Dear Friends,
You may already be aware of John’s passing on the 23rd February. Thank you for your faithful prayers, support and giving to the work that God has done through your partnership with John and Ruth in seeing the good news of Jesus taken out into the world.
John had a profound impact in many of our lives and my heart is heavy as I write this. He was the first missionary I started supporting when I was a young cadet at the Royal Military College over 40 years ago. John always had a challenging message and such wonderful stories of trust in God and reaching out to people to share the love of Jesus. He led such an amazing life – tutoring the Crown Prince of Thailand (now the King), writing a Uni physics textbook while on the field as a missionary to help fund his work, being thrown the keys of an orphanage in India as the director walked out and John had to take over. There are many, many more stories of John that can be shared later. But it was his love of God and of the word of God, his diligence in studying it and applying it, his prayer life and his continuous sharing of the good news in whatever way that would connect best with people that I really remember and thank God for.
Typical of John, even in the midst of great sadness on January 9 at his beloved Ruth’s Celebration of Life, he gave the most profound message. He began his message with Revelation 19:11 and said, “Let’s celebrate!” “This is not a departure but an arrival!” Hallelujah! The Master reigns, our God, the Sovereign-Strong! Let us celebrate, let us rejoice, let us give him the glory!
We can rejoice that our friend John is now with the King.
In honour of John and his passion to reach people of every nation with the gospel, we are creating the Every Nation Fund. As you know, John gave his life to sharing the good news of Jesus and had a tremendous heart for people throughout the Asia pacific – serving as a missionary in India for 18 years, then in Kuala Lumpur for 3 years before moving to America where he continued to travel extensively in Asia coaching and urging people to share with their friends and neighbours. He was unrelenting in sharing, and helping others to share, the gospel in ways that were understandable to people of the great world religions: Islam, Hindu, Shinto, Buddhist.
As a faithful partner in that work, we want to give you an opportunity to continue your partnership in honour of all the Lord has done through John to see people from every tribe, tongue and nation become followers of Jesus. In this, we hope to resource and sustain future ministry work throughout the Asia-Pacific region, and by God’s grace, to send further generations of missionaries from Australia into the ripened fields to advance the gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom into every nation, all to the Glory of God!
If you feel the Lord is leading you to continue your contributions into this new initiative, and you were already a supporter of John’s ministry, there is no need to do anything, we will simply begin to redirect your current contributions to the Every Nation Fund at the end of March. If you would like to increase your current contributions in support of the Every Nation Fund you can use this link to make the appropriate adjustments: https://navigators.org.au/admin/change-details/change-gift-details/
Alternatively, you might like to shift your contribution to a different staff member or toward an entirely new ministry. If that’s the case, you can either redirect or discontinue your present contributions by using the following link: https://navigators.org.au/members/
You may also choose to give a new donation by using the Giving Options on this page.
If you are not sure or have questions about your giving, please contact us at info@naviagors.org.au or 02 8814 5006.
Thanking God for John,
Grant Dibden
National Director
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