Merry Christmas everyone! Last week I had a wonderful lunch with Tom Gilliam, a GCC-sponsored missionary. Tom and Vicki are great examples to me of faithfulness under trial. For the last five years they have continued to minister faithfully in Ireland as they grieved the loss of their son Tommy. We received this great Christmas thank-you letter and I wanted to pass it along to you this week.
Dear Members of Grace Community Church,
Merry Christmas to each of you! There is something particularly special about being back in the faithful fold of our dear friends and church families in America that reminds us of God’s great goodness and lavish love. We are so grateful to each of you as you have loved and cared for us through our seasons of sunshine as well as times of rain and we look forward to our time we will be with you in the New Year!
Thank you for your continued and faithful prayers, your genuine interest in us and the work in Ireland and your VERY generous support! Through your partnering with us in your prayers and support, we have seen the Lord open doors in many ways through growing our 2 church plants in Maynooth and Donabate; enabling us to train and disciple over 80 Irish and American college students over the past 5 summers; giving us opportunities to bring the gospel into the Catholic and Church of Ireland parishes; and now having just begun a 2 year apprenticeship program that Tom and I have the joy of leading for post-graduates. Very exciting! We are most grateful for God giving us these wonderful opportunities.
We would also love for you all to pray for the two of us with our sons Benjamin and James as we will be working at the URBANA conference together in the days right after Christmas. Pray we would be encouraged together as a family in God’s Word as well as the teaching and that we would grow in our love for the Lord as well as our love for each other. Also, please pray the Lord will raise up interns, apprentices as well as potential long term staff for the work in Ireland! The need is so great and we have so few workers. Thank you for your love and prayers. We pray the Lord will bless you with His peace, joy and hope throughout this blessed Christmas season. He most certainly and very graciously has done that for us these past few years!
Much love and thanks in Him,
Vicki and Tom