Matthews Down Under

Welcome to winter in Australia

Russ — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:14:38 +0000

Welcome to winter in Australia. Just thought I would start off with an interesting fact of the land we now call home. Now winter here is a bit different than up north. The days stay around 50-70 degrees (F) and no snow. The key difference is that there is no central heat in most homes, so it can get colder in the house than outside. Interesting fun fact.

Two praises and one prayer point

National Workplace Evangelism Conference

Thank you for your prayers for this conference. We had great attendance and interest in workplace evangelism. Here are some of the highlights.

Great talks : God’s love for a great city (Jonah) and the challenge to not flee the cities but be the salt and light we are to be within the cities. “As the city goes, so goes the culture.” –Tim Keller
Reaching the Culture: How do we answer the “Defeater beliefs” and why should the culture even listen to us?
Electives on Prayer and evangelism, sharing your faith at work and organizing events and groups.
The goals of the conference were to challenge people to share their faith in the place they spend the most hours in every day; work.
We had people travel in from Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Dubbo.
“I did not know what to expect from this conference, but I leave with a completely different perspective on sharing my faith. Thanks for the weekend and please do it again.”

Women of Worth: Ladies Pamper Day

Cathy, Rebecca, and Hope ( also, our adopted daughter, Amalie) participated in the Ladies Pamper day at our new church, Glorious Hope Baptist. The pastor’s wife, Lody Bassari and the ladies of the church put together a pre-Mother’s day outreach in the community. Many of the ladies in the community would not be able to afford a ‘pamper day.’ So, the WOW group at church puts together a massive project to pamper the ladies in the neighbourhood. Over 60 ladies came. Cathy was thrilled because she has able to do hand massages on most of the women. She was able to pray with all of the ladies she came in touch with on the day and share the Gospel with them. She said, “The experience was like Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.” All of the ladies heard a great Gospel appeal and good music. All of the ladies who worked on the day communicated “The love that was shown to the ladies was unlike anything that they had experienced before.” Pray the ladies come to church and come to know Christ as their Saviour.

Prayer point:

Over the past three weeks, Russ has been experiencing back pain. Yesterday, he was laid out on the floor for the whole day. After, finally, going to the doctor and chiropractor it is most likely a slipped disc or pinched nerve. Today, he will be going to get scans and tests done to see what can be done. We would appreciate your prayers for this situation.

Kid’s corner:
Hope starts guitar lessons, Josh is now a “sixer” leader in Scouts, Becca is writing a new story daily and Caroline singing and reading all the time.

Thank you for all of your support and prayers. We love hearing from you via e-mail. It helps us to know how to pray for all of you.

The adventure continues…
The Matthews Family

Permanent Visa

Russ — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:49:13 +0000

Thank you for your prayers! It is an exciting day in our home. We received our Permanent Visas today. This is a huge answer to prayer!!! Praise God!

The Matthews

Praise and Prayers

Russ — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:19:50 +0000

I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you established your faithfulness in heaven itself.
Psalm 89:2

Our God is the mighty God of all creation and we are thrilled to be apart of His work in Australia. Thanks for being apart of this work in support and prayers. We will be sending a full update in May, but we wanted to send prayer requests to you.

Praises:

Completed the nine week series through the Book of Numbers, “The City, Seduction and Jesus.” Had numerous people interested in knowing more about Jesus and people acknowledging Christ as Saviour during the series.
Safe arrival of Russ’ parents, in Australia, for a two week stay.
Official transition to Glorious Hope Baptist Church
Amalie Parmerlee’s continued and faithful work with our ministry

Requests:

National Workplace Evangelism Conference on 2-4 May.
‘Living For Jesus’ course at numerous locations throughout the city
Conclusion of ‘Six Steps to talking about Jesus’ Course at Oracle
New series “Power: Nothing Else Comes Close,” Four week series in Daniel at City Bible Forum in May
Permanent visas will be processed quickly for the family this month
Continued opportunities to sharing our faith with people in our community

Thank you for all of communications and prayers.

The adventure continues…
The Matthews family

Celebrating Resurrection Day

Russ — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 19:44:16 +0000

We hope this update finds you well and celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This is the reason we do what we do, for the glory and worship of our God and what He did for the world through the death, burial and resurrection of His Son. This beautiful, scandalous day of grace and mercy brought together in the vision that is the cross and the empty tomb. This is the day in history, giving us the invitation for a relationship with the creator of the universe that can only come through His Son. We pray that you would join us knowing the joy that can only be found through the knowledge and acceptance significance of this day, Easter, The Resurrection Day.

Quick update:
Busy few months in ministry in the Sydney. Teaching a course “Six Steps to sharing about Jesus” at Oracle. This is a great class and we receive stories each week of people sharing their faith in the workplace. We had over 200 people come to the events at Telstra to hear from the Biblical Historian, John Dickson on the historical truths of Jesus’ resurrection. Over 150 people came to the events in the “Easter and the City” presentations given at the City Bible Forum. Pray for those who prayed with us during the invitation that was offered at the end of the sessions. We had people fill out forms with interest in becoming a Christian. We will keep you updated over the next few weeks.

Amalie Parmerlee has arrived in Sydney for the work in 2008. We are thrilled with her willingness to work with our ministries. She has been a blessing for the work in the city, church and youth.

Family front:
We will officially be moving to a new church in April, Glorious Hope Baptist. Please pray for the family adjusting to a new church and for the future ministry and church planting opportunities with Glorious Hope Baptist.

We celebrated our sixteenth anniversary on Friday. What a blessing it is to have an incredible spouse to work in the ministry. Thank you for all of you who pray for our family. The stronger our relationship grows with God, the stronger our marriage grows.

We have applied for our permanent visas and hope this will come through quickly. Please pray for this process. It will be a blessing for us and give us freedoms that will make us more effective in ministry. All good things come with a cost, it will cost close to $3000 for the visas. We appreciate any church that would be willing to assist us with deferring these costs.
Thanks:
We are grateful for the opportunity to serve in this amazing country. It really hit us the other day when we went to celebrate Good Friday at church. Based on the statistics of Australia, we drive by all of the homes in our neighbourhood and realise that out of 100 homes (100 families) we would only be one of two families celebrating this day. The day is a public holiday, but more people would be celebrating the beach or the Easter Bunny than the resurrection of the Son. There is so much work to be done here and we are grateful for your support of His ministry in Australia. Please be praying for the opportunity to introduce people to the one and only true God.

Happy Resurrection Day

The Matthews family

You can receive our updates through www.matthewsdownunder.com (RSS feed) and Russ Matthews on Facebook.

Visitors, the City and exciting news

Russ — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:38:35 +0000

TEAM AUSTRALIA,

Welcome to the first official update of 2008 from the Matthews.

Beebouts:
Don and Patty Beebout from Faith Baptist in Knoxville, IA came to spend for a week with us and to participate in the ministries of Sydney. They were able to serve in many different capacities. Street evangelism, Small groups, Men’s group, City Bible Forum and two of our local churches. We were so blessed by their ministry to us while they were here in Australia. Thank you to the Beebouts for their willingness to come and serve with us in Australia. If your church has the opportunity, invite them to come and share their pictures and stories of what God is doing in this area of the world.
Exciting news:
We committed to share with you our financial needs twice a year. We want to thank you for your prayers and how many of you have helped us with our monthly support. We are excited to announce that at the end of this month we should be at our 100% monthly support goal. What an answer to prayer and we are grateful to God for his provision.

Many have asked during this time if there are other areas that you could assist our ministry financially. Even with our monthly support being solidified, we still have many expenses, some more immediate than others and these expenses go beyond our monthly support. Tires for our van, permanent visa application fee, school curriculum fees for the children, payment for prayer cards and payment to fix our school computer. If you would be able to assist us with these areas please contact us at matthewsdownunder@bigpond.com.
* Many have sent us personal gifts. (Things for Birthdays and holidays.) Thank you. We were encouraged to inform you that any gift sent to ABWE marked as a “personal gift” will go into our account, but is not tax deductible. If the tax benefit is not a necessity to you and you still would like to send us a gift. Please contact us and we can direct you to a different service that will expedite this process for you quickly. This is due to the size of the ABWE system; many times the gifts will not get to us for 2-3 months. Thank you for all who have sent gifts.

City Bible Forum:
Russ is overseeing the City Bible Forum at the beginning of 2008. We were excited to see an attendance of 206 people during the first week of the new season. Please be praying for this outreach in this first world mission. To find out more go to the most recent link to Message Magazine / ABWE: http://message.abwe.org/features/Christ-at-the-Crossroads-of-Commerce.html

Church plant:
Many ask. How is the church plant? Thanks for the interest. As many of you know that we have come to the end of our “introductory period” on the field. With this we are given the approval to partner with an Australian for a future church plant. Exciting! After meeting with our team leader, we have changed the direction of our potential focus for a church. Our plan is to evaluate and seek direction into the heart of the city. Most of ABWE’s ministries and churches are working in the suburbs of Sydney. We have decided to look into the city instead.
“As the city goes, so goes the culture. Cultural trends tend to be generated in the city and flows outward to the rest of society… the people who live in cities in the greatest numbers tend to see their values expressed in the culture.” –Tim Keller
Many things are needed to go forward with this ministry. We will keep you updated on this during this year. If you have more questions, please contact us. Please pray for us and that Lord will show us the next steps in the process.
Thank you for all of your support and prayers.
Please go to our Facebook page to see some of the latest pictures of our ministry. Facebook / Russ Matthews
Cheers,

Russ, Cathy, Becca, Hope, Joshua and Caroline

Message Magazine article

Russ — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:39:59 +0000

team australia,

We have had some exciting news and events occur over the summer holidays (December-January). We will be getting out our most recent update in the next week.

We wanted to encourage you to see this most recent article in the Messsage magazine on-line. It will help to explain one of the components of our ministry in Australia.

http://message.abwe.org/features/Christ-at-the-Crossroads-of-Commerce.html

Also, you can see some of our most recent photos on our facebook page, Russ Matthews.

Thank you for your support and prayers.

Cheers,

Russ, Cathy, Becca, Hope, Joshua and Caroline

Matthews Down Under Communication for 2008

Russ — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 22:36:58 +0000

team australia-

We want to thank you all for your support for 2007. We are excited about the different ministries in Australia in 2008. We strive to communicate to all of you the necessary information to keep you aware of our ministry actions and needs. To our financial and prayer supporters we wanted to put forward a survey:

1) How would you prefer to receive communication from us? E-mail updates or hard copy.

2) Do our updates give the necessary information to keep you aware of our ministries in Australia?

3) Communicating our financial status twice a year, is this adequate information to keep you updated?

4) What else can we do to make you aware of our ministry actions and needs?

Could you respond to this update with your input? Can our churches print this document for all in the church to give us the necessary information? We strive to inform all of our supporters in the most concise and effective manner.

Thank you for your assistance with this process. If you are not getting our monthly updates, please go to www.matthewdownunder.com and enter in your e-mail address to receive our updates.

Our e-mail address is matthewsdownunder@bigpond.com. Our profile is availabe on Facebook, also.

We hope you have a great Christmas and look forward to our partnership in the ministry in 2008.

The adventure continues…

Russ and Cathy Matthews

Team Australia - Joy-filled Christmas and more

Russ — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:44:11 +0000

“Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:14

May this Christmas season bring you joy and celebration through the knowledge of our Saviour’s birth. What an incredible year it has been in Sydney. Changes in the ministries and in the country have had their rewards and challenges. We continue to be thankful for the privilege of being here, serving the Lord. Thanks for being a part of this ministry.
ministry

Ministry Info

In House Network – “I think that this is the purest form of adult mission I have seen. Meeting people where they are daily with the Gospel. What a privilege.”   – Greg Clarke, accomplished author and speaker

This year has seen many different opportunities of evangelism within the Central Business District of Sydney. I have been given the leadership role in coordinating evangelistic events and training in many of the organisations throughout Sydney. We have had over fifteen events inside companies. I have had many different authors and speakers assist in this ministry. The last two events were in Westpac Bank and Telstra (Largest Telecommunications Company) and had attendances of 89 and 50. The Westpac event had over 2/3 non-Christians attend the forum discussion on “Why I am not an Atheist” given by Greg Clarke. The opportunities to share the gospel are overwhelming and we ask for your prayers in seeing more people come to Christ through these strategic outreaches within organisations throughout the CBD.

Investigating Christianity – After the event we offer for people to attend a course called Investigating Christianity. I have had the privilege to teach a course at Telstra and Westpac. It is a four week course asking the questions, who is God, who is man, who is Jesus and how to get right with God. The classes are attended by non-Christians who are inquiring about the God of the Bible. After the class two weeks ago, one of the attendees said, “I did not have high expectations for this class, but I thought I would have a go. Russ, I was pleasantly surprised, you have begun to change my view on God. Can we keep doing more studies?” It is amazing to see people who would not go to church, but are willing to come along and learn about God at work.

Church planting – We are coming to the end of our two year transition period on the field. Now we can be a direct part of leading a church plant. We have been studying the methods of effective church planting in Australia. We have coordinated an action plan for a future church plant. Different people have shown interest in working with us on the church. The opportunities are plentiful for doing a work in Sydney. We just ask for your prayers on the community and core group of people to work with on this new venture. Our goal would be to start in 2008, but we will leave this in God’s hands and see what His goals are for church plants throughout Sydney.

Jason and Amalie Parmerlee – What a joy it has been to work with Jason and Amalie this year. They will be leaving in December to go back to Ankeny. Pray for their direction to serve the Lord in the future. We would pray it would be to come back to Australia, but regardless, it has been an honour to call them friends and counterparts. Goodonya, mates!

Family Info

Tasmania – (An island state of Australia) Cathy and I celebrated our 40^th birthdays and our 15 years of marriage during a long weekend in Tasmania. A school mate from my High School days contacted me this year, inviting us to Tassie. Kevin and Korina Lund welcomed us and helped to enjoy an amazing part of Australia. Beautiful family, beautiful home and eternal friends.

Serving God – The girls recently went up to the Central Coast for the annual Youth Camp with two other churches. The theme was ‘Serving God’ and they came away with new ways to serve Him in 2008. They have made some great friends in Australia and are constantly assisting Cath with so many things at home, especially keeping up with Caroline.

Scouts – Josh just got back from a trip with his scout troop to the Wombeyan caves. He is working on his different badges. He has also turned into quite the engineer. Legos are a passion for him, but he also seems to be able to fix or re-make many different things. He rebuilt a skateboard for his friend’s birthday this year and it was cool. I am not sure where he gets it, but he is talented.

Caroline in charge- Caroline is all over the place. Non-stop action. Dancing, singing, bossing… at two she is a thrill to have around. She surprises us daily with new things she’s learned from colors, shapes, letters, numbers to the names of the flowers in the garden! She has a strong personality, but she has no problem sharing the love. Pray for us!

Financial
Thank you for your faithful support. We committed last year to only do a financial update twice a year. Please contact us with any questions. I know it is something that is a reality all over the world in overseas ministry.
International Cost Index – Due to the strength of the Australian economy and the weakness of the American dollar we have seen an increase in our support needs. The ICI and the Australian field council determine the increase in our support requirements. Sydney was just ranked internationally, as the fifth most expensive place to live in the world. This is due to lack of building, strength in the dollar and increase in the Australian stock market. We did come to the field over-supported and increases in support from churches in 2007 had our support level at over 100%, but due to steady increase in support needs we are currently under-supported by 9% or $400 per month. We are making a request to all who have considered supporting our ministry, but currently do not or anyone who would be willing to increase their monthly support of our ministry. (Based on our number of current supporters, that would be a mere $13 per supporter per month) Thanks for your prayerful consideration of our needed support.

Thank you for your support and prayers. We hope you all have a good Christmas season. we hope to have a new prayer card and images on our website at the beginning of 2008.

The adventure continues…

Russ, Cathy, Rebecca, Hope, Joshua and Caroline

A Down Under update….from Cathy’s Corner!

Russ — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:10:03 +0000

With all Russ has going on right now, he offered me the opportunity to do the update this time and I jumped at the chance. Life and ministry don’t slow down here in Australia so here’s an update from my perspective….
On the ministry front, Russ works hard and puts in many hours planting the seeds of the Gospel message here in Australia. Whether its through filling the pulpit both at our church, Cornerstone Baptist on Sunday nights, or at other churches where the Pastors have had little time off to the incredible ministry in the heart of Sydney. Russ recently put helped in coordinating an evangelistic talk at Telstra and Ernst and Young, the biggest telecommunications company and accounting firms in Australia, at their head offices. Preparations were already going well, but then the Chief Operating Officer of the corporation for Telstra decided to attend and then the class size doubled (89 attendees)! Praise the Lord! Also, there is a follow up Investigating Christianity courses that will follow; the current sign up for the courses are 20 (Telstra) and 5 (E&Y). Please be praying for the non-Christians attending.
We also hosting a team from one of our supporting churches and has the team going in all different directions to help with everything from ministry in the city, a Holiday Bible Club at one of our sister churches to construction work at a nearby Christian school. They have been a huge blessing to our ministry in the city and at the HBC. Jay Mcfarling, Richard Karnes, Brent and Kim Knoll have been such an encouragement to us and the local churches. There were nine decisions for Christ at the HBC. Thank you for sending this team, they fit in great down here.

In his spare time (when’s that?) he has been praying, planning and preparing for the future church God would have us plant. Russ calls it his “Nehemiah days”. He’s waiting from the green light from the Lord on the area of the city and the men to partner with in the ministry. Its exciting to see the ideas God is giving him and we know He will show us just where our future church should be planted.
Our older girls have stayed busy this school holiday working at 2 different Holiday Bible Clubs. They have really honed their skills with working with little ones and are growing bolder in their desire to share Christ with others. They also have really begun to enjoy cooking/baking and are trying new dishes out on a regular basis, especially to take to the different youth group functions they attend.
Joshua and Caroline are the best of friends and can usually be found playing together. Joshua stays busy with his neighborhood buddies, Scouts and Legos. Caroline stays busy with just about everything. She has a real knack for music and pick up a tune after hearing it just a few times.
I stay busy at home….homeschooling, preparing for Sunday school, assisting in the Holiday Bible Clubs, opening our home in hospitality and reaching out to ladies I have befriended in the neighborhood. Please be praying for the kids gowth in school. Also, pray for two ladies who I have become close friends with that do not know the Lord.

Jason and Amalie Parmerlee contiue thier hard work through the ministry at HBC, Scripture Classes in the public schools and the Youth program at Cornerstone Baptsit. Keep praying for the long term benefits of all the work they have done here in Sydney. We praise the Lord for them and the blessing they have been to us this year. It will be hard to let them go back to Iowa.
Prayer requests:

Clear direction on upcoming church plant

Fruit from three Investigating Christianity Courses

Growth of Youth after school club at Glorious Hope Baptist

All of our support needs being met by the end of 2007, currently need $300 per month, 7% of total support.

Thanks for all of your support and prayers. We continue to be amzed at what the Lord is doing here in Australia and we count it a priviledge to be apart of it.
The adventure continues…
Cathy Matthews

Kids Update

Russ — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 01:41:26 +0000

We have secretly taken over the website of www.matthewsdownunder.com. We just wanted you all to know what the Matthews kids are doing in Australia. All the things Dad talks about are cool and all that, but we thought it was time for you to hear from us!

Hope and Becca- While Dad has been preaching at Inner West Baptist, we have been working hard. We have been teaching the Sunday school that goes on while the service is on. It has been fun and hard work. It would be better if Dad did not preach so long, but he said it is a message that has to shared. We will be patient with him, but an hour!

Youth group has been great with Jason P. leading us. We went to a couple of great youth events this year, we have gone Put-put and we are constantly doing games. Jason is good at teaching us the Bible and we have learned a lot this year. Dad has been taking us out to play tennis; it has been cool to learn how to play.

We have made new friends this year and we are now thirteen. Mom and Dad say they need extra prayer because of that, Ha Ha! Joshua-

I am a Scout. I was vested a few weeks ago. It is a lot like the Scouts in the States, but we have to pledge allegiance to God and Australia. I got to carry the flag the other night for the troop. My shirt has an Aussie flag on it. Cool! The group is fun and I have learned some cool things, like knots and safety rules. I have turned into a Penrith Panthers fan, instead of the Cowboys. The Panthers are doing bad this year, but my friend Alexander and I still cheer for them. (That is for real football, Rugby League! No wimpy pads on these blokes) Dad’s team is doing pretty good, Rabbitohs. Goofy mascot, but they are a tough lot from Redfern. Caroline- You did not think I could reach the keys, but am 2, now! I like important things like Winnie the Pooh and playing with my play kitchen.

I really like music and I am learning to sing along with a lot of different songs.

My favorite color is pink, today. I think tomorrow my favorite will be purple, no red…

Everyone says all my words are sounding Australian, I don’t know about that, but I have lived here longer than anywhere else, MATE!

That is it for now. We love our country of Australia. We have learned alot about Australia and God. When are you coming along? It has been fun sending you an update, let’s keep this thing between us, okay? We will send more updates later. Love to hear from some of your youth groups and Sunday School classes. Thanks for praying for us!

See yas, mates- The Matthews kids