A letter from Tom and Judy Harvey serving in England
Thanksgiving 2014 - Family Matters
Dear Friends and Partners in Mission,
Thanksgiving and Christmas are times when families gather to celebrate God’s good provision and the birth of Christ. Naturally this can get a bit complicated with mission families spread as we are around the world, but this year we are excited to be able to travel back to the U.S.A. to visit friends, family and churches in California, New Mexico, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina. We will begin on the West Coast for November and December and then make our way to the Southeast.
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Our son Joe with his fiancé Susan
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Emma at graduation
Celebrating the holidays back home will be particularly special this year. When we first went overseas in mission our son Joe was 2 months old. Joe has just announced his engagement to Susan Gayk, who is a nurse at the Duke University Hospitals and a native of Tennessee. Joe and Susan will be married in Durham, North Carolina, in April in the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, and so we are looking forward to a beautiful spring wedding. We have been perfecting our Waltz, Quickstep, Argentine Tango, Cha Cha Cha and Salsa. We want to be ready for the big day.
Joe and Susan, Paul and Emma will join us at Tom’s hometown of Susanville in the mountains of Northern California. It will be good to meet up with family and spend some time with the happy couple.
Emma, who recently graduated from Durham University in June, is now working for the University and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) in Oxford as an administrative assistant. Since moving to Oxford she has been active at St Andrews Church, serving in ministry to the youth.
Paul completed his work at Camp Cameron in North Carolina. After spending the spring here with us in Oxford, he entered the master's in School Counseling program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. As part of the program he is currently serving as a counselor at a middle school in Cary, North Carolina. This has been a good fit for Paul, given his work with young people over the past few years, and he is enjoying working with middle school students.
Paul and Joe share a house in Durham, North Carolina, and this has worked out well for both of them. Both are active at Blacknall Presbyterian Church and are teammates on a local soccer team there. We will be visiting churches in North Carolina in January, so this will also provide some longed-for family time with Paul, Joe and Susan.
Judy’s ministries at St Andrews Church in Oxford continue to expand. She is one of the key leaders in women’s ministries at the church, which include counseling, working with young children, mentoring young mums, and putting together programs for “Empty Nesters,” i.e., for women in the community whose children are now out of the home. This has provided an excellent outreach into the North Oxford community and fits well into Judy’s ministry in spiritual direction.
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Paul with UNC M.A. counselling cohort
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Harvey Family recent Christmas
This has been a busy year at OCMS with Tom establishing links with key networks in China, Hong Kong and Singapore. Currently Tom is organizing two major conferences for 2015. In the summer of 2015 OCMS will host the 7th Symposium of Chinese Theology along with Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford. This will bring in around 40 leading scholars from China’s leading universities and 60 key academic and church leaders to discuss developments in China. Tom is one of the key organizers of the 2015 Global Diaspora Network (GDN) Consultation in Manila. This consultation will bring together over 300 delegates from around the world to discuss and engage with the authors and editors of the GDN Compendium on Diaspora Mission that will be published in 2015. This groundbreaking six-volume work will provide a key textbook for missiologists, missions professors, denominational and parachurch missions agency leaders, researchers, educators, missions field leaders, missionaries, trainers, local church missions committees, pastors, laity and students grappling with the rising tide of immigration that is fundamentally changing our world. Tom is chief editor of and a contributor to the Biblical and Theological Foundations of Diaspora Ministry volume of the Compendium.
Tom has been active with as well serving as an editor of the bimonthly journal Lausanne Global Analysis http://www.lausanne.org/category/content/lga/2014-09. His position has allowed him to tap OCMS’s alumni to provide key firsthand insight into important issues that impact the church, society and mission worldwide.
The diversity and impact of OCMS can be seen in the fall Ph.D. cohort at OCMS, which includes students working in Pakistan, Nigeria, Albania, Japan, England, Northern Iraq, Kazakhstan and the U.S.A.
As always, we covet your continued prayer and support. Beyond all the matters mentioned above, we will need to find a new home in Oxford in 2015. Given the spike in the price of homes in Oxford, the owner of our flat has decided to sell, and purchasing a home here is well beyond our means. Pray with us that we may be able to find a suitable home that will allow us to carry on our ministry in North Oxford—a home that is affordable and won’t require us to move again anytime soon. Do pray as well for all the members of our family as we look forward to celebrating an eventful year.
For those of you who may be reading about our work with OCMS for the first time, may I invite you to come alongside us and support this important ministry through your prayers, encouragement and financial support. We know these are challenging times economically and financially both for individuals and churches. So do know that we are in prayer for you even as you keep us in your thoughts and prayers.
Blessings,
The Harveys
Tom and Judy
Address: 25 Hayfield Road
Oxford OX2 6TX England
Tom’s e-mail: ttctharvey@yahoo.comJudy’s e-mail: madiganharvey@yahoo.com
The 2014 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 309
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Churches are asked to send donations through your congregation’s normal receiving site (this is usually your presbytery).
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A group of committed donors has pledged to match all gifts sent by individuals for mission personnel support now through December 31, 2014, up to $137,480. This means your gift today will be matched by a gift to support mission personnel around the world, wherever the need is greatest. We invite you to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to double the impact of your gift. Thank you!
