Dear
Friends and Prayers:
Last Friday at 6 pm, Wales went into a new "Firebreak Lockdown"
to try and break the climbing rate of COVID-19 cases here. So we
made the most of our last chance to get out and about for the next
few weeks. Our route took us by one of our favorite places to stop
for lunch and enjoy the glorious views over this beautiful land.
A new motivation for the drive around our area was to check out
some properties currently on the market. As you no doubt recall,
we are on the lookout for a new place to live. So our day was
reminiscent of our explorations 13 years ago when we needed to
find a new rental property. The difference this time is that we
get to choose the place through God's amazing provision!
Because of His provision, we know there is a place somewhere, but
it is proving to be a bit of a challenge. As I mentioned earlier,
we need to be relatively close to the chapel, which is the hub of
our activities, and in an area where we can have some space to
ourselves and our guests, so your continued prayers on that front
are very much appreciated. By faith we are holding fast to the word given
to us from Exodus 23:20-21 that says, "See,
I am sending an angel ahead of you to
guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have
prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says."
A few months ago I started noticing some of our friends on
Facebook were posting very positive reviews of The Chosen.
Having watched the first eight episodes, now we understand why.
There are several powerful scenes that are profoundly touching and
bring back my first revelations of who Jesus is when I got so
radically saved 47 years ago on that September 23rd.
This first-ever multi-season series based on the biblical stories
of the gospel of Jesus Christ is not a typical Hollywood style
production but it the product of applied faith. Through
crowd-funding it has been made to freely give away, and has now
been viewed by nearly 50 million people in 180 countries and
translated into over 50 languages. You can watch the whole first
season free of charge here at: www.thechosen.tv.
Besides the main episodes, the backstories of their journey of
faith in producing the series is very interesting and encouraging.
And the testimonies of the actors and other crew involved are
really faith-fuilding as well.
As each of us apply ourselves to the particular tasks assigned to us
by the Lord, we are in good company around the world. Paul's prayer
in Phillipians 1:9-11 comes to mind. "
For...that
your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of
insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may
be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit
of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and
praise of God."
Dick & Gladys
Dear Praying Friends:
I was invited to share the devotional thought and prayer with "The
Church across Pembrokeshire" Facebook group this morning. These are
short daily videos from different people speaking into the context
of today's crazy world. So when I awoke with Jesus' words in my
heart about the mystery of how plants grow, I had the text for what
I would share this morning.
In Mark 4:26-29 Jesus taught, "
The kingdom of
God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should
sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and
grow, he himself does not know how.
For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then
the head, after that the full grain in the head. But when the
grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the
harvest has come."
We have been in the COVID-19 crisis for seven months now, and this
whole time God has been doing things that we can't see or really
understand. I mean of course there are things that we do see and
appreciate, but just how they have actually come to pass remains
sort of a mystery.
I think the application covers much more than just the virus
situation, and much more than just Wales. With all that is
going
on around us and throughout the world, our faith in God's
sovereignty not only will see us through, but it is extending to
many others. You can watch part or all of the 7-minute video
at
this link.
As we target our prayers this week, let's keep in mind the words of
Jesus in verse 29, "
But when the grain ripens,
immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has
come." The turbulence in the world around us is like
a plow turning over the soil for planting the unseen seed. This is
the time to earnestly pray for the incoming harvest. Every day
people are coming to faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Be encouraged, each one of us were born for such a time as this,
Dick & Gladys
Dear Friends of Wales Awakening:
Several weeks ago the Lord impressed on my heart the need to set
aside time to pray specifically for America. The election is now
only three weeks away, and the political heat is turned up as
never before. And the current selection of a new justice to the
U.S. Supreme Court adds more fuel to the already raging fire.
In the midst of all the noise, the words of a favorite old Bill
& Gloria Gaither song have consistently come to mind...
"Kings and kingdoms will all pass away,
But there's
something about that name."
On Saturday we were reading about the time when the Assyrian king
Sennacherib was threatening Judah and Jerusalem in 2 Kings 18-19.
The taunts and shouting described therein have a familiar
contemporary ring to them with two sides fighting against one
another.
When Sennacherib sent a letter to Judah's king, 2 Kings
19:14-15,19 says, "And Hezekiah received the
letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and
Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before
the Lord. Then Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said: 'O
Lord God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You
are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have
made heaven and earth... Now therefore, O Lord our God, I pray,
save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth
may know that You are the Lord God, You alone.'
"
Whatever be the
outcome of this election and its implications for the near future,
there is a far more important matter at hand. And this is where
Hezekiah's prayer absolutely nails it. "...that
all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord
God, You alone."
All the kingdoms of the earth, be they political parties,
ideologies, or actual nations, will all pass away. And it is the
same for our brief physical existence on earth. Only God's eternal
Kingdom will remain forever, and all those elect Him to be our
King and Lord and Savior.
Psalm 95:7 says, "For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you will hear His voice…" Our prayer is that
people will indeed wake up to this reality and live accordingly.
That is the only election that really matters in the long term.
Trusting in His abundant grace for our lives and yours,
Dick & Gladys
Dear Friends
in Prayer:
A dearly beloved friend had her nine grandchildren playing
outside the farmhouse one evening last week when she suddenly got
the news that there had been an accident. While romping around,
two little heads had slammed together extremely hard and, somehow,
six-year-old William's front teeth had split his tongue open from
top to bottom and right up the middle towards the back more than
an inch.
A frantic visit to the nearby accident and emergency department
of the nearby hospital wasn’t enough. Three doctors determined
that William would need a pediatric surgeon to repair the severe
damage, and the outlook wasn’t very promising. The surgeon wasn’t
able to see him until 7 o’clock the next morning in Swansea, two
hours away.
At 4 o’clock in the morning our friend was awake praying when she
got this word from the Lord in Jeremiah 32:27, "Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is
there anything too hard for Me?" The next morning in
Swansea, William’s mother had to deliver her little boy
unaccompanied through the doors to the hospital staff due to
COVID-19 restrictions.
After an anguished wait of only a half an hour, the surgeon
himself marched William out the door to announce to an astonished
mum that “somehow” his tongue grown together by itself and needed
only minor care till completely healed. Overwhelming joy and
thankfulness to God would be an understatement.
What an awesome loving God is our
heavenly father, stepping into the life of this child and his
family and showing His compassion and tender mercies with power
and glory. Hearing this testimony of a real-life miracle directly
from both mother and grandmother can't help but strengthen our
faith. And it will surely encourage yours as well.
And we ourselves have also been the direct recipients of what we
consider a miraculous blessing. You probably remember our
September 15th update when we told about the surprise of our house
being put up for sale. We asked for your prayers, and our amazing
God responded in an astonishing way, bringing to mind Psalm 86:10
that says, "For You are great, and do
wondrous things; You alone are God."
The very next morning, we got a phone call from some long time
friends who had just read our email and felt the Lord directing
them to buy the house and to rent it to us! It's a good thing we
were sitting down because we both would probably have fallen over
at the shock of joy and wonder at God's goodness and their
substantial faith and generosity.
During a subsequent visit
to look the house over carefully, they realized that there were
serious physical problems with it. SO, after some time of
discussing the prospects and praying together, they have asked us
to locate a suitable property in this area around Cilfowyr Chapel
and they will purchase it and rent that one to us instead.
We are still reeling at the magnitude of God's great faithfulness
to us. And today when we received the formal notice of the end of
our tenancy here, we were once again humbled by the astounding
provision the Lord has provided for us, and yet another
confirmation of His plans for Wales and our intercessory role
here.
Fortunately, there are six months before we need to vacate, and
we have already started looking for properties and hope to move
before then. We know that if the Lord has made the provision, He
knows exactly where it is, but we don't. So we would like to
seriously engage your prayers to this end. We need to be
relatively close to the chapel, which is the hub of our
activities, and in a rural area with enough space to host guests
without being a nuisance to neighbors. It's like finding a needle
in a massive green haystack, but He is "...El
Roi, the God-Who-Sees;" (Genesis 13:16), and we know we
can trust Him implicitly
Thank you once again for your continued interest and prayers for
us and for Wales. And meanwhile, we can say together with David in
Psalm 89:1,
"I will sing of the mercies of the Lord
forever; With my mouth will I make known Your faithfulness to
all generations."
Dick & Gladys