Overseas Mission:

Our mission partners are:

• Ruth and Izaias – with Latin Link in Brazil
• Alf and Hilary – with SAMS in Chile
• Ann – with AIM International in Chad
• Vera – with Scripture Union in Russia
• Gill and Peter – with YWAM in Malaysia
• A and J – in the Middle East

Ruth and Izaias Daniel de Assis with Jonathan

with Latin Link (Brazil)
Ruth, the daughter of Lois and the late Robert Clark of St Giles, first went to Brazil in 1992 to work with street children. In 1997 she married Brazilian pastor Izaias and they set up a local Mission called ‘Life and Hope Restored’ in the city of Belo Horizonte. This serves a deprived area of the city by providing education for children who might otherwise be on the streets. The school facilities are also used for community projects. A facility to sponsor individual children is available. In January 2009, the family moved north and plan to spend about 2 years in Ceara which is a less well developed area of Brazil. They are currently setting up a missionary training centre and also helping with ministry to a number of village churches.

Alf & Hilary Cooper

with Church Mission Society (CMS) - Santiago, Chile
Alf is an Anglo-Chilean who was brought up in Chile and educated in Britain. Hilary grew up in Chile and Paraguay where her parents were SAMS missionaries. They worked for years with SAMS (part of CMS since 2010) and have been linked with St Giles for over 30 years. Alf, a gifted evangelist and teacher with an international ministry, has played a significant role in encouraging St Giles in evangelism and spiritual commitment. He pastors the thriving La Trinidad church which focuses on evangelism, church planting, discipleship, and training. They have four children – Ryan, Jahnn, Melanie and Mark.

Ann Fursdon

with Africa Inland Mission (Chad)
Ann was a GP in Long Buckby before leaving to work as a medical mission partner in Kenya in 1988. In 2004 she moved to Chad where her ministry is to oversee and support 36 rural Health Centres scattered over a wide area. These operate under the umbrella of the Evangelical Church of Chad and offer spiritual help as well as medical care. In the future Ann hopes to focus more on teaching for the hospital and health centres, including discipleship and high quality care provision. Chad is one of the poorest countries in Africa with few natural resources and very little government investment in health care.

Vera Zhuravleva

with Scripture Union (St Petersburg, Russia)
Scripture Union (SU) started working in the Former Soviet Republics (FSR) in the 1990s after the collapse of communism. Vera directs the Russian Team in St Petersburg and in 2004 oversaw the purchase and refurbishment of an apartment which became the SU Bible Centre. She supervises weekly Christian and outreach clubs here for children, young people and adults. Her team run summer youth camps and a programme of help for former street children. The team is currently refurbishing a house in the village of Murmanskie Vorota, about 70 miles away from St Petersburg. This will be a centre for retreats, training events and winter camps and also for ministry to the people in this very needy village.

Peter & Gill Vriend with David and Jessica

with Youth With A Mission (Penang, Malaysia)
Peter and Gill left Northampton in 2004 and spent 3 years working at YWAM's University of the Nations in Hawaii. They moved to Penang in 2007 to join a team involved in evangelism, training in mission and outreach to the homeless and to drug addicts. Both are involved in the Discipleship Training School which draws participants from other South Asian countries. Peter’s vision is for teaching and counselling addicts and other marginalized people while Gill's primary desire is to work in healing and counselling to enable and resource Christian ministry.