One step at a time

Something exciting is in the air!!! In the coming new year, Beng and Mel are going to finally make that first big move to Montreal (Mid March 2009). Here is a tiny bit of information about the Language school we HAVE already enrolled ourselves into...





http://www.geosmontreal.com/files/PDF/brochure_GEOSMontreal_2009.pdf

Watch out Canada, here we come...

MONTREAL INTERNATIONAL MISSIONS UPDATE

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

Anticipation is building as the Hope Montreal team prepares for take-off! , there are currently seven in the team – Beng and Mellyana Cheah from the morning service, Pei Hsu from the afternoon service, Lee King and Sarah from Hope Penang, and Jabez Loh from Hope Singapore. The team has been undergoing training in their respective churches to prepare for the launch.

The Hope Montreal pioneers have been exploring different entry vehicles. Some plan to enter the country via student visas, while others are applying for working or permanent residency visas. At present, Beng, Mel, Sarah and Lee King have already applied for Canadian permanent residency. However, they might have to wait as long as two years to obtain approval. The team is believing God for a miracle of early approval, as they plan to land in Montreal at the end of 2008!


GET IN TOUCH WITH HOPE MONTREAL!

For any enquiries, prayer points, and updates, please contact Beng and Mel at:

Email/facebook/Friendster: mellyana@tpg.com.au, beng_cheah@tpg.com.au
Blog: http://www.seedsofhopemontreal.blogspot.com/
Facebook group: Hope Montreal pioneering work

The Montreal team would really love to hear from you! If you have any contacts or relatives in Montreal, please let the team know as they would greatly appreciate any assistance they can get from locals.

PLEASE PRAY FOR THE TEAM:

1. Divine wisdom and favour from God and men
2. Approval of their visa applications ASAP
3. Key people who can speak fluent French and can flow with the Vision & Philosophy of the Hope movement to join the team
4. God’s guidance upon all the team members to land in Montreal in His right timing
5. Strength from God, a sense of His purpose, right motives, and conviction from God for all team members

THE URBAN CHALLENGE

Taken from an article, COVERING THE GLOBE by Patrick Johnstone

The great cities of the world are the key challenge for mission in the twenty-first century. We ignore the cities to our peril. The great cities of our world are the source of most of our wealth and misery, wisdom and depravity, innovation and sin. The engine for societal change is in the cities, but, if used wisely, it could be the dynamo for the growth of the Kingdom.

The twenty-first century will be an urban world, just as the previous 20 centuries of Christianity have been a rural world. The end of the second millennium is also the end of the rural majority with just over 50% of the world's population urbanised.

Two centuries ago the world was rural, with an urbanisation of 4% and only one megacity in existence- Beijing with 1,100,000. By 1900 these had increased to 14%, 18 megacities and 2 supercities- London and New York. By 2000 these will have reached 51% urbanised, about 20 supergiants (only one of which is in Europe or North America), 79 supercities and 433 megacities. That trend will continue so that by 2100 the number of rural inhabitants may be only 10% of the world's population. The cities are even more vital for mission strategy than they were in Paul's day.

Pioneer missions in the twentieth century have been characterised by the need to reach unreached peoples; a process within sight of conclusion. The twenty-first century will be characterised by the need for pioneer missions in the great cities of the world- a much more complex and multi-layered kaleidoscope of needs. Mission frontiers in the twentieth century were perceived as rural, but we must switch our thinking to the urban challenge as the frontier of the future.

We have been winning the countryside and losing the cities, and all the time our rural constituency has been draining away to the cities. The glamour and romanticism associated with the jungles, mountains, deserts and remote islands seem like 'real' mission work to the home constituency, but living in ta concrete jungle, or squalid slum is far less attractive, and undesirable as a place of ministry.
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Our desolate cities are an immense challenge, but I believe a new day for urban ministry is dawning. The Lord promises us that these cities will be populated with His people.

Montreal Goes Wireless

Montreal, the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec, is going wireless. Two Montreal companies plan to blanket the city with wireless Internet service by 2009, making a big chunk of the island one huge wireless hotspot, reports the Montreal Gazette.

Internet service provider Radioactif and network installer Nomade Telecom will launch the first WiFi network and possibly WiMax in September on the Mount-Royal Plate. By 2009, they expect to cover nearly 90% of Montreal residents, over an area of 300 square kilometres.

Who's who in Montreal City

Well I might not know so much about the city and the people yet, but over a short period of time (one week) in October 07, I have come to know some cool people from Montreal that I still keep in contact with. Thought I might write this down cos I feel so grateful of this friendships and hopeful that the seed of friendship we planted last year will continue to grow in the future:

- I met Jenny on the plane (Seattle-Montreal) where due to a lack of customer service and organisation by a very prominent American airline; Pei, Beng and myself was sitting separately while travelling to Montreal (after being stranded in Chicago Airport for half a day). Anyway, she and I struck up a conversation and exchanged details, emails, texts, postcards, etc (We girls are so good in doing this). Can't wait to see her the next time we get to Montreal again.

- Tanya met Pei and myself at the bus stop while we were roaming around the city looking for a future place to stay. She is one of the friendliest face I've met and very eager to help... We still text each other until now.

- Nino is a family man we met at an awesome Italian AOG church (We sat at their bible study class). He gave us pretty interesting facts about living in Montreal that only locals would know (like the need to change of tyres according to season, the best Steak House in town, etc)

- Meeting Natalie is different. She and I met at Hillsong Colour your world conference (It's a women's conference by the way), in Sydney. She is a Canadian from near Toronto and was interested in studying in Montreal. Nat and Channy (another Canadian friend) came up to Brissie for a visit and stayed with us. It was an amazing story how we both met, and as I wrote this post, she is about to start her Uni also at McGill Uni, Montreal. Hope you two can be friends, Harry and Nat...



Well if any of my friends above are reading this, I am so glad we met, and look forward to getting to know you all even more when we're finally there.


Mellyana Widjaja

FAQ and Hope Oceania 2008

Hi all,

Happy Easter everyone... may God increase your love and passion for Him... Amen!!

News feed. I'm trying to do like a FAQ in 'Hope Montreal pioneering work group in Facebook' and have some answers to update each other about the progress we're making in getting into Montreal... I hope to give you all as much info as possible. Also when people keep asking you the same questions 10,000 times you can just tell them to go into Facebook and check it out for themselves ha ha ha

We just had a great Oceania Convention 2008 here in Brisbane and Oh boy we had a blast... So much fun and I believe as a region of Oceania we have hit a breakthrough mark in helping people be aware and inspire them about the possibility of becoming involved in church planting work. Actually when the altar call was given about 4/5 of the whole room (of about 900 people) rushed to the front wanting to be a part of church planting work (as a sender, goer and mobiliser) WOW!!! It was a powerful powerful holy moment when God's people committed their lives to fulfilling God's commands in their lives...

I am going to get organised and put up some of the lesson I learnt from 'Contextualised church' OC2008 up in our blog because it is going to be very beneficial to prepare ourselves to be contextualised into Montreal culture. So that we will not be setting up a church with our own culture and therefore only attract Malaysian, Indonesian, Singaporean, Taiwanese or Asian only people when we are in Montreal... Amen!!!


Love,

Mel


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?" -- David Livingstone