November 2012

Thank you for your support and interest in Global Task. It is a huge encouragement to us.

I want to apologise for our terrible communication and to give you my promise that we will vastly improve. At present I am working one day a week for Global Task, but in a month, I will be able to give another day to GT, which will help with the vast amount of work that comes across my desk.

I have been working with GT since March 1997 and for the first several years was able to give 100% of my time to GT, but with the arrival of children, that time has had to be reduced in order to put food on the table. It has been a frustration at times, not being able to give more time to the vision that burns within me, but looking back I see God's patient hand, training and preparing me during the lean years. I have full confidence in God that soon I will once again be able to give more time to develop and grow Global Task. In fact in a few weeks when my son Levi turns 5, I will have another day to give to GT, which I am looking forward to doing, though I will miss my weekly Daddy day with him.

This summer we had been planning to send Surge teams to India, Tanzania and Thailand, as we have most summers for more than a decade, but have cancelled this year's Surge Mission teams, to give us time to reorganise what we do and launch stronger and more effectively in 2013.

We are also in the final stages of a building programme in Tegalamada, South India and will be opening the Village of Hope Children's home in June 2013. When I visited India in March, I was able to meet with some prospective staff members and over the next several months we will be working with our Indian coordinators to put in place policies and procedures for the new children's home.

This year also marked an end of an era for our first children's home. We lauched House of Hope Vizag in 2001 and have seen the young children who joined the home all those years ago grow into confident young people. Satya, the oldest girl in the home, is now studying in her first year of University and the majority of the others are in their final year of school. We decided to close House of Hope Vizag as the children were well into their teens and were nearing the end of their compulsory education and launch a new initiative called StepUP to transition them from college into Tertiary Education, where they will in many cases study in various parts of the State.

This year has also been a year of transition for me, as my brother Paul, the Associate Pastor of Victory Christian Church in Auckland, asked me to take the helm of Global Task. He will continue to work with me to help us grow the Global Task team and the effectiveness of our ministries around the world.

I would like to thank you once again for your support, which helps us fulfil the vision that God has given us.

May God bless you and all that you put your hand to.

Warm regards

Steve Saunders