Letter from Jon, May 2024 

 Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
Luke 15:3,4
 
Dear Liberty Friends
 
When I wrote my last pastor’s letter we were just about to embark on our trip to Rwanda with Comfort International.  As many of you will be aware from the reports given on the Sunday we returned and also at the Missions Team night, it was an amazing, heart-breaking, heart-filling, way out of our comfort zone trip, and it has been such a joy to see how Liberty has really connected with the work of Comfort.  Just last Saturday we went over to Bishopbriggs for the 25^th Anniversary celebrations for Comfort and it was great to meet up with some of our team again and also to hear more about the incredible work of Comfort in so many African countries working with so many people.
 
During the celebrations Calum Henderson, the founder of Comfort, spoke briefly and noted that people ask him just how many people Comfort has impacted over these 25yrs.  Calum noted that it was a very difficult question to answer.  It is not that they don’t have some amazing statistics in terms of numbers of mums and babies that have gone through the project, or kids rescued from the streets, or teachers employed, or pastors trained, or child soldiers set free (to name a few of the areas they are involved with), but Calum noted that when you train and employ a teacher are you helping one person or many classes of kids who that teacher will teach?  When you train a pastor are you training one person or ministering to a whole community?  When you rescue a mum and baby are you not rescuing a whole family and the next generation, and the next, and the next….
 
Jesus made it clear in his parables that God cares for the ‘one’.  He will go out of his way to search for, to find and to rescue the one sheep that has strayed from the ninety-nine.  We also believe that our vision is to see lives transformed one life or one family at a time.  In Rwanda it was easy to be overwhelmed by the poverty and the need in that nation, but the response of Comfort is simply to focus on one person or one family at a time, to bring hope and rescue and salvation to the one, and in so doing to bring hope to many in this generation and beyond. 
 
In the same way our response to the needs in our community is simply to bring transformation and hope one person, one family at a time, believing that a seed of hope planted in one person’s life could yield incredible fruit as they share that hope with others around them and as they impact their children and their children’s children.  This is the way the kingdom of God grows and it is a joy to see that kingdom coming in the lives of those around us.
 
Many years ago I believe God gave me a picture for Liberty Church of a finger gently and consistently tapping calm water.  The tapping produced gentle ripples on the calm surface that spread out wider and wider and as they spread out the waves got bigger and bigger.  I believe God was saying that our mission was to consistently keep tapping the water, to keep investing, even in the smallest ways, in the lives of those around us, day by day seeking ways to bless and to bring hope.  We may not see the results of that consistent serving and it might seem that we are doing very little, but the impact upon our land in this generation and beyond is growing and growing as God multiplies the waves.  Let me encourage you to continue to love and bless those around you even in the smallest ways.  We may only impact one life but the ripples of that one life may bless so many more.
 
Much love and appreciation
 
Jon