Rob Frost - A life well lived
With
thanks
from Share Jesus International
The
Frost family and Share Jesus International are sad to announce the death
of a great author, presenter, visionary, leader, evangelist, and
preacher.
Rob Frost, founder of Share
Jesus International, passed away peacefully in hospital on Sunday 11
November 2007 at 11.40pm with his family around him.
He was diagnosed with skin
cancer in June and underwent treatment. In the past few days, Rob became
very tired and was taken into hospital on Wednesday 7th November 2007.
He was in no pain but gradually drifted into eternity with liver failure
as a result of secondary melanoma.
Rob set up the mission agency in
1986 with the sole purpose of sharing Jesus in many different contexts
and countries.
Rob Frost was in great demand as
a preacher, the International Director of the International Leadership
Institute based in Atlanta and the author of over 25 books.
He presented Premier Radio's
flagship current affairs programme called Frost on Sunday and his weekly
TV show on the God Channel is broadcast under the title the Frost
Debate.
He lectured in mission and
evangelism at London School of Theology and was a regular teacher at
theological institutions throughout the UK.
As the Director and then
President Emeritus of Share Jesus International, an ecumenical mission
agency which he founded 25 years ago, he initiated scores of projects
including Easter People, a conference which celebrated its 20th
anniversary last year; led missions in hundreds of cities, towns and
villages in the UK and across the globe and campaigned on global and
national issues. He served as President of Release International, an
agency which cares for persecuted Christians throughout the world. Rob
also produced and toured with many musicals including Hopes and Dreams
which had the number one hit of the Lord's Prayer.
One of the last projects Rob has
been working on is the Pentecost Festival which will take place May
9-11, 2008. Andy Frost and the office team will continue to make this
dream become a reality and Rob's vision will continue to have an impact
across this nation.
Rob will be fondly remembered
not just for what he did, but his sense of humour, his stories, his love
for people, depth of compassion and his zest for life.
He leaves behind his wife
Jacqui, his two sons Andy & Chris and his father Ronald. They will miss
him greatly but are thankful for his life and pleased that he is now
with his heavenly father.
His family request no flowers
but if you wish to make a gift, this should be for Pentecost Festival.
There will be a funeral service
in Raynes Park for close friends and family in the next 10 days. We are
also holding a celebration service in January and all will be welcome to
this.
Details will follow shortly see
http://www.sharejesusinternational.com
You can donate to Pentecost Festival by
clicking here.
Evangelicals mourn passing of Rob
Frost
By Mark Woods
ROB
FROST, director of Share Jesus International (SJI) and a leading
evangelical figure for many years, died on Sunday (111 November 2007)
aged 57. He had been ill for some time, having been diagnosed with skin
cancer in June 2007, but had remained active until his last few days.
A Methodist minister, he was in great demand as a
preacher and over the years initiated scores of projects including the
Easter People conference, which ran for 20 years. He served as President
of Release International, which campaigns for persecuted Christians
around the world, and lectured in mission and evangelism at the London
School of Theology.
His wife Jacquie thanked supporters for their "friendship
and prayers", and said, "Rob has now received the ultimate healing. We
know that our heavenly father loves us all and that he is holding us."
Tributes to his life and ministry have come from many
friends and colleagues. A statement from SJI said, "Rob will be fondly
remembered not just for what he did, but his sense of humour, his
stories, his love for people, depth of compassion and his zest for
life."
The Rev. Joel Edwards, general director of the
Evangelical Alliance, described him as "one of the bright light
champions for evangelical witness, evangelistic fervour and creativity;
an outstanding pioneer"
The Rev. Dr David Coffey, President of the Baptist World
Alliance, said "Rob ranks as one of the most creative evangelists and
able apologists of his generation. He had a heart for the renewal of
Methodism but his reach of friendship extended to all parts of God's
family."
His last project was the Pentecost Festival which will
take place May 9-11, 2008.
With thanks to the Baptist Times
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Muscular Dystrophy is a severe muscle-wasting disease which affects
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James (and Linda) Pender
Advisor with The Church of Bangladesh Social Development Programme
Meherpur 7100 Bangladesh.
16 December 2007
Dear friends,
Just one week before my wedding,
I’ve been doing a fair bit of reflecting. It is amazing how time flies.
I have now been back in Bangladesh one year since my time speaking on
the work of the CBSDP in the UK, which means an accumulated 3 years in
total spent in Meherpur! What I have been doing here I would never have
dreamed of if you had asked me as a child: ‘what will you do when you
grow up’, let along marrying a beautiful Bangladeshi bride! (Linda
shown)
Three
years is actually the longest that I have spent in any job. I am
beginning to see the benefits of staying put and glad that I turned down
the chance of short-term consultancy work.
For after a while, instead of
working with colleagues you are instead working with friends, begin to
really understand the situation/organisation, can get by in the local
language and are, in other words, in an optimum position to contribute.
Nowhere is this truer than in the area of arsenic mitigation.
The CBSDP’s work in arsenic
mitigation was already well established when I arrived with thousands of
tube wells tested, arsenic-safe shallow modified dug wells installed and
vitamins given to victims of arsenic poisoning. I had barely heard of
the arsenic crisis at all, a fact that I found staggering given that in
Bangladesh alone at least 29 million people are currently at risk from
arsenic dissolved in the groundwater which is harvested by millions of
shallow pump tube wells. I visited badly affected villages and was
gutted to hear firsthand from wives who had lost husbands, fathers who
had lost children and many, many who had lost dear friends.
Right away I knew that it had
to be my main priority during my time in Meherpur, and time wise that
has been so.
Installing a Chuli water
purifier into a wood cooking stove Firstly, I discovered that my
colleagues were poorly resourced with little up-to-date information on
the arsenic problem and so much of my first year was made establishing
contacts and collecting information from hundreds of sources, eventually
resulting in an initial report summarising the current situation of
arsenic in Bangladesh and a second report summarising what was known
about the situation within the Meherpur District.
With my colleagues Provonjan,
Charles and David, I also discussed how we could improve our impact, so
we have tried innovative ‘Chuli’ water filters that pasteurise dug well
water (through a metal coil imbedded in a clay cooking stove); mapping
the arsenic at a village level to better site new arsenic safe wells;
using better arsenic test kits; a stronger focus on using nutrition as a
route to recovery from poisoning (through kitchen gardens, Soya bean
cultivation and eating of lentils) and the raising of awareness of the
risk to health through rice cultivated with arsenic contaminated water.
Understandably arsenic
contamination of water is a complicated problem and it has taken time to
develop our response. So it was a great delight to me, a real highlight
of my work, when this year we installed six deep-tube wells (320ft),
that go beneath the arsenic containing groundwater layer, in five
villages where we had recently tested wells and mapped the pattern of
arsenic distribution.
At
a time when there is reducing interest from big donors and governments
it was fantastic to have money to do all this as a result of donations
and collections from churches and other groups in the UK following my
talks there last year. Thanks to the many of you reading this who made
it all possible! It was an interesting process as a rig was set up and
two men turned a giant corkscrew like apparatus for three days, while at
the same time another fellow pumped water down to loosen the soil. As
they manually drilled in shifts, they sung work songs to keep up their
energy and spirits. When they pulled out the drilling pipe sections they
all swung on the rope shouting. A tremendous effort! But best of all is
that communities in these five badly affected villages of Theraghoria,
Bhollobhpur, Rotonpur, Anondobas and Kamdevpur can drink bacteria
logically and arsenic safe water from these wells (each providing for
50-100 families).
No longer will they become sick
from consuming life’s most precious commodity – water! However, while
this year marks my three years of work in Bangladesh, this year is very
special for the church here as it marks its 25 years of work to serve
the poor: the Silver Jubilee of the Church of Bangladesh Social
Development Programme. As a result we have had a host of celebrations in
all the places we are working, culminating in a combined celebration
with our donors, partners and church links in Dhaka last week, with a
great theme ‘Serving humanity is worshipping God’. I helped CBSDP-Meherpur
manager Provonjan with his talk and thought that you might be interested
in what we wrote: ‘Jubilee was celebrated in Old Testament times every
seven and 50 years. It was a time when slaves were released, sold land
was returned to its original owners, debts were cancelled and it was a
time when the land was left fallow.
It was also a time of
celebration. In Luke 4 verses 17-19 Jesus said: “The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach the good news to the
poor; He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim liberation
to the captives and to recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those
who are oppressed. To proclaim the year of the Lords favour. In other
words, Jesus was declaring a period of jubilee.
In our development work we are
very much trying to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and proclaim jubilee in
the areas in which we work in Bangladesh. Healing the broken hearted
through marriage reconciliation, the rehabilitation of trafficked women
in our tailoring course and in discouraging dowry; proclaiming freedom
to those who are captives of poverty through vocational training and
micro credit; helping to bring recovery of sight and the treatment of
other illnesses through our hospitals and health programme and setting
free the oppressed through advocacy, empowerment and legal support.
Therefore to celebrate a 25-year
jubilee of our work in development has double meaning! It was in 1971
when the ministry of service to the poor was begun by the Church of
Bangladesh, the very year of its establishment. For when the church
leaders looked to where its priorities should lay, the poverty of the
country and its members was ‘staring it in the face’. Bangladesh at that
time had just won a costly war of independence in which three million
were killed, countless injured, rape of women was systematic, property
destroyed and assets lost. There was so much physical, emotional and
spiritual need in the country. The church responded through the
channelling of aid such as food, medicine and clothes and in the process
of rebuilding communities. Once the country had got itself on its feet,
needs changed and there was a need for a more long-term approach to
assistance.
Therefore in 1982, the Church of
Bangladesh Social Development Programme concentrated on educating
children and adults (which was especially needed as the Pakistani
occupiers had routinely killed teachers and educators); social forestry;
sanitation; primary health care and organising groups (of mainly women)
for mutual support, as well as learning.
In 1994, the Church of
Bangladesh started its successful Micro credit Programme, for with its
giving of small loans at low interest, poor families could be “helped to
help themselves”. Numerous businesses and concerns were set up by women
who may have previously lacked money, but had no shortage of
enterprising ideas: milk production, poultry rearing, basket making,
small shops, rickshaw/van transport, land leasing for crop or tree
cultivation, the hiring out of welding or other equipment, restaurants,
tailoring… the list is endless.
Grameen Bank’s Mohammed Yunus
was last year honoured with a Nobel Prize for the original development
of the highly successful Micro credit concept and it has served CBSDP’s
beneficiaries as well as it has served Grameen’s. But Micro credit has
its limitations so in the last few years CBSDP has been seeking to
expand its portfolio of interventions to assist particularly vulnerable
groups of people. This has led to its pioneering Women and Child
Trafficking Prevention Project, Arsenic Mitigation Project, HIV/AIDS
Project and Climate Change Project, as well as a new emphasis community
participation and on rights based and advocacy approaches to work. CBSDP
has a lot to celebrate, as well as an exciting horizon of new
possibilities to live out the concept of bringing Christ’s jubilee to
communities. However, while we are celebrating here, the happiest are
those whose lives have been transformed – the communities and
individuals with which we work.
That is why it was so
appropriate that our main celebrations occurred at village, sub-district
and district level involving as many of the local people that we have
worked with as possible. Here the celebrations reached fever pitch!
Thank God…
• For my marriage to Dipty Linda! And that the ceremonies went
really well and were really enjoyable (I will write more about it soon).
• For 25 years of exceptional service to the poor by the Church of
Bangladesh.
• That we have a nice flat that we will move into shortly, after we
have got it ready.
• Please pray for relief efforts to the victims of Cyclone Sidr.
CBSDP is involved in aid and rehabilitation work with those affected.
• Please pray for the complete recovery of my father’s sight after
a recent stroke, but thank God that he was able to attend my wedding.
• That God would guide us in developing a role for Linda within the
CBSDP, as she will work alongside me in the development work.
• Pray that the President and advisors will have the wisdom and
ability to ensure peaceful and fair elections, especially in the light
of recent student riots around the country.
• Pray that the effects of the Stop the Traffik networks in the UK,
Bangladesh and elsewhere would be successful.
• That Sabina would receive justice and obtain compensation from
her traffickers.
• Also, pray for our colleagues in the CBSDP, that God would supply
his wisdom and blessing to their life and work.
• That I would have time and motivation to improve my Bengali
language skills!
• That we will be able to develop wisely the arsenic
mitigation project.
• That the love of God would really touch the hearts of the men,
women and girls we are working with and that we would be effective in
our activities to uplift them.
James Pender
James
Pender Advisor Bangladesh Social Development Programme
Meherpur 15 September 2007 Bangladesh
Dear friends,
Last month I was privileged to
attend a ‘South Asia Consultation
On Tackling Newly Emerging Vulnerabilities
Leading To Trafficking In Children and Women
To discuss how the church was
addressing this problem within the region. Participants came from the
Church of North India (CNI), the Church of South India (CSI), the
Baptist Church (North-east India), the Presbyterian Church of India, the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of India, the Nepal National Council of
Churches, the Bhutan National Council of Churches and the Church of
Bangladesh.
There were also regional
representatives of the Council for World Mission (CWM) from Jamaica,
Zambia and New Zealand, not to mention myself who was there to represent
CWM Europe, CMS, USPG, the Methodists and the Church of Scotland. As I
travelled – up by train (via Calcutta) and then back by coach (via the
north-western most tip of Bangladesh) – the journey in itself was a bit
of an adventure.
Darjeeling was cool and wet,
with cloud blocking out the view of the mountains, but was still
fascinating. The consultation was also very interesting, and although I
gave a presentation on the Church of Bangladesh’s ‘Women and Child
Trafficking Prevention Project’ (perhaps representing five organisations
already wasn’t quite enough although as I had helped start it, I was
very happy to do so), my official role was to take notes and write a
report for those whom I was representing. There were some incredible
speakers on the various panels; in fact so much to learn from. One lady
whose slogan was ‘you don’t need funding to work, just get on and do it’
had taken her philosophy quite literally and taken 50 formerly
trafficked girls from the red light district in Delhi into her family
home! She cared for them all from her university lecturer’s salary and
even saw that they received good skills training - from embroidery, to
opening and running a restaurant, to even taxi driving.
What’s more, some of these
girls are even being trained as social activists, to take over in time
the work of rescue and rehabilitation! However, I don’t know whether it
was my love of a good cuppa, the intriguing history of Darjeeling or the
fact that it seemed like the fate of the area was intimately bound up
with the British but it was the photos of Anirban that really pulled me
in.
He had been asked to take on a
photo project in the tea gardens for the Eastern Himalaya Diocese of the
CNI.
What he documented was quite
disturbing and I wrote about it for my report. I hope that the following
story moves you as much as it did me:
Darjeeling is a charming place; the
whole town seems to be perched precariously on the side of steep
valleys. In the monsoon season the town is draped in cloud with constant
rain and drizzle and it must have been reassuringly like Britain for
colonialists escaping the searing heat of the Indian plains. In the
spring and autumn, Darjeeling is one of the most beautiful locations in
the world – looking out onto wooded hillsides and beyond to the snowy
white peaks of the mighty Himalayas, with four out of five of the
highest peaks in the world visible. Walking around town, up sharp
flights of steps, roads winding up and down the hill, seemingly nothing
on the level, the British influence is inescapable.
It was startling to suddenly
see a clock tower peeping out from behind a row of shops, identical to
those in many a town square within Surrey. Peaked roofed country houses
deceive you into thinking that you are in the West Country not West
Bengal. A teashop is lifted straight from an English seaside resort.
Then there’s St. Andrew’s Church, true both in form and in name to its
Scottish heritage.
Even getting to Darjeeling you
can still use the narrow gauge mountain railway, which snakes its way
along precipices and through forests that originally used a Scottish
built steam engine.

This ridge top hill station,
established in 1835 as a place where colonials serving the British Raj
could take their summer holidays, took on a life of its own with the
arrival of tea.
The East India Company was
desperate to find a way to break the Chinese monopoly on the tea trade
and was fortunate to discover a plant related to the Chinese tea bush,
but with bigger leaves, in the jungles of Assam. It was soon discovered
that tea grown in the Darjeeling hills 2000metres above sea level
developed a special flavour. Tea production flourished and many estates
were established, even on near vertical slopes, eventually producing 25
per cent of all India’s tea. Tea production is by necessity labour
intensive, leaves needing to be plucked by hand and then carefully
processed. Firstly, speed fans reduce moisture content; they are then
crushed with rollers before being slightly fermented and then dried.
With
such a slow process, the British brought Adivasi people from further
west to help in the tea gardens as well as encouraging an influx of
Ghurkhas from Nepal to come.
The tea gardens can each employ
between 800-5000 people. Traditionally workers received various perks
such as blankets, accommodation, clothes and some food in addition to
wages. They were not affluent but comfortable and able to afford little
luxuries such as photos and albums to keep them in.
Tea bushes have a surprising
long working life - similar to the lifespan of a man or woman, optimally
up to around 70 years or so. However, in the Darjeeling area tea bushes
on many estates are much older than this, and with the general quantity
and quality of leaves declining so is income. Really new bushes should
be replacing old ones for long-term viability. But we live in a world
where ‘cost is king’ and bargains are the order of the day, and most
people want cheap tea rather than prices that reflect fair wages and the
true cost of production. Because of this, owners can’t afford to replant
and estates are closing – leaving thousands destitute.
Thirteen plantations have
already closed locally and more are sure to follow suit. Unemployed tea
pickers and other employees have only ever known work within the tea
industry and do not have the skills to easily find other jobs. Some are
finding temporary work as manual labourers on construction sites, but
many are not so lucky. However, while opportunities for tea plantation
workers are shrinking another industry is booming.
Unscrupulous traders in human
flesh are moving in to take advantage of the desperate. Starving
families are easily convinced to send their children to cities within
India, being promised abounding opportunities and good jobs. Cynical
traffickers make sure that a girl or boy takes all their photos with
them when they leave home, as without a photo tracing them becomes
almost impossible.
Even securing a girl rescued
from a brothel – where she is being continuously abused – is difficult
without a photo and proof of her identity and age as a ‘minor’. When
nothing is heard of a son, daughter or sister for years on end, the pain
becomes doubly great, as a family doesn’t even have a photo to remember
them by. One mother salvaged one tiny photo from her daughter’s school
and keeps it in a wooden box with her most precious objects, the safest
place in the house. Why she keeps it was a question that she could not
really answer, as now she has almost lost hope of seeing her girl again,
but it is all she has left.
It is within this context that
the Church of North India’s Diocese of the Eastern Himalayas is working,
encouraging communities to be vigilant, and making them aware of the
real motives of those traffickers promising better futures within
cities, assisting with rescues, counselling and rehabilitation.
Combating this evil trade is a mountain to climb, but the community of
Darjeeling, who’s most famous son Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was joint first
to climb the world’s highest peak, are a determined people.
For they know that in the
Sermon on the Mount Jesus called us to be ‘light for the whole world.