items (below) and Morley Mines Tapestry were also put on display.)