Missions is one of the core values of CityLife Church, and as a church we provide ongoing support to 12 official missions partners in nine nations across the world. Hundreds of our congregation members actively support these partners and their projects through prayer and fundraising. There are also many people within our congregation who actively carry out God’s missions calling for them as an individual, personally raising funds, going and working sacrificially to make a Kingdom impact on the communities that God has placed on their hearts.
Michael is one such member of the CityLife Church community who is doing this right now, here’s his story…
3Ce
We are a group of concerned Christians from CityLife Church and other churches in Melbourne, Australia called 3Ce . We share the same vision for the future of indigenous churches in Sabah and Sarawak, East Malaysia. Our vision is to build strong indigenous Christian communities through the empowerment of local leadership with sound biblical education and sustainable economic development.
In 2013 we visited Kampung Parang (KP) with the collaboration of Kuching Evangelical Church, a member of Borneo Evangelical Mission (BEM). KP is about 60 kilometres from Kuching, which is partly accessible by road with the last leg of the journey only accessible by foot. The indigenous people are called the Bidayuh. The village consists of 61 families and has a preschool with 21 children. However, due to its remote location KP had no grid electricity and no access to clean water; the nearest water source was a river contaminated with E.coli. We were able to offer some help through the provision of solar panels and lights for the village.
We visited KP again in September, 2016. By this time, grid electricity had been installed but there was still no clean water. Contaminated water piped in from the nearby river needed to be boiled to remove the E.coli bacteria.
In collaboration with Aqua-Pura (a Swiss NGO), 3Ce installed the first ever bacteria-free water system for the preschool, Tadika Melodi, in KP. The system was installed with the help of a local team from Kuching Evangelical Church, the headman and Pastor Samson from KP. The samples below show the river water which contained the E.coli bacteria (Sample A) and the bacteria-free water using the Aqua Pura system (Sample B).
Children from the preschool can now drink water straight from the tap. Food and utensils washed with the water are now truly clean and this has resulted in an overall improvement in the health of the children and teachers. This benefit does not stop at the preschool. All 61 families in the village also benefit from this precious commodity of clean water. We believe this will attract more children to attend the preschool and help them take a tangible step toward securing their future through education.
Jesus said, “And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.” Matthew 10:42
At 3Ce we believe that such a holistic approach to the gospel will bring transformation to entire villages, like KP, and the thousands of villages throughout Sabah and Sarawak. The international collaboration between Australia (3Ce), Switzerland (Aqua Pura) and Malaysia (BEM Kuching and BEM Kampung Parang) is a great example of how the worldwide church can pool skills and resources to make a difference to the communities and organisations that we serve.
– Michael