A story of Agapé UK
Here is a story of Agapé UK , that I have worked on that I would like to share.
Imagine you’re chatting to your neighbour over the garden fence one Sunday afternoon after coming back from church and in passing she starts to ask about what you believe. How do you respond? Do you feel equipped and confident to answer her questions? For Olivia, a university student from Birmingham, the thought of talking about her faith used to make her palms sweat and her heart race. About a year ago she joined the Agapé UK training course “Living & Telling”, which focuses on helping Christians to share their faith.
‘The course content,’ Olivia explains, ‘was really helpful and thought-provoking, but in a really manageable way. It stripped the whole process of talking about my faith down to focusing on relationships: between me and God first, and then the relationships I have with people who don’t yet know Jesus.’
This past year, Olivia's friend Katy started showing interest in her faith. Katy knew several Christians but had never thought that religion was relevant to her. Olivia led Katy through Agapé UK’s Knowing God Personally gospel outline and did the Alpha course with her. As a result, Olivia had the exciting opportunity of leading her friend to Christ. Today, Katy is growing in her faith and is part of a church community.
In the UK, most people like Olivia are surrounded by friends, family and colleagues who don’t know Jesus. But they are often fearful and uncertain of how to speak about their faith. At Agapé we believe that everybody can be trained in how to live out and speak about their faith as a way of life.
Over the next 5 years, we would like to offer resources like Living & Telling to Christians throughout the UK. We want to work with 1,000 churches to mobilise thousands of believers, so their friends and neighbours can discover Jesus too. It is wonderful to see many lives being transformed by the power of faith - living it and telling it. Please pray that many churches will be blessed by it.
Work is going well for me at the moment. As everything fully opens up, I will be going into the office and also travelling to London. Please do pray that my health will be good and that I will be protected whilst travelling on public transport.
The work with the women is going well but challenging. One of them left the safe house and is waiting for a place from the council, but she is not coping very well and her PTSD is severe.
There are a lot of things to be thankful for. My dad turned 70 this year and he is well, 6 years on from his heart attack. I am really grateful for all the support and prayers for him. I spent 5 weeks with my family and friends this summer and absolutely loved it, after 2 years of not seeing them.
Please do pray for the financial support for Agapé - we really need a break through.
Rezi Kardellemaj
Agapé, UK
Rezi is supported by three Home Groups. – Helen Nixon’s , Harvey Rigby’s, and Matthew and Fiona Gregson’s.
