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OUR MISSIONARIES

Goring Free Church supports missionaries from five different organisations:

Wycliffe Bible Translators
WEC International
World Horizons
SIM
Sierra Leone Mission

Read on to find out more! Click on the list above to learn more about the organisations.

WYCLIFFE BIBLE TRANSLATORS

Katy Barnwell joined Wycliffe Bible Translators in 1963 and served in Nigeria from 1964 - 1989. From 1971-76 she served as Co-ordinator of Bible translation programs for SIL in Nigeria. Then she focused on the training of Nigerian translation consultants and translators.
From 1981-89 she served as Translation Co-ordinator for SIL Africa Area. From 1989-1999 she was International Translation Co-ordinator during which time she led training seminars for translation consultants and other translation-related programs in Kenya, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Philippines, Cyprus, and North America.
She has written textbooks on Bible translation and literacy and published a number of articles in Notes on Translation, and The Bible Translator.
Since 2001 she has been with the Seed Company, involved in the development of the Luke Partnership project, a partnership between The Seed Company and the JESUS Film project, working in countries like Madagascar, Ethiopia, East Asia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Carl and Joy Follingstad have worked with Wycliffe Bible Translators since 1985.
They worked with the Tyap people of Central Nigeria developing the language and doing Bible Translation. They are now living in East Africa where Carl consults with clusters of related language groups to do Bible translation through computer assisted adaptation.
They have three children, Rachel (1989), David (1991) and Rebekah (1994). Joy teaches English as a Second Language at the school that their children attend. Carl and Joy attended Goring Free Church from 1994-97 while Carl was doing further studies.

Gary and Kris Caffo have been members of Wycliffe Bible Translators for about 23 years, serving in an administrative support capacity.
They've worked in Kenya, England and are now based at a Wycliffe centre in Orlando, Florida where they provide support for teams in the Eurasia Area.
Gary serves as Finance Co-ordinator and Project Funding Manager and Kris serves as bookkeeper to two of the Eurasia Area groups.
It was a privilege to have them worshipping here with us at Goring Free Church for seven years while they were based at the Wycliffe Centre, High Wycombe.

WEC INTERNATIONAL

Tim and Fiona Fung work for WEC International and are based in Chad where they live with their 3 daughters; Jasmine (7/2/96), Danielle (9/1/98) and Caroni (21/5/00). Tim's main ministries are:
  • Overseeing and directing recordings of scripture and Christian material for radio and cassette/CD distribution, in Chadian Arabic.
  • Help out with administration for WEC in Chad along with Fiona.
  • Representing WEC and liaising with the southern Church (called EET) which WEC work under. Their head office is in N'Djamena.
  • The stocking of and distribution of Chadian Arabic Christian literature in N'Djamena.
Fiona's main ministries are:
  • She is the prayer coordinator for WEC Chad. The main work of this is to produce the WEC Chad newsletter called 'Frontline'. She also helps out with other media work, e.g. advertising for personnel, layout and graphics of the Calendar WEC produces.
  • Overseeing the running of the mission's guest house, where they are now based.
  • Most Thursdays she helps out at the English club for ladies.
  • She is occasionally asked to produce artwork for Christian publications (sometimes for other missions such as SIL/Wycliffe).
  • And of course there are the three children to look after and hospitality to take up any remaining time.

WORLD HORIZONS

Ivan and Hazel Stewart have been in World Horizons since they were sent out from Goring Free Church in August 1991.
Their calling then was, and still is, simply to be useful (ministry of helps - I Corr. 12:28).
Based in the Centre in Llanelli, South Wales, they work at providing hospitality and facilitating others into mission through English teaching, helping out on training programmes, teaching life skills and taking people on prayer journeys and short-term mission trips.
God has also placed the nation of Greece on their hearts. Greece is a country that forms part of the World Horizons "Circling the Mediterranean" mandate: "To see praying, worshipping communities in all the countries surrounding the Mediterranean."
Their heart is to see many, many Greek people getting involved in mission, and for the Greek Church to regain the passion it had in St. Paul’s day.

SIM

Tim and Tricia Barrow have been missionaries with AEF and SIM.
Their first fourteen years were spent in Zimbabwe, the first ten of those in a very rural situation close to the Mozambique border in the beautiful East Highlands.
At Rusitu Tim taught at a small Bible College and later became Principal. Tricia was heavily involved in HIV/AIDS and orphan work. The last four years of their time in Zimbabwe was spent in Harare where Tim oversaw field leadership for the team and Tricia worked closely with their partner Church in multiplying the HIV/AIDS work church-wide.
They left what had become their home in December 2004 as Tim took up a Deputy Regional Director position in the new ROSA office (Region of Southern Africa) in Johannesburg.
They have four children; Michael, Ben, Sacha and Gabby and the transition was not straight forward for any of them. They are very under-resourced in the office and so Tim has had to take on temporary field leadership for SA, and is also doing likewise for Zimbabwe. His energy spent in these two directions can inhibit the proper development of the ROSA office.

SIERRA LEONE MISSION

Why Sierra Leone?
The Countess of Huntingdon, Lady Selina Shirley, was part of the 18th Century Evangelical Revival which gave birth to Methodism, and giving up her entire fortune she raised money to pay for ministers to preach the gospel, mainly in England and Wales.
She also sent ministers to the United States where they came into contact with Negro slaves, who were converted to Christianity, and after helping the British fight in the American War of Independence, were promised their freedom.
After an unsuccessful attempt at settling them in cold, inhospitable Nova Scotia, the British Government agreed to give them passage to West Africa, where some 1196 of them landed in what is now Freetown, on March 28th 1792.
About half of them were 'Huntingdonians' and they kept the name of the church to which the ministers who had preached to them belonged. The English church was totally unaware of their existence for some years. Eventually a link was established, with the formation of the Sierra Leone Mission, and has been maintained in various ways ever since.
The Huntingdon Churches in Sierra Leone celebrated their bicentenary in 1992 with a procession through the streets of Freetown followed by a rally and many other celebrations.
The Connexional Churches are primarily in the Freetown Peninsula
There are now about 25 churches in total but this number is constantly increasing, particularly in the rural area between Magbafti and Mabang.