Muslim Call to Prayer on TV

Muslims are now observing the month-long fast of Ramadan and will continue until about August 7th, depending on the sighting of the new moon. For the first time, the publicly-owned, commercially-funded British TV station Channel 4 chose to broadcast the adhan, or Muslim call to prayer, throughout the 30 days of Ramadan. I wondered how that was going to be handled since it would mean suddenly interrupting scheduled TV shows in progress 5 times every day, no doubt upsetting some viewers. As it turns out, the only interruption to normal TV broadcasting happened on the first day of Ramadan, July 10th. For the remaining 29 days of the month of fasting, only the first call to prayer (before 4 am) is being broadcast over the airwaves. You can read more here and see Channel 4’s response to criticism here.

Childrens Clubs Break for Summer

Saturday, July 20th marks the end of our first season of weekly clubs for boys and girls, and they have been an unqualified success. Boys club ran consistently between 12 and 15 each week, while girls club was usually about 24 in attendance. This is nice for the girls since among Muslim families here there are often fewer opportunities for girls outside the home. Thank you for praying for this needed outreach. We look forward to a restart sometime after the summer break.

Upcoming North American Ministry 

We mentioned this in a previous update but we plan to be based in Ontario from August 23rd to October 9th 2013. All Sundays are now booked and we will have opportunity to see many of you. Please let us know if you would like to touch base when we are in the area. It would be our pleasure.

George and Karen King

“You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. With Your help I can advance against a wall.” (Ps.18:28,29)

It seems lately that there are many things to discourage us and cause us to lose hope. We often have to remind ourselves that it is GOD’s work, not ours and He can do with it what He chooses. It seems that lately He has been taking many good people away from our church due to various circumstances and when a church is already small, that really hurts. It’s been an extra long and disheartening winter (we know you understand since it’s been the same on the “other side of the pond”!).

And so, we take time to remind ourselves of what God has done and is doing. Lately, we have had several new people coming regularly to our services. We are welcoming 3 new members (2 of whom are our new colleagues, the Lees). It’s been very good to have extra willing workers!
Girls’ club on Saturday mornings is going well with 20 or more girls attending each week. Because many of our girls are from Muslim homes, we must be very sensitive in our gospel presentations. Please pray for an extra measure of wisdom as we teach and exemplify Christ’s love in our actions and attitudes. Rachel and I are often quite tired at the end of club but in a good way! We praise God for this opportunity to invest in the lives of these young girls.

The men are starting up a boys’ club on May 4th. For weeks one of Karen’s Pakistani ladies has been asking when it will start. She has 3 boys who are quite excited about to come. Karen often has opportunities to share bits here and there with the ladies she teaches and visits – these opportunities come in surprising ways. Little by little…

Keep praying for open hearts and more in depth conversations. We had some come from the community to assist in our annual Big Tidy Up of the local park. This has been a good way to connect and reconnect with people. Many more people from our community are accessing the various programs taking place in our church building, such as exercise classes, job club, after school club, Indian dance group, various community forums and committees, organic gardening club.

With thanks for your prayers and support,

George and Karen King
Birmingham, United Kingdom

Karen and new colleague, Rachel Lee, started up a new club for girls ages 6-11 on Saturday, March 2, thinking that if they got 5 girls, they’d be happy. God surpassed their expectations and gave them 19 girls: 12 Pakistani girls from the church neighbourhood and 7 of various nationalities. Please pray as they plant seeds of gospel truth into the lives of these precious young girls. Also pray for helpers for the club and funding to cover expenses.

Karen had a good opportunity with two of her regular students to share her faith after class recently. The women started talking about how they aren’t allowed to pray and read the Quran when they are menstruating and how some men won’t let a woman who has given birth cook for them for 40 days after the baby is born because they think the woman will contaminate the food.

Karen shared how she believes that God made women special to be able to have babies and even though having a period isn’t a fun thing, it’s a wonderful thing because it’s part of God’s plan for women to give birth. She also talked about how it’s the sin in us that is the problem and that it’s not what we eat that makes us dirty but our hearts and the sin inside of us. This was the first time Karen had chance to speak about spiritual things with them, other than them reading Bible stories.

George keeps busy with pastoral ministry and his role of raising awareness among Birmingham Christians the need to reach out to Muslims. One advantage of being church-based is having a building ready to use as a blessing for others. Recently, 35 Christian workers came from across the city to be trained as trainers in Muslim evangelism. May God multiply their number.

Home Assignment Dates: August 23rd to October 9th 2013

George and Karen are available for 7 weeks later this year to come and share what God has done. Please book them to come at your earliest convenience.

With thanks for your prayers and support,

George and Karen King, Birmingham, United Kingdom

The Christmas season was full!  This year George and I kicked off our Christmas by checking out the Birmingham Christmas parade for the first time. We found it was quite different from the parades we see at home since this one began with real reindeer pulling Santa Claus (Father Christmas) leading the parade, not ending it.  This was followed by three wisemen riding atop of live camel which was then followed by a live nativity on a float. There were many storybook and winter symbol characters on stilts or roller skates and very few floats and marching bands like we see in Canadian parades. It was fun and unique!

It was a delight to host the ABWE England Christmas party this year. An older MK declared it “the best ABWE Christmas party” she’d attended!

George and I attended an advent service for the area churches and also helped with an outdoor carolling event in a busy commercial area as well as the annual carolling at the seniors’ care home near our church.

One day as I finished teaching my ladies’ English class, the activities’ director from the seniors’ care home near our church came to ask if we had any children who could come and sing for the residents. It was a special blessing to go over on Dec. 22nd with our 3 church families who have younger children to do a little program for them.

On the 23^rd at our church family service, I led the children’s nativity performance and thankfully each child (every one was NEEDED!) was healthy and did well. George and I were asked to do a special number at our church “Carols by Candlelight” service.  George had been fighting a chest cold but was thankfully, well enough to sing. It was a busy day since we also attended the Bengali Fellowship Christmas service/party in the afternoon.

Our little church here in Birmingham traditionally holds a short service Christmas morning, which George led and spoke at.  Once again, we Canadians were “family” for each other, getting together for Christmas dinner at Jeff and Rachel Lees’ home.

On our last day of classes for 2012, I gave the ladies a Jesus DVD in their mother tongue as a Christmas gift. Please pray they and their families view this film and are touched spiritually by it. The ladies requested that we have our Christmas party during the holidays so their children could be a part of it. I was thankful to have Rachel Lee and her 3 eldest children come along to help at it. We had 14 ladies altogether with 21 children. It was a busy happy time. The ladies each received a Scripture calendar in Urdu/English and the children a small book about the Christmas story as well as several little goodies.

Now on this first day of 2013, we want to wish you a Happy New Year!

Karen