We had just finished dinner when we received a message from a Singapore Pastor, “The senior Pastor of Victory Family Centre (VFC) had died in a car accident in Brazil”. We thought it cannot be true! Rev. Rick Seaward was a godly man whose Church had planted over 10,000 churches in 90 countries! Rev. Rick was impacting nations. How could he go like that and so young! We could not believe it.
We contacted a VFC Pastor who confirmed, Ps. Rick had died. We were shocked. All kinds of thoughts went through our minds as we struggled to come to grips with what had happened.
In 2005 I asked a VFC Pastor if we could attend their training. I felt we needed to grow and go to a new level in ministry. Immediately Ps. Rick replied, “Yes we have six months Pastoral Leadership training starting next week, so you must come next week!” We were discipling four people in Church Planting but within one week we made arrangements for them, left enough support and went to Singapore. Talk about moving quickly!
For the next six months we had intensive training. We were up at 5am each morning and did not get home till 9pm or later, tired and ready for bed. During the training Ps. Rick shared with me, “I invited you to the training because God spoke to me, “You are one of ten people (in our Auckland Church) who has caught my vision”. For the next five years that word kept me going through one of our most challenging periods of ministry. Each time I was tempted to give up or faced severe opposition, I encouraged myself with that word.
Ps. Rick’s vision is to see transformation of societies and nations. As you can see we caught the vision and have been running with it seeing alcoholics, addicts and cities beginning to transform. Now God has given us an outrageous vision, the conversion of 2M people amoung a population of 20M. There is no Church amoung this people group! Hudson Taylor said, “Every great work of God is first impossible, then it is hard work, then it is done”. We are in the hard work stage and believe we will see the day when we can say, “It is done”.
Ps. Rick we will miss you, we’ll shed a few tears but we will get back up and run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. We will not look back but finish the race just as you have. Thank you for believing in us when others did not, for sharing God’s will for us, for your prayers, advice and correction throughout our lives. We have caught the vision.
Lord we pray peace and comfort for the Seaward family and the VFC Church as they grieve the passing of Rev. Rick. He will be greatly missed.
Love Tim & Faith
A Memorial Service will be held for all church members and friends on Friday, 13 April 2018, at The Star Performing Arts Centre, Singapore 7:30pm. Doors will open at 6:30pm. Click here for Facebook page
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