Obviously none of us commenced the year realising that many of our plans would not be able to put in place as 2020 went on. Proverbs 16;9 says, “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” A large part of our local mission’s vision in Melbourne has been our major community festivals and none of these were able to be put on due to the COVID-19 restrictions. So we switched our focus to review local needs, identify stressors in the community and then respond accordingly.

LOVE DOES BAGS

We developed the very simple idea of providing in a COVID Safe way to our congregation shopping bags using the “love does” logo and including our church web address. We encouraged our people to buy extra, filling a Love Does bag and then distribute toneighbours who were in need.

AGED CARE HOME SUPPORT & FRONTLINE WORKERS

We provided several local homes with extra PPE including masks, shields, gloves and hand-sanitiser. We provided boxes of chocolates and flowers. We also provided Thank You Packs for each staff member with a written word of encouragement and added special items to brighten their day and let them know they were appreciated.

We identified members of our church family who
are frontline workers and we took the opportunity to resource these workers with “Thank You Packs” for their colleagues as our way of saying thank you for a job well done. These went to police, nurses, doctors, aged care and community services staff.

SUICIDE PREVENTION SEMINARS & EFFECTIVE STRESS WEBINARS

Ps Craig Maher had a growing burden of people’s mental health as the pandemic started to take hold and particularly as the lockdown in Victoria went on. He did some re-certification training and launched the first 90 minute Zoom Suicide Prevention Webinar in June. More than 1200 people have undertaken the free program and he received 6 messages from people who had decided to no longer proceed with suicide plans.

On the back of the success of the suicide prevention training, Ps Craig developed another training program teaching people how to manage stress and use
stress experienced in effective ways with over 400 people attending.

LAUNCH OF INCOMMUNITY CARE SERVICES

For the last two years INChurch Melbourne has
been working to establish a community services
arm in Melbourne. Led locally by Ps Carly Alexander, INCommunity Care Services has already developed great relationships with local businesses, schools
and aged care providers even during lockdown. These relationships led to Online Wellbeing Seminars requested by one of our local P-9 government schools which involved most staff - the seminars were designed to help teachers cope with supporting kids through remote learning and working from home.

CHRISTMAS HAMPER APPEAL

Through INCommunity Care Services School Wellbeing Officers were asked to identify local families to their school community in need and nominate them for a Christmas Hamper. We had much delight in giving the hampers out before Christmas.

CS CAROLS ONLINE

With the amazing support of the City of Melton, together with Gold Sponsors 89.9 The Light and Melton Christian College we were able to put together Caroline Springs Community Carols Online for the 6th year running. We were able to put together a fantastic program which premiered on 12th December and our best estimation

is that the program reached approximately 13-15,000 local people with the good news of Jesus Christ!

This year at INChurch Sydney we have been able to make a greater impact than ever reaching into our local community being a blessing to many different groups throughout our region. We provided over 2,200 care packs and blessings to schools, health sectorworkers and other fields in our community.

LOCAL SCHOOLS

We have been able to provide Special Religious Education (SRE) in 3 local high schools this past year. Whilst there was a lot of disruption due to schools closing through COVID we were still able to have a great impact and see a great connection between our youth ministry and high schools.

Primary scripture has been very successful even through a trying year. 18 team members were still able to be involved for the final two terms of the year, sharing stories and truths from the bible to 16 class groups over 8 schools in the Penrith region.

Students were very excited to return to scripture and schools were helpful and flexible to allow us in during restricted times. It has been great to see kindergarten children learn about Jesus for the very first time all the way through to our year 5 and 6 students learning to apply the stories of Jesus or parable that Jesus taught to their own life today.

It is a great opportunity and makes a difference in kids lives; some year 5 and 6 students held a bible for the very first time this year and learnt how to use it, this opportunity would not come without SRE in schools. We look forward to returning in 2021 and hope to present Easter and Christmas assemblies for whole school communities.

WESTCARE COMMUNITY SERVICES

WestCare had an extraordinary 2020, finishing the year with the largest Christmas Appeal ever, distributing over 900 hampers and gift packs plus hundreds of presents and several special projects.

The '1000 Safe Sleeps' crisis accommodation provided over 1400 safe sleeps for women and children fleeing dark domestic violence situations.

The Nepean HomeStart program helped establish 41 families this year leaving chronic homelessness or domestic violence.

The Penrith City CareKits program launched the Kidz Blitz Penrith initiative and supplied hundreds of top quality personal care bags to hospital social workers and specialised care teams.

The Student Wellbeing officers were all able to work throughout Covid in their schools to great effect.

The Emergency Relief Service and Kingswood Op Shop both re-opened under Covid-safe conditions to serve many needy Penrith families.

The Penrith Men's Walk and Talk, which is auspiced by WestCare, continued to flourish as Australia's largest weekly-attended mental health activity.

Plus much, much, much more!

This past year has been an unprecedented year, not just in the history of our ministry but quite possibly in our lives. Yet God remains faithful and proves Himself over and over again. He has revealed His Word to be more alive and trust worthy than every.

This past year as a ministry we have had to bob and weave with every fiery dart the devil has hurled in our direction. Remaining open was hard and at times we had to minister from a distance. We have lost more
lives to overdose and suicide then we thought we could endure. We have lost more friends to the virus then we could have predicted. Sadly the real cost of 2020 may yet to have been seen. Especially when it comes to this young generation living through this pandemic. Here in the US they have been battered on all sides. Emotionally, physically, mentally and socially they have paid a high price and are turning to drugs and suicide in numbers we have never seen before.

“Yet in all these things we know that we are more than conquerors” and so are they, through Christ Jesus. We have been pushing ahead, establishing more prayer

groups, connect groups and even a young adult group headed up by Uche and Esosa. We have seen salvations and growth in leadership unequaled in any of our previous 10 years. We still held our Refuge camp and God did miraculous things.

While in this world there seems to be great uncertainty, we here at the Refuge are believing that a great revival is stirring in the heavenly realms and hearts of these young believers and is going to explode into our reality.

Imagine Nations Church family without your support, both monetarily and spiritually, we could not be doing this. God has used you in ways we may never be able to articulate, but we are grateful for you and everything you do for us and teach to us. We will continue to make “His last command our first priority” until “all have heard”!