United World Mission

Dear Friends and Family,

Now that the holidays are over, we've settled into to enjoying the other side of winter: flu season.  But these red noses and the small fortune we're spending on Kleenex only stimulate our enthusiasm for the warmer climates of Latin America, and so let us give you a quick update on the latest happenings in our lives and plans.

This month I was most pleased to receive an official invitation to interview at ISEDET in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Having received the green-light from United World Mission, I secured tickets for my next Latin American voyage.  But playing travel agent was the least of my challenges.  Now that the excitement of the upcoming visit has worn off, I'm confronted with the fact that I need to develop 35 hours of lectures in Spanish.  So now I spend my mornings doing research in patristics (my job) and in the afternoon I develop lectures for an MA course on Luke and Acts.  I'm daunted by the task ahead of me, but excited as well.

I mentioned in our last update that we've been looking for someone with whom I can speak Spanish to help prepare for these lectures.  Thank you for praying for us, because I've found the perfect conversation partner.  The college pastor of my church happens to have grown up in Spain and studied theology at Oxford; we're now getting together every week at a local coffee house (appropriately called "Café Loco") and he is manfully helping to reawaken my Spanish. 

At present we are making a lot of plans for the coming summer, as I have a number of presentations and lectures to give, and we also need to return to the US to do some fund-raising.  We'd be grateful if you'd pray for us to have wisdom as we make these plans, attempting to balance what's best for our family, our ministry, and my work. 

Thank you all for your continued supoprt, prayer, and encouragement. 

Peace be with you all,


Christopher, Michelle, Judah, and Asher Hays

From Michelle:

By far our biggest piece of exciting news from January is that Judah decided one evening that he was ready to become a Christian.  He has been thinking about this for some time sifting through a lot of questions in his mind like "Will God be always telling me to do something I don't want to do?"  "Will I have to go to heaven at a different time than Mom or Dad?"  "How do I know God is good if I can't see him or hear him?"  "What if I want to follow God but I can't do all the things the Bible says yet?"  He has also been thinking about how we know our God is the best one to follow since he has a friend at school who comes from a Muslim family.  I guess all the pieces came together for Judah because he came to find us one night to say "I think I am ready to pray that prayer."  We talked with him about God's love and forgiveness, about God being his King, about following God's special plan for his life.  Asher was very eager to participate in all these moments even though he didn't fully understand what was going on.  We all laughed when Asher said his own little prayer: "Thank you that God forgives your sins (looking at us)."  Judah was thrilled to receive "a real adult Bible" to mark the occasion, by which he meant that it now contains all the same stories as Mom's and Dad's.  So thank you to those of you who have been praying for Judah's awareness of God's presence in his life!  We would still be delighted if you would include Judah and Asher in your prayers, specifically that they would both grow in their knowledge of God.

Contact Us:

Emails:
cmhays@gmail.com
christopher.hays@theology.ox.ac.uk
sasaginnigak@hotmail.com (Michelle)

Home: +44(1865)435 057
Office: +44(1865)272770

Skype: christopher.hays.oxford

Post:
12 Chatham Road
Oxford
Oxfordshire
OX1 4UY
United Kingdom