Blog Archive 6

2 July

Long time, no blog! It’s been an interesting month – lots of great things happening, some terrific meetings, a lot of good feedback and stories from places visited… plus, of course, the ongoing ‘visagate’ issue! Also some devastatingly tough things have happened, which, with everything else going on, have made it a steep ‘learning curve’ month. As it is NOT possible for God NOT to answer prayer, and as it is NOT possible for Scripture NOT to be true, then – all things work together for good, and what the enemy means for harm, God means for good.

A few days in Ireland to gather my thoughts, and try to work out what needed to be done in order to get back to the USA.

Received some lovely testimonies from people via email – I’ve posted a couple for now on the ‘testimonies’ page.

2 weeks ago, it was a delight to go back to the King’s Church, Epsom (though it might be Ewell!) after many, many years’ gap. Doug & Chris Croucher, who lead the church, are long-time friends (we worked out it was probably 21 years!). Two really great services, the presence of God was there: prayed for loads of people afterwards, a lot wanting impartation, which is very thrilling!

A great 48 hours away with my ‘Rhinos’ accountability group: it is always such a huge blessing to be with them, and for me, this time, as it has been a particularly ‘trying’ time. Thanks, guys, for your support, your love, your insight, wisdom, blessing, and affirmation.

The past week, I’ve been in Sweden, sharing ministry with Heidi Plympton. It has been a great week, beginning with the first Swedish wedding I’ve attended… it was outdoors, in a lovely park in the centre of Gothenburg. It was a boiling hot day (unusually so for Sweden, we were told) – and it’s stayed that way ever since – the wedding of friends Henke & Jacki was beautiful, and a great evangelistic opportunity with lots of people passing by listening.  It is always a joy to be in Gothenburg with Ulf and Else-Marie: an even greater joy to be involved in their wonderful church, ‘The House’. Sunday’s meeting was brilliant, Heidi prophesying out of her boots, me imparting stuff to people, and numerous prayers for healings… their were some, and testimonies were given at the end.

Then something a little different – we had to get a ferry across to an Island, wherre there was the first ever healing/miracle/prophesy meeting in a cafe in an idyllic location, a place named Foto (the last ‘o’ is pronounced more like ‘er’)… probably some 120 people filled the place, many not-yet-Christians – and dozens responded to come forward for ministry. As always, stories tend to come slowly…

Monday night in Boras was great, speaking at a prayer group of probably 100, in the Pentecostal Church.

Tommy in Boras healed of pneumonia and a lump blocking his throat; Mattias healed of long-term crippling fibro-myalgia; Tim healed of decades of torturous migraines; 4 yr old Sam speaking after 3 years of silence; Marina healed of muscles that constantly tear in her calves….. God is good!

The tragedies…. please pray for the Johnston family in Ireland: they lost their lovely daughter Jenny, 5, who who beat death almost 2 years ago only to go home to be with Jesus after a series of chest infections caused by the pressure of the tumour on her breathing.. Words are nothing at a time like this: I know how I feel, as I’ve come to really love the Johnstons, and especially Jenny: how they must feel today is beyond anything I know. And my lovely friend, also in Bangor, Paddy: suffered for some time with motor-neurone disease, also succumbing to an infection, and going to be with the Lord…. Joanne, his lovely wife, must be devastated, Paddy was on in his mid-forties, and, from having been there a few weeks ago, it would seem an infection was what ended Paddy’s life… I’ll miss both Jenny and Paddy a great deal, and I’m so sad that I couldn’t re-arrange flights from here in Sweden to get back for either funeral….

Visa information update to follow!

 

2 June

PRAYER & MAYBE HELP NEEDED….!

Right now I’m in the middle of an extraordinary situation, and I’d value your prayers. Like I’ve said in virtually every blog, I’ve seen God do some amazing wonders over the past few months, in Colombia, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, and, wonderfully, England! Some amazing healings and miracles….

Which seems to be bringing retaliation from the enemy that is intensifying. That’s good news, as it means he doesn’t like what I’m doing….

Last Tuesday, I flew to the USA for a couple of weeks of much needed rest, after a demanding few months. I never (usually!) have any problem getting into the USA, but last week, I encountered the enemy disguised as an immigration officer! (Angels come in disguise and take us unawares, so doubtless the enemy gives it a go, too). As an Englishman, domiciled in the United Kingdom, and on a UK passport, it should be so easy to get into the country with whom we have the ‘special relationship’!!! Seems not so…. My brother in law is calling it ‘Visagate’ which I think may well stick…..!!!!!!

Quite irrationally, and without questioning me, in a few minutes, the rather unpleasant immigration gentleman (??!!) – decided that I was illegally earning a salary and soliciting business there (which of course, I’m not!): for that reason he refused me permission to enter the country. Many Americans have written to me expressing their distaste and concern for their immigration service, it being, as the arrivals hall posters say, ‘the face of our nation’)… 5 hours later, I was on a plane back to the UK. No access to the house, my clothes, anything: and with the real possibility that I might not get to see my daughter, Katy, Joshua, and my two lovely grandsons again for a very long time… If I had earned, or actively ‘touted’ for support and even preaching engagements, I’d have held my hands up and said ‘Fine’… but I never have, which makes so unbelieveable.

American immigration is ‘interesting’, and at times, it seems, deeply complex (I’m sure Brit immigration is the same, it’s just that as a Brit I never have to encounter it….). The immigration officer concerned made his decision in minutes, without reference or questions to me: I tried to tell him that I have never earned in the States, at which point, in front of a good number of other people, he became very abusive, and slanderous.

It’s incredibly disorientating and frustrating to be barred from access to your possessions and what you believe are your rights…. I think I’m having to learn some new lessons in letting go of what I THINK are my rights. As I thought about my own frustration, though, it was like God said to me… ‘How about persecuted Christians who are parted from their homes and families for 20 years?’ – I thank God that my situation is not even comparable to that…

Now, I have to begin the process of accumulating every piece of information that I can (and relying on others to do what I now can’t do the American end) to prove that I don’t earn there, and, looking at the American Embassy information on the internet, it seems it will be at least 5-6 months before I can get to the house for R&R, if everything goes 101% well (unless God intervenes with a miracle). I had to ‘commission’ yesterday an American Lawyer, an immigration and visa specialist, operating from Mayfair, London (help!!!!! – if you’re reading this outside of Britain, it might help you to know that Mayfair is probably the most expensive real estate area in the world) to work on my case. I see him 3 weeks today, that’s the earliest appointment I can get, just for the initial consultation,11am on 23rd June. It’s going to cost a great deal of money, so I’d really value your prayers, but I have no other option open to me. At least I’ve managed to get this brought closer from the time I was quoted last week, viz. sometime after 6th July. For that alone I’m grateful. This company have been dealing with issues like mine for 31 years in London, and are ‘on the doorstep’ of the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London. To prosper for 31 years in Mayfair must mean that they are pretty good!  It will run well into 4 figures (pounds!).

And because the enemy thinks he can win…., I know that, but I decided at the weekend that this didn’t take God by surprise, even though it devastated me for some days…. And that if Satan thinks he can win, by keeping me from much need rest, then I’m going to do him as much damage as I can in the weeks/months that this will take, and inflict as much devastation on him as I, with God’s help, can manage….

So, I‘d really value your prayers. I’m going to Northern Ireland tomorrow, where I have a place to live, and it’s somewhere where I can, for a while at least, rest and relax after the travelling and now this past week of immense stress! If you need my England address for any reason, it is 13 Meadow Way, Addlestone, Surrey KT15 1UF.

Thank you for your continual love and support for me. I can’t tell you how much I value it. May God bless you outrageously and abundantly more than you would ever dare ask or imagine.

 

1 June

I’ve known Gerry Page, as I said below, for 32 years (that’s the sort of thing I used to hear my grandparents and parents say, thinking ‘how old they are!!’). For 21 years, his lovely wife Merial has be incapacitated – let them tell you why, and wha’s happened since we had a great time praying together!

 

“There were times in the 1st seven years when she (Merial) couldn’t walk across the room but that hasn’t been the case recently though she still couldn’t walk around a supermarket or more than 50 – 70 yards without great arthritic pain in her hip and knee joints that would last for days. She has osteoporosis as a result of the years she spent mostly bed bound. Walking with very painful joints for many years had caused problems with her back going out of line but as far as we know there was no scoliosis, though she does have three vertabrae at the top of the spine which are out of position. More recently the arthitis has spread to her hands, and she has had problems with pain in her shoulder (which we forgot to tell you  had been healed!) We are just waiting on the completion of healing in her hands and hip and knee joints and neck but God is definitely doing something and we continue to walk on in it. Also before you prayed she was constantly taking pain killers to survive, but since then, although she is far from pain free she is managing without them which is totally amazing.

 

“Merial has noticed a significant difference since you prayed. We didn’t see totally healing with in the 21 hours as hoped but we have seen and she has felt some great changes. It seems like her spine has been straightened out, giving her a new posture. Something has changed in how she feels although she finds it difficult to explain what but knows something is happening.  Today we have been to London with the children for the first time to visit the Science Museum and some of the famous sights, and Merial managed more walking than she has done in over 20 years. Although she had to use her wheelchair for a good part of the day she was able to get out and walk for fairly long periods of time and this evening is not suffering in the way we would expect. Tomorrow we are going for a walk on the downs as that is what she asked God for! Watch this space… “.

Work in progress… a wonderful story is unfolding. Don’t give up if you don’t receive the instant miracle… some miracles come slowly….

Sooo…. now I don’t want to detract from Merial’s story…. so I’ll save my crisis for tomorrow!

30 May

Lots of lovely testimonies from last weekend in Eastbourne – doubly special for me as it’s really the place where I grew up – I was born in Stratford, London, but my mum and dad moved to the Eastbourne area when I was 5. I think I might even have been quite sweet then…. and two from Williamsburg, in the USA….

A great day with Old Town Community Church, in the morning at their ‘usual’ venue, and then – unusually but wonderfully for a church – in the Drive pub. I’ve always been convinced that’s the sort of place Jesus would be in the 21st century, going to the people rather than expecting the people to come to him – like church historically. And Jesus, as far as I can see, never healed anyone in the synagogue or the temple – so, to have the chance of sharing testimonies of the mighty things Jesus is doing to a packed pub (I’m not great at estimating numbers, but I’d say conservatively there were 150 there) in between songs by the excellent Gospel Choir led by my long time (ouch – 32 years!) friend, Gerry Page, was wonderful. In the morning, a lovely guy, Hayden, was healed of asthma – he felt it happen, a lovely young la, Chelsea, was healed of bad shoulder pain – both testified in the pub, the best testimonies ever are from people just healed as no one can say ‘You’re making it up’, which lots of people do. Robert was instantly healed of stomach problems and other issues; Ted was able to walk from Old Town to the town centre Monday (you’ll know that’s no mean distance if you know Eastbourne) ‘for the first time in a long time’. In the evening, I reckon I prayed for 60 people or more, a high percentage of them not yet Christians… at least one person got saved, and some were healed… wonderful!

Gerry’s wife Merial is a wonderful ‘work in progress’ healing – I want to ask them if I can tell the story before I write it here…

Stories from a few weeks ago, in Williamsburg, Virginia – I’ll paste my dear friend Ian Roberts’ report here, and on the testimony page…. I’ll just tell you the backgrounds.

Deborah had a massive undiagnosable blood problem (non diagnosis can often be far more frightening than a serious diagnosis). Her platelet count was down way below danger levels (if I recall, 15000). Lisa was a victim of multiple sclerosis and acute depression. Both were on SERIOUS medication…. Here’s what Ian wrote to me:

I had 2 phone calls today – the first from Deborah Thompson who had just returned from the Doctor – her platelet count has jumped thro the roof to 160,000!!!  She is ecstatic and giving praise and thanks and testimony……we continue to believe for complete deliverancec  from diabetes and for her eyes to return to  healthy 20/20 vision…

The second call was from Lisa Ellis – she called me from a car dealership to ask my advice on some car stuff…after about 20 minutes of working thro all this, I said ‘and how are you?’  She kind of calmly said – ‘well I’m off all medications, no ambien, no valium and I have this amazing energy…’!!!  She sounded like a different women Paul – they are both walking and miraculous trophies of God’s incredible grace…

God is good, huh???!!!!

Tomorrow, I’ll share a current crisis that I’d value your support and prayers for, but I want you to have time to rejoice in what God has done, and then apply it to what I need God to do!!!!

 

22 May

A few days of not being able to get online again….my apologies! I’m trying to connect via a mobile internet ‘dongle’ in an area where there is very little phone signal…. which makes the internet a liiiiiitttle slow…..! So this blog might be brief!

A great weekend last …er…weekend (!) at Loose Baptist Church, Maidstone. I’ve known Mark and Anne, the pastors, for a few years, and, as Anne was wonderfully healed from a particularly vicious 18 months of M.E. (fibro myalgia if you’re in the USA!), they have a great belief in healing. There have been some testimonies but I want to wait until they are confirmed before writing about them… and I’m sure there will be more. At least 3 people gave their lives to the Lord Sunday morning, which is the greatest miracle of all.

This weekend I’m in Eastbourne, with a meeting at Old Town Community Church: if Eastbourne’s the same as when I lived there (about 120 years ago…!), it is not the upper class end of the town! I’m looking forward to it – and also the evening ‘do’ at the Drive Pub, when long-time friend Gerry Page is taking his choir and band to be the live music for the evening, with me telling ‘God stories’ between songs…. please come along if you can! It’s in Victoria Drive, 7.30pm…. should be a great evening. Gerry told me today they’ve leafleted about 1,600 houses…. could be a long night of praying for people – good job there’s plenty of liquid there to keep me going (water, of course….)

12 May

If ever you have the privilege of being ‘stranded’ (‘delayed is the word airlines keep feeding you with – ‘another 40 minutes’ when they know full well it’s going to be hours – or cancelled!), then I hope for your sake it is never in Newark, New Jersey, or Washington Dulles airports! I arrived dutifully at Dulles airport at 1130 am on Thursday 3 hours before my international ‘check in’ though the initial flight was only domestic to New York… at 7pm the plane was still on the ground… I really think that Washington’ main airport should knock the ‘es’ off of the end of the name, as Dull suits it much much better! Thankfully, Continental airlines realised, by 5pm, that I wasn’t going to make ANY connection to London that night in Newark, so they booked me on to the direct flight with Virgin Atlantic… a long, long day like that was not what I needed though, and I fell asleep on the plane 30 minutes before we landed in London 🙁 ….. joy oh joy!

Friday was a ‘spaced out’ day as a result! Early start Saturday (in the ‘car boot sale’ queue at 615am)…. ‘s funny, car boot sales go better when the day is cold and the sky overcast! Saturday was warm and sunny – seems people head out for day rather than crowd in the buy other people’s ‘treasures’! It was so so… 🙁

But… Sunday morning at City Church in Plymouth was great, so good to have Heidi there too, and prayed for a lot of people between us at the end of the meeting… faith is rising in that church for the total healing of Jules, the pastor, such a wonderful guy, who has had MS for countless years…. soon, Lord…. no, now, please!

Sunday evening with a small group of folk in my friends David & Sian Fenton-Jones’ home in the delighful little village of South Milton, in Devon… a lady there, Monica, told me of the healing of her ankle last summer when I preached in Kingsbridge – she’d had a serious bone spur which went…. Satan’s moved the infirmity down now, to the fusing of the bones in her toes and feet… so he’s gradually being driven out… really sensed Monica would be healed and pain free within days. Anna Marie, suffering from ….well, you name, she’s likely to have had it! ….a real sense of the presence of God on her as he began to free her from the illnesses, and more importantly, the side effects of the steroids which have been so vicious in her body.

Pete came suffering from a severe pain in his shoulder and neck, bones crumbling, when he just ‘happened’ to say God had done a miracle in him many many years ago. I asked him to tell everyone, having felt God say to me that  he’d be healed as he spoke out his own testimony of God’s miraculous power all those years back…. as he came to the end of God’s story in his life, he just laughed and said all the pain in his shoulder and neck had gone! TESTIMONY IS POWERFUL!!!!!!

Two lovely ‘in process’ healing testimonies from my dear friends Maria and Bjorn Isacsson in Boras, Sweden…. I’ve posted them on the testimonies page. Gid is so, so good….

5 May

Thankfully my body seems to be coming out of its ‘hibernation’ of the past 10 days! Not quite so tired today… praying for a real refreshing as Thursday and my next journey gets closer and closer. I was re-reading today a prophecy my friend Heidi had for ‘The House’ in Gothenburg…. in it, she used a little phrase that jumped out at me even more than it did when she delivered the word (by phone, if you remember!) at the beginning of April… that God is ‘setting up a display of ferocious righteousness’ that will tear down religious spirits…. and that (and bear in mind this was 4-5 weeks ago) given his church the ‘tools’ to heal the wave of ‘new sicknesses that are emerging in the earth’…. with the subsequent advent of swine fever, and the fear that has gripped the nations across the world, this is really reassuring (and very cool!).

The Mental Health Foundation produced result of a recent survey (13 April 2009) – stating that 77% of British People find the world more frightening in 2009 than in 1999; people are in more fear of crime in general, knife crime, terrorism, MRSA… you name it, people are afraid of it. Young people are more afraid than older people, though older folk are ‘not coping’…. along with the financial crisis, WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY this is for the church…. to BE church, and not DO church, and to start being what the world needs instead of what religion wants….

‘m excited… by all that’s going on…

3 May

Well, the more I’ve forced myself to relax since I’ve been home, the more tired I’ve got! I think my body is trying to tell me something…. no more 5 week trips! I’m just trying to do what my body wants to do, so I’ve really chilled out as best I know how, these past few days, and I’m praying that the ‘getting more tired’ syndrome will reverse in time for me to head back to England on Thursday! Yet another overnight flight, yet another Continental Airlines connection in the delightful (not!) Newark Airport… straight into a crack of dawn car boot sale (like a yard or garage sale, American friends where about 1000 people with cars and 10,000 greedy grabbers converge on one place to sell stuff!) as I need the cash… then drive to Plymouth, where, on Sunday morning I’m with my lovely friends at City Church….

The great joy for me (on a par with the joy of being with them!) is that Heidi will be there too, our first outing together since July 2007. And man, she’s on fire….!!! Light the blue touchpaper and stand well clear….

Those of you who know me well will know that my dad died 45 years ago… today would have been his 85th birthday, and Vivien and Derek, my sister and brother in law, are sending me pictures that they are scanning from those fiddly little tranparencies that we used to think so marvellous… as I’ve looked at them, it has reminded of what I lost as a 12 year old, but reminded me of the legacy dad left, not financial (far from it, we were never a well-off family), but put so wonderfully at dad’s funeral by our then pastor, George Cumming – culled from the story of Stephen in Acts: ‘He was man filled with Holy Spirit and faith’. If I inherit nothing more in my life, that’s an inheritance I hope that one day might be my story, maybe my legacy. I’m so grateful for my dad, and look forward to seeing him again one day (though I hope, not soon!).

29 April

The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy…. so wrote the Apostle John, in Revelation 19:10. What does that mean in reality? When we talk about what Jesus DID 2,000 years ago, it builds faith.. and the impact of the ‘story’ carries a prophetic application that we can claim for our own lives. Nothing has changed, 2000 years on, as we are called and commissioned by Jesus ‘to do what I have done, and great things than I have done because I’m going to the Father’. So, the testimony of Jesus TODAY, what He is DOING today, becomes a mighty sword in the believer’s hand… for me, I apply this to healing and miracles.

Jesus left behind him an awesome inheritance for us, you don’t need me to tell you that: teaching, wisdom, authority, power, love inexplicable, healing, miracles. that ‘special gift of faith’ that means that we can know that we know that we know what God is going to do through His Son and the awesome power of the Holy Spirit. ‘The people of Israel knew God’s acts. but Moses knew His ways….’.

The enemy HATES the verse about testimony (along with several thousand other verses!!!) because he knows that when we tell of what Jesus is doing, others get healed, receive miracles, get saved… sadly, there are people in churches who want to deny that God does this ‘stuff’, perhaps because it challenges them where their own theology of healing falls down (such as ‘God doesn’t do it today’, ‘It stopped at the end of the apostolic age’), or maybe through sheer unbelief or even jealousy….

There are a number of reasons why I haven’t blogged anything for nearly 3 weeks: during the last few weeks there has been a situation where a lady received a real measure of healing and blessing (as compared to ‘being healed’) from a 30 year-long crippling disease. Real change came over her emotionally, and physically: some motor function returned, and I made a point of engaging the translator not only in translating my words, but to see the change in her face and her body, to a point where it was translated for me, from her, ‘My husband will never believe this after 30 years!’. There’s no way I could have known she said that as I don’t speak the language! I did in fact put the story in the blog at the time: but someone, unknown to me, though known to God, challenged what had been written, through a pastor who should have known better than try to save his own face and succumb to the will of the enemy by asking me to remove it. You’ll never seek God’s face if you’re trying to save your own…. The translator, more than well known to the pastor concerned, astonishingly denied what he had seen to save the pastor’s face. Denying the power and work of the Holy Spirit is not the unforgivable sin, but I suspect in God’s agenda runs it quite close… And we wonder why revival doesn’t happen??? I never want to write ANYTHING that isn’t provable, irrefutable: I am unable to confirm what happened because I’m no longer in the country, and have no way of contacting the lady in question.

So, I’ve waited a while to let the Lord show me what happened here: and He showed me what I’ve written above. Many other wonderful things happened during the whole trip away: some people I’ve had e-mails from, people who were healed, others who testified… a lady, Ritva, involved in a car wreck, damaged the nerves in her face above the bridge of her nose, affecting her sight, even her smile. As God touched her, watched her face change, and she laughed….

In Sweden, I was asked to pray early in the meeting for a man named Stefan: critically ill with cancer, with a liver swollen and distended…. I wanted to tell a few stories (to raise faith, as the testimony of Jesus etc., etc.,!), and prayed for him. A couple of weeks later, I received an e-mail from his sister in law, to say that Stefan was much worse for the next 3 days. That OFTEN happens, the enemy knows he’s losing his grip, so he kicks back with even greater venom: it’s OUR response in that immediate period of time that determines whether we are healed or not – not our faith, but just the determination to say ‘I AM healed’. These are the sister in law’s words, not mine: “He is now better but we must continue to pray for him. He was very sick and for at least three days he throw up everything he ate and drank, then suddenly he got better and we praise God for it!!”.

Five weeks away was a long time: it was demanding (12 meetings in 6 days in Finland, and probably 1500 people prayed for), over just 2 of the days in Sweden more than 9 hours of speaking and then prayer for people afterwards…. Ireland was great, a little more relaxing, and the Men’s Conference seemed to go well… I think I prayed for the majority of men there, anyway! Some told me they had been healed last year when I prayed… maybe I’ll know next year about this year! Some real transformations in some of the men, which is fantastic….

Wonderful news, too, that God has miraculously healed my prophet friend Heidi, just as doctors were telling her she might never recover, that she might not be able to walk 100 yards (that’s just under 100 metres for my European friends!) for maybe 6 months, maybe 6 years… and on the day when her ‘disabled’ sticker arrived for her car, so she could park anywhere. She was going up and down stairs all day not because she needed to, but just because she could…. So, all being well, the Heidi-Paul double act will be appearing in a number of places over the coming months! Check out her blog: http://heidiplympton.blog.co.uk …..

Then, the long (delayed – thank you again Continental Airlines and Newark Airport) return home. I don’t think I’ve EVER had an on-time connection out of Newark Airport… 🙁 ….. but it IS good to be in my home, wonderful to be in my bed, and today was a lovely day in that I got to pray for 2 ladies in the Williamsburg area who have got ‘undiagnosed’ or ‘wrongly diagnosed’ curses over their lives, and both have had extreme damage done to their bodies by being given medication for one thing which had severe and life-threatening reactions in the bodies elsewhere… I’m looking forward to hearing, even in the next few days, what God has done for them.

So, I sort of apologise for not blogging, if you’ve been checking, and sort of don’t apologise, as I wanted to just let the Lord clear the ‘garbage’ above out of my mind!

9 April

Four days of only being able to get online for about 5 minutes, just long enough to download mail, and not a strong enough connection to handle the web page!

Sunday afternoon in ‘The House’, Gothenburg, was like being in heaven, with amazing worship, Ulf Christiansson’s wonderful rock singer’s voice, and passionate worshippers. Again, it was so easy to preach from this sort of ‘platform’, and I had a blast… prayed for loads, to receive more fire (if that’s possible with some of them!). It really is a unique church, and I believe it is a church ‘model’ for many many others who want to carry God’s glory and see the fire of revival fall….. Any church ‘founded’ on nothing less than 2.5 years of prayer and fasting HAS to radical. It is a real delight that they want me back in June, together with Heidi, so I can’t wait. Some healings, others in process… tinnitus, knees…

Ulf and Alex, his powerfully anointed and equipped son, drove me to Boras, where my friends Bjorn and Maria have a wonderful ministry to refugees. The first 8-10 people, at least, were from Iran, Kosovo, Albania and more… and others from Angola, Palestine… Lovely time ministering to them, and God touched a number of lives. The Angolan lady then prophesied over me, that I have the fire of God in my hands, and an anointing greater than Elijah on my life… it’s a blessing to receive a word like that, but I think the Elijah bit might have to be weighed…!!!! The fire of God bit I’m very happy to own!

Monday was spent first driving from home to home to pray for housebound sick people in Boras – MS, Parkinsons…. over these Scandinavian nations there really seems to be a territorial spirt where Tinnitus is concerned. Countless dozens, even hundreds, have asked for prayer for it.

Monday evening was spent with a group of people wanting to begin an apostolic centre in the town of Aneby: the Pentecostal pastor in the town took the very bold move of closing the church down because there were so many ‘issues’ – in order that something new, fresh, and powerful could emerge. I stayed with that Pastor, Vilgot, his wife Margaretha, and son Robin… a radical family, with the call of God on their lives, and the adventure and freedom of God in their spirits.

Tuesday was lesson after lesson on ‘Your Kingdom Come – More!’ with about 50 students and a host of other hungry gatecrashers! That was the theme for the two days, including evening meetings, and I just went for it big time….! I believe we’re not so much in a World v. Church’ clash anymore, but in a ‘Church v. Kingdom’ clash…. A great, but tiring and demanding two days, and I’m wanted back there this year, too! At least three ‘leg’ healings… one young lady with short calf muscles, had problems walking and running – she ran that night! – another with knne problems that prevented her running – she ran too! – and a young man whose right leg was a clear 2cms shorter than the left (normally a back issue), and his right leg came down to the same length as the left as his back lined up. Thank you Lord!

Then a 200 km drive to Orebro, and a wonderful warm late night welcome at Vello and Ingalill’s house…. Today, on to Kungsangen, just outside Stockholm, to my dear friends Stojan & Soila Gajicki, and a sauna and barbecued bratwurst sausages… before being back at Arlanda airport for 6am, to fly to England, then later on on to Romania…. I’d value your prayers for tomorrow! It’s going to be a demanding day of travel, I land in Bucharest at 0025am Saturday morning. Bless you!

5 April

Moved from Orebro to Gothenburg on Friday… sad to leave there after such great meetings and wonderful hospitality. But the church I’m with here in Gothenburg is just amazing: led by long-time Christian rock band (Jerusalem) front man Ulf Christiansson, they founded the The House on no meetings, but 2.5 years of prayer and fasting. During that time, people DID join, and through the prayer and fasting, lives, ministries, anointing, and calling were revolutionised amongst those there. A few months back they had to finally move out of Ulf & Else-Marie’s house, too many people! But what they found was a building in the city just like a house.

Perhaps 100-130 there at last night’s meeting: the worship, led by Ulf with his rock singer voice (wonderful!), took off….. then I did something I’ve never done before! Prophet friend Heidi wanted to come on this trip, but she has been unwell for 21 months, and felt it would be too much…. so, Friday night I asked her on messenger if she had any words for Sweden. Then, in the meeting, she prophesied to the church and the country over the phone.

The platform of worship and the prophetic was so, so wonderful to preach from! It was one of those occasions where I knew I was ‘on a roll’ – Ulf was blessed to see some ‘unexpected’ people prayed for, and transformed, there were healings (his mum’s shoulder and neck (he’s nearly 60, so I don’t know how old she is!), and others were wonderfully set free and liberated…. Can’t wait for this afternoon, then on to Boras for a meeting at 6pm….

7 hours speaking at a Bible School on Tuesday in Ralingsas, and preaching in the evening: 4 more hours with the school on Wednesday, and preaching again… then, overnight back with my lovely friends Vello and Ingalill on Orebro, and on to Kungsangen, with Stojan and Soila – I went to Serbia with Stojan last year – but no meeting, just friendship, a sauna, and a cerveza or two!

2 April (more!)

Two wonderful meetings, last night and tonight, in Orebro, Sweden, a city fast becoming one of my favourite places to visit, not only in Sweden, but anywhere. The meetings were organised by my dear friends, Vello & Ingalill Vaim, a wonderful Spirit-filled, Spirit-led, passionate, Kingdom seeking fun-filled couple. The meetings were wonderfully informal, perhaps over the 2 nights with 60-70 or so people attending (different people each night almost!), with lovely worship led by a man named Bjorn, and his wife Brittis. God’s presence was there from the start: it was easy to build a rapport with those attending, and last night, I felt it right to raise, and even impart, faith. Many responded for prayer, I know that there will be many testimonies. The meeting was a first for me in one way: I’ve had meetings before where I’ve had to ask for a change of translator (or even give up speaking – but that’s rare!) for various reasons…. Ingalill is a great translator, but halfway through my ‘preach’ she just got wonderfully, uncontrollably, and instantaneously drunk in the Holy Spirit, and couldn’t speak… her & Vello’s daughter, Elisa, only saved last year but wonderfully and radically changed, walked very purposefully to the front, and carried on where her mum had left off… it was amazing!

Tonight really continued where last night left off…. expectation was high, even though about 70% of the people were different from last night, and the worship – Bjorn again (ho ho ho) – laid a lovely foundation. I felt led to speak on the establishing of the Kingdom on earth, and the end of man’s Christian empires… and for the ‘finisher’s anointing’ of Zerubbabel (Zechariah 4) to be poured out on all of us. Prayed for lots more people…. watch this space! A wonderful night….

2 April

Been a delay in writing here, not because nothing’s happened – it has, and it’s been great, with testimonies of healings and miracles – I’ve just tried to use these two ‘free-er’ days to relax!

Good things first… a lovely little girl, I guess about 5 years old, in Jyvaskala, the daughter of one of the Salvation Army officers there, had bad stomach pains every night. She was so sweet, I sat down with her on my lap, and prayed for her, and kissed her when she went… her dad told me that she ran back to him saying ‘Daddy, he kissed me and sat me on his lap!’ (thrilled rather than accusing!!!!)… next night, dad told me that when she went to bed that night she had no stomach pain for the first time in many many weeks…

In a church in Turku, I was greeted on arrival by Harri, who had been such a great translator for me there earlier in the week, with a lady named Maia (I guess that’s how you spell her name): I don’t know old she was, but I’d think late 60’s, scoliosis/curvature of the spine, that had affected her for much of her life. I’d prayed for her Tuesday, and for the rest of the week she’d walked perfectly and straight, and swam 2 kilometres a day, which she had never been able to do…

A lovely young lady, Miina, I’d think about 17 or so, had her spine curved too – out 22%: quite considerable, her left shoulder obviously much lower than her right, many centimetres. Mum was in church at the beginning of the meeting, and told the people what had happened – she had been completely straight since then, and they even had to move a lampshade higher which Miina had been able to walk under until then…. Miina then arrived, and we thanked God with her for such a lovely creative miracle in her body. When it came time to pray for the sick, I said I’d pray for one side of the congregation, and Miina would pray for the other… people were very blessed! The best people to talk of salvation are people just saved: the same with healing – the best people to pray are those who have just received a miracle! Look at my great friend Alan, from Northern Ireland: he’s only been a Christian for 16 months, as a result of his lovely wife Barbara being wonderfully healed of osteo arthritis: he’s praying for the sick and seeing healings and miracles, because he hasn’t learned yet from a ‘Christian heritage’ that God doesn’t do this stuff….

Jussi, from Turku, Finland was healed of cancer (I’ve put her testimony on the testimony page, strangely enough!)…. she said in her email ‘I felt so healthy today’… her friend Oili, who has MS, was ‘much better’ and is standing (she was very much wheelchair bound when I met her last week!), with more power in her arms and pelvis, and her sitting and balance are much better…. And another friend, Anja, whose sight was failing badly – well, ‘her sight is much better’…. Thank you Lord…

 

28 March

Hmmmm… overnight in Jyvaskala it was -20C, so a little short of the prediction. Still pretty cool though…! It was an INTERESTING drive: the person driving me is one of those people who is continually jiggling with the steering wheel, so every journey so far has been ‘jerk the wheel a few centimetres’ – which often means we’re on the rumble strip at the edge, or on the white lines in the middle (also rumble strips). I’ve had to grab the wheel 3 times on the trip so far, as concentration (maybe tiredness) is his greatest asset. Even his son, who followed us for a hundred miles or more (almost 200 kms), said ‘he’s a funny driver to follow! all over the road!’. I did think once our time was up as we were on the wrong side of the road with him trying to clean the windscreen/shield!

So, stress levels aside, or, better still, taking them into account (!), the meetings have been great! Met in the Salvation Army centre, it was packed, last night and the night before. Thursday’s meeting was way over 4 hours, with probably 150 people to pray for: not all for healing, as I’d preached leading up to other things – freedom from fear (of men, shyness, insecurity and so) and also for fresh anointing…. so as both nights were in the same place (no driving – thank you Jesus!) until after last night’s meeting, there were many filled with new fire, new vision, new passion…. there were healings, too!

My voice has begun to crack up again, which is a bit of a concern, as I’m preaching 5 times today and tomorrow, at 1 and 6pm today – in Tampere and Lahti (150 kms/100 miles away), and then at 11am tomorrow in Helsinki, and then twice at 4 and 6pm in Turku, again about 150 kms away, I’m told. Please pray for my voice: and for strength. I’m pretty tired, all the changes of bed don’t help with sleep patterns, and though I’m trying to snatch a bit of shut-eye in the car (two reasons – I need the sleep, and it means I can’t see all the ‘incidents’!).

Tomorrow night, after the evening meeting, it’s back to the ferry, for the overnight roll to Stockholm, and two meetings Monday afternoon and evening! I think I have Tuesday free, but I’m heading a few hundred kilometres to Orebro, but it will be to my dear, dear friends, Vello and Ingallill Vaim…. we laugh a great deal, and talk very deeply a great deal, so it’s a lovely mixture.

26 March

This has to be in haste, as I’m being driven a long way from where I am (where am I? If it was Wednesday evening yesterday, it must have been Hervanta, Tampere! About 150 kms (100 miles) north of Turku, and a good 15 degrees celcius colder (It is -15C here, probably about 0F!!)…. and today we drive another 200 kms further north, where I’m told it could be -25C)…. deep joy, and deep snow!

Again, an amazing turnout for the first of three meetings, at noon yesterday, in Turku. Church was packed, and the Spirit of the Lord was VERY evident… I don’t know how many people said they were healed of cancer, but I know of at least 3: a giant of a man diagnosed 18 years ago with paranoid schizophrenia testified to his KNOWING he was healed – you could tell by his face and persona that massive change had happened); lots more besides those…

At 3.30 pm I was ushered in to a packed church in Huitennen, to be greeted by a Scot in a kilt (would YOU wear a kilt in those temperatures??!!)… wonderful meeting, a physical therapist healed of cancer, her colleague having an improvement in her failing sight, a lovely elderly lady, in excruciating pain, laughing instead of crying as the pain went, another lady with chronic pain (undiagnosable by the doctors) in her right leg, healed instantly….loads more, but time is running out! It is SUCH a privilege to see God move like this….

Last night, in a church that meets in a cinema, in Hervanta, a ‘satellite’ town on the edge of Tampere, perhaps Finland’s third biggest city, God just ran riot! It is a church with many young people, the worship was was with the first rock band I’ve encountered in Finland (mostly it’s acoustic guitar or piano)…. dozens healed! A man born with chronic bronchitis, struggling to breathe, just began to gulp in large lungfuls of air and was healed: a lady who had suffered brain damage in a car crash was healed: and now I’ve just been told by the pastor I have to leave in 2 minutes… so I’ll try and get on line again later!

 

24 March

Having done my Captain Pugwash (think you have to be British to know that one!) impersonation last night, spending longer on the sea (11 hours) than I’ve ever done before, arrived in Finland around 7.30 am this morning. It really was a good crossing, despite parts of the sea being frozen: a lot of places I know could learn from the Swedes and Finns how to equip a ferry!

Not much respite before launching into the first meeting, at noon: it was a wonderful time. I couldn’t believe how many people were there – about 100 – for a mid day meeting on a Tuesday…. I think they must have mostly been people on sick leave… 🙁 or with time on their hands…. I think I prayed for all of them, the meeting lasting a mere 4 hours 45 minutes (well, the meeting was 2 hours, praying was the rest…). Finished at quarter to five, taken for ‘lunch’, back to where I’m staying after that, and out for the next meeting (a mere 4 hours 10 minutes) at 6pm….

Loads of people healed in the noon meeting – bodies all over the floor, looked like a drive by shooting! My brain is scrambled as it is late, so I’ll need to ‘revisit’ that meeting to write some down….

Tonight was even more remarkable. I preached in a Finnish Lutheran Church (there’s a first time for everything!!! My, my Irish Presbyterian churches, Methodist Churches, and now Lutherans – whatever next??!!) – around 4-450 there… I think THEY all came forward too, but I did ask for some of the church ministry team to help…. prayed for a mere 2 hours 10 minutes…. but boy, was it good! A young lady, Mina, scoliosis (curvature of the spine for Brits!) was healed… felt damaged discs and vertebrae moving under my hand. Her shoulders were level, she stood up straight….. A lady named Ritva – well, you could see the second the Holy Spirit hit her. She had an accident that had destroyed the nerves in her face above the bridge of her nose, affecting her sight and her hearing… her face changed, and she began to laugh. And laugh. And then some.

So many were healed tonight: I’ll recall more when my brain is more active (don’t laugh!), and a number saved…. what a result! And I almost phoned in sick (not literally!) to get out of the meeting… at 5.30pm I’d have given my right arm to be anywhere else (as well as ambidextrous)….

23 March

Arrived in Stockholm yesterday, to a very busy schedule, and a lot of snow! Started snowing as we left the airport… and I’m told that the forecast for Finland this week is for the return of severe winter weather…. deep joy!

Great meeting yesterday in Sundbyberg, Stockholm: some very tangible evidence of God blessing and healing and changing people’s lives. More and more of that please, Lord, over these next 18 days here in Sweden and Finland.  Some evident ‘deliverance’ for some people: obvious and testified healings of others…. a lovely ex-missionary man (Tanzania) was so blessed and released from the pain of surgery following ‘rear end’ cancer… his wife freed from pain, too…. another man, in deep depression for a few years, tried to commit suicide twice, was set from from a spirit of death and suicide, and went from wailing in emotional pain to peace and then laughter…

11 hour ferry crossing tonight to Turku, Finland, from here tonight… I’m told the ferries are great, so I’m hoping…. sleep doesn’t come easily to me, I’m sharing a berth on the boat, so I’d value your prayers! The trip, too, seems to involve a great deal of being driven…. that shouldn’t be a problem, I hear you say…but, when you’ve been driven 3-4 hours to do 3 meetings, finish at 11pm, andhave 4 hours back to your bed, it’s unbelievably exhausting…

18 March

After a quiet few days trying to shake off this most vile of colds, I have to say…. I’ve failed! I still sound like someone who smokes 100 cigarettes a day – raspy, croaky… and right now I’m packing for tomorrow, a trip of 5 weeks, preaching every day almost… I’d really value your prayers on this one! It’ll be ‘do-able’ with my voice, but unless it’s back to normal, how long it will last, I don’t know…

It really is a heavy schedule, too: the first thing is of my own making – I’m doing a car boot sale on Saturday morning, as the money is much needed, but sitting on Ford Airfield at Littlehampton at 8am might not be the best for my cold if it’s still hanging around then!

Yesterday, I received an email from the pastor I’m with first; I’m preaching twice in his church in Stockholm on Sunday and Monday. Monday night, the overnight ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, then preaching Tuesday twice in Turku… Wednesday three times in Turku, Huitinnen and Hervanta… the full schedule is in the diary, but it’s demanding. There’s more in the final itinerary than I knew about :(. Please pray for strength.

Having not felt like doing much because I’ve felt so unwell (I know, I know, some people think it’s funny that someone who believes for healing and mighty miracles is unwell: actually, praying for myself is far, far harder than praying for other people, and no one who prays for and believes in healing is immune from everything…if they are, will someone please tell me where Smith Wigglesworth’s been hiding out? I’d love to meet him… ;), I have to be honest and say right now I’d rather stay home….. BUT, once at Washington DC airport, or at least on the plane, the adrenaline will kick in again. I’m looking forward to being back in Sweden, especially looking forward to going to Finland for the first time, then in Sweden again, happy, too, to be spending a few more days in Romania, and then pleased to finish up the trip with a visit to Northern Ireland, my second home now. I’d value your prayers as I’m the speaker at the Men’s Weekend away, and I really want to bring the men there something fresh from the Lord.

I’ve then got 14 days at home, which will be a real blessing…. my house hasn’t been dusted and cleaned since I don’t know when, but then I haven’t been here to make it dirty! It also means that I can catch up with a few people locally, which is very important to me.

 

15 March

During this trip, only John so far escaped one of the most horrible colds that I’ve certainly ever experienced – much more like flu, but not quite enough to make you stay at home in bed and sleep it off…. some people would say I’m sure that it was a good thing that I almost totally lost my voice (!), but fortunately there was enough of it left for the translators to hear!

On Wednesday evening we were in three churches: John and Alan went to El Abrigo el Altisimo, the Shadow of the Almighty, where they reckon there were 100 people, most of whom responded for prayer. Alan knew of some immediate healings. Clare went to the church pastored by a lovely lady, Argenis, where I spoke a few months back…. she had about 50 – most of whom wanted prayer…. that’s a busy night all around when there is only one or two of you!

Dave & I went to Adoradores – Worshippers – pastored by a great young man named Edier Fernandez. We’d had a marvellous meeting there in July last year, with some wonderful miracles occurring…. it was great to hear some of the ongoing stories! Right near the end in July, I’d had the opportunity to pray for an older lady, Carmen, whom I later learned was Edier’s mother: she had cancer, and was dying. She told me then that she felt it leave her: that’s always good to hear, even better to walk into the church and see her, 8 months on, worshipping the Lord! I got her to testify during the meeting, and she said that the doctors had kept testing and re-testing her for cancer as they couldn’t believe it. She kept telling them it was God who had healed her… I know Scripture says that God will be not be mocked, and one of the Doctors laughed at her, and said that she had just been fooling them all along, that God didn’t heal… horrifically (for him) both he and his wife have subsequently been diagnosed with cancer. I have this sense that we will see more and more of this sort of thing as people denigrate the amazing power of God….

Adrianna, who had been married for 7 years, and her husband whose name I  think is Luis, couldn’t have children. Doctors said it was impossible. Well, a week on Wednesday she is in hospital to give birth to twins…. it is as close to the day of 9 months as you can get from when I had the joy of praying for them. It has (and most certainly will in other ways!) revolutionised Luis’s life…

Thursday we were back to the hospital, Santillana, this time without having Dr Dunia to go round with us. She was too busy: another Doctor allowed us only down the corridors to pray, which was incredibly frustrating. Some of the kids from last week had gone home healed, which is wonderful.

I was so wanting to get in to see Issabella, the 7 year old who began to come of of her cerebral/genital/oral herpes coma…. she had been doing well for 4 days, and then, tragically, contracted meningitis, which killed her almost overnight. I was in tears, speechless, and (am still) devastated by that news. I know that what people have said is that she is now healed and perfect and no longer in fear is true: but somehow that isn’t sufficient for me…. I am so angry at the devil for what he does, and it has made me more determined than ever to see him crushed and beaten.

The other coma ‘victims’ are all doing fine, thankfully….

On the last night, we went into 2 more churches, John to Walter Torres’ church, Revival Centre, where he prayed for everything that moved…. the rest of us went to a church I’ve preached at many times, in a part of the city known as La Rivera. Jairo, the pastor, is a lovely man: we had a great evening, with salvation, healings, and deliverance, and many prophetic words for people. I even managed to croak a message, and croak a few prayers….

All being well, I’m back, probably with the same ‘team’, in late September, for 3 weeks, including a pastor’s conference and crusade at Edier’s church, for a week. It looks likely too that I’ll be in Armenia, Buenaventura, and Bogota next time, so the net is widening!

The journey home – as with the journey to Cali – was dreadful! We were up at 3.30 am to be at the airport for the customary 3 hour check in for international flights… once again, we were on the plane, when we were told the plane had a fault and we had to disembark… what we were told would be a quick job took 5 hours, meaning we missed our connections in Miami. Alan managed to get a later flight to London, but the rest of us were told we’d have to stay overnight in a hotel. That might sound nice to some, but believe me, layover hotels are far from glamorous, even less so when all you want to do is be home in your own bed. I put on my ‘militant’ persona…. and we flew finally into Washington DC, landing at 1130 pm, and John’s wife Mary, and son Scott, drive us the 3 hour drive home….

 

14 March

Please forgive the lack of ‘blog’ the last couple of days: we were so busy, and all of us, to some degree or another, had the most vile cold bug…. I’m home now, so will try and blog later on today (it’s 5am here and haven’t been home too long form yet another journey from hell on airlines!)…. so many good things to tell you!

11 March

Sunday afternoon we had the usual hair-raising ride back from Buenaventura! ‘Life passing in front of your eyes’ is a fairly typical experience of that drive! Dave & Clare were involved in a meeting with my dear friends Diego and Pilar Reyes in their young but thriving church in Jamundi. The service began at 4pm, for which, of course, they were the customary 1 and a half hours late Colombia time! Nonetheless, God turned up and blessed them immensely with prophetic words, words of knowledge: the meeting finished at around 11pm!

Monday, the trip to the children’s hospital was postponed because we’d have been with terminally sick kids, and Dave, Clare, and I were all manifesting wonderful colds! Didn’t seem like a good idea to take such a nasty cold, too, into a hospital, even though we are in faith for them to be healed…..

The ‘day off’ yesterday involved a trip to the Juna Valdez coffee park, which is in Armenia, a good 3 hour (hair raising!) drive from Cali…. last time I took John there, it was a Monday, and they close on Mondays… so, we went on Tuesday…. it was closed (unusually) for maintenance… so a long, abortive journey, at the end of which the drive, tiredness, frustration and colds meant we all crashed out fairly early when we got home!

Back to business today though: meetings tonight, tomorrow, and tomorrow night, so we’re raring to go and see God ‘top off’ this trip with some wonderful things. A healing meeting tonight at Hendrik’s church would be good to pray for, if you could!

8 March

A few wonderful meetings since Friday! Friday evening, we were in a church in a place called La Sirena: they meet in a house, but outside of China 20 years ago, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a house so packed! John & I were welcomed like returning victors, such was the greeting! The place was heaving with people, boiling hot, and everyone came for prayer…. a number found salvation, and many were healed… again, cancers, blood and circulation issues, broken limbs mending…

Found out more information about some of the people responding in hospital, especially the ones in comas… Dr Dunia Quiroga told me that one lady, Blanca, had such a critical blastoma (I can’t remember the term she used, but is was in the cortex of her brain: these are inoperable and incurable, and kill quickly… hers had spread to the cerebrospinal fluid, and metastasized (I sound very professionally trained here, don’t I – comes with having a brain surgeon as a dear friend!). Her coma was so deep that nothing affected her…. so for her to move, to see her eyes moving under the lids, and response from her lips, is a major miracle in the making….

Improvement continues, too, with Issabella, much to the astonishment of all who nurse and treat her…. what a testimony she will be and have when God finishes the job!

Saturday, we set off for the port city of Buenaventura, and the fun-fair ride that the drive to that city is! It’s an astonishing journey, over the Andes, on roads that are really not good, just two lane, and with big trucks from the port taking the ‘short’ route to Cali…. overtaking is an art form, but a ‘heart in mouth’ exercise too…. last July, when John, Alan, & I were in the city, we were so conscious of the heaviness and spiritual darkness of the place. Wonderfully, some of that atmosphere has lifted, and the meetings we were involved in this time were quite astonishing.

We arrived to lunch in the jungle outside of the city, with lovely pastors Daniel and Lily at their home… it’s a joy to be with them, they are so kind, generous, and hospitable, even though very poor. We had fish (ooooohhhhhhh dear!) with the eyes still in place… those who know me well will know my complete dislike of all things fishy! – but what do you do when people have made such a sacrifice to feed you? So, I ate… my sacrifice in return for theirs!

Last night, there was a combined churches get together in a school – well over 500 people there…. John spoke, Alan testified, Clare spoke, Dave spoke and sang, and I preached… well, the tsunami of people coming forward was huge….

Alan prayed with a young lady of 16, named Mara: extreme pain, carried to the front, crying and shouting with pain…. she was totally instantly healed…. a multitude of other things healed as he prayed for different people… Dave & Clare prayed for a little girl who’d broken her arm, and couldn’t swivel it  or turn it from the elbow – that was healed instantly….

I prayed with a young man, Carlos, deaf and dumb – he spoke instantly in tongues! – and heard, too…. another deaf lady got her hearing back in like minute increments! It just kept getting louder and louder for her…. a lovely guy, Jhon (yes, that is how you spell it!), broken leg 3 years ago, unable to walk without walking sticks/canes…. we actually saw his leg moving as I prayed for him, and I took his cane away and asked him to walk…. he did, a few steps… then stopped. I asked if it was pain- or fear of falling – that stopped him: it was fear… prayed for that to be broken, and then he just walked and walked and laughed and laughed…

An older man, I recall his name as Luis, had been very active: but he had major hip and knee problems, and walked with great pain, and with immense difficulty…. within minutes he was squatting on his haunches, kneeling, bending his leg, and walked out, with just a slight limp, and no pain….

More cancers went, major blood circulation problems were healed, scolioses were straightened… it may sound awful to some, but there were so many healings it is hard to remember them all! As they come to mind, I’ll blog them….

Today, we were in a lovely church of the leader of the pastors association for Buenaventura, Pastor Jolanda: her church is ‘Jesus vive hoy’ – Jesus lives today. Again, a packed house: and more salvation! As I finished preaching, I felt that I should get people who wanted to be free from fear to stand: I think probably 95% of the church stood – fear of man, of witnessing, shyness, insecurity, fear of just about everything in fact! Prayed a ‘blanket’ prayer for them, before asking those forward for healing. As I prayed, three people fell and began to manifest demonically: God wonderfully set them free. A good number received salvation, and dozens and dozens were healed…. a lady named Carmen, probably 75 years old, unable to walk, got out of her chair, and started striding up and down the church. she was still doing it 10 minutes later…. another deaf lady heard…. bones mended, pain left, cancers went….. what more can I say at risk of not being ‘boring’???!!!!

God is so, so good… and still 4 days to go….

6 March

Today we spent a lot of time in a very poor hospital: it used to be the Social Security hospital (Seguridad Social), but was recently privatised by two big companies, so should improve…. it was an astonishing few hours….. John, Alan, and Diego (translator) went off together, and Dave, Clare, and I went with the lovely Doctor, Dunia Quiroga, brain surgeon extraordinaire…. it’s great having Duina with you because she knows exactly what patients can and can’t do, exactly what they have and haven’t got…

We prayed for 3 people (amongst others – more in a minute!) who were in deep comas. Dunia had told us a few days ago that people in such comas only respond to deep pain …. all three began to move – limbs, lips, eyes… one began to open her eyes…. Dunia was stunned, which is a nice response to confirm that God was bringing them back to ‘life’…. a elderly lady named Sophia was transformed… she’ll be going home soon, as will a great guy named Cesar Augusto (amazing name!! Ceasar Augustus!!). Cesar is 42, and was dying with Parkinsons disease, and was HIV positive. His whole visage was troubled, stressed: his body shook uncontrollably. I sat down on his bed and put my arm round him, Dave felt he should put his hand at the top of his spine…. I prayed for peace, joy, and miraculous healing…. he stopped shaking instantly, and didn’t shake again for the 10-15 minutes we were with him…. I asked him if he felt anything – he said he felt fine, and well…. God is good!

Dunia gave me an update on Issabella (see 5 March entry): she is moving quite extensively now, communicating with her mum by eye movement, and following mum’s and nurses movements with her eyes…. everyone who nurses her and knows her is amazed…. keep praying for he, please! As with everyone else in the blog, if you have time!

Some amazing things happened in a church in Palmira last night, called Puertas al Cielo (Gates of Heaven) – Palmira is a city to the north of Cali, and, as usual, with latino time-keeping, we arrived at the church about 8.10pm for a 7pm start (!)…. that can add a great deal of pressure, because to be in a church for the whole service, and experience the worship, gives you a feel for where the church is at. Not only that, but Alan, John, and I were driven to the church at over 100 miles an hour (160 km+ for those those who work in foreign language!), which is ok on a British motorway (if totally illegal!) but on Cali’s packed streets with Colombian drivers…. hmmm…!

Nonetheless, the power of God was there, and He turned up big time to heal and save. The pastor, Juan Carlos, said there were over 300 people there, and my estimate is that we prayed for 90% of them. There were many testifying to immediate healings, others which began…. stories will follow! It’s always a delight when a pastor is over the moon with the way a service goes, and certainly Juan Carlos was delighted.

En route to Palmira, we went to pray for a lovely pastor named Harrell, from the church Dios esta Presente, who was hit by a motorcyle whilst crossing the road recently. He had suffered incredible brain trauma, horrific broken bones, including a totally shattered right leg, and we were told at first, by the doctors, that we weren’t allowed to see him. Persistence paid off, and we (Pastor Walter Torres and I_ were given 2 minutes with him… a Colombian 2 minutes, of course, which was 15 in reality! We were told there would be no recognition (both of us know Harrell), no response… I guess that doesn’t take the Holy Spirit into account! After a few minutes, Harrell was smiling, and even began talking, though it was strained, and my understanding of Spanish didn’t compute, but Walter did…. Harrell was saying ‘God is in control’….. we hugged him, anointed him, and blessed him before we left…. he’s going to walk out of that hospital very soon.

We did get customarily hi-jacked in the way to the hospital, ending up going miles north of the the city to view a sugar-cane plantation…. deep joy! Couldn’t see the wood for the sugar cane….

Tomorrow we head for Buenaventura, where last July little Andres came back to life… lots of meetings, lots of being driven, lots of praying… please pray for strength for us, and B’ventura is so, so much hotter than Cali (it’s 33C/94F here!!) and very, very humid…. also has malarial mosquitoes!

5 March

So busy the past couple of days…. various hospitals, churches…  Monday evening, long-time pastor friend Hendrik had Dave, Clare and Alan at a cell group meeting from his church, in Agua Blanca (one of the poorest parts of the city). It’s a new-ish cell group, led by a relatively new Christian but incredibly on fire and anointed man, Gustavo, at their kids foundation, which he runs… out of the 50 adults there, 13 made first time commitments to the Lord, 7 recommitted their lives, and that on the strength of Alan’s testimony…. Dave & Clare then began prophesying over people, and a meeting that normally ends at 9am because Agua Blanca is (somewhat) dangerous for Christians after 9pm, ended at gone 11om…. Safety? No problem! John & I spent time with dear friend Fernando, our best translator, to plan translation and meetings over the next few days…

Tuesday, Clare, Alan, and John went way south of the city to Jamundi, to a drug rehab centre. 25-30 people were there, all three shared testimonies. John was in his element having once been a drug addict, and subsequently has run a drug rehab programme. Many of the ‘inmates’ responded for ministry, and, as so often happens in Latin America, a meeting that was ‘scheduled’ to run for 2 hours, went on for many more! Causes a few problems later in the day, but Latinos never seem to mind that! The ministry was very well received, even though it’s a government sponsored place: oh to have that freedom in the west. A number made recommitments, and one guy, whom Alan spoke to, was on the verge of committing suicide, his wife had left him, his kids had gone, he’d given up God ages back, but wanted to know God again… Praise the Lord!

Meanwhile, Dave & I went to hospital Santillana, with Doctor friend Dunia… prayed for loads of incredibly sick kids, with some immediate evident results… I must just tell you one incredibly horrific story…. a lovely 7 year old girl (we know she was lovely, because her mum showed us photos of her) was in an incredibly deep coma. She had been sexually abused by her father, and was suffering from genital and oral herpes, the coma induced by cerebral herpes. Issabella’s body is a tragic, horrific mess. No movement, response: breathing via tracheotomy, fed direct into her stomach with tubes, Dunia told us that deep coma victims only respond to deep pain. Issabella is emaciated, mouth covered in scabs, body bruised…. mum was there, but is in denial of what her husband has done to her daughter. The nurses are praying that God will take her life, so that she doesn’t have to go back to her father…. hmmm. Both Dave & I had a sense that God would use her to bring change in her dad…. what the enemy means for harm, God means for good…. as we prayed for her, I stroked her face, held her… her respiratory therapist was there, along with Dunia, who is a brain surgeon (so who knows what cerebral herpes can do)… both were astonished at how Issabella responded, starting to open and close her mouth as though breathing normally, movement in her hands, and eyes, and an incredible transformation in her face. Her face had been a picture of pain, shock, trauma, and fear: and peace became the most evident feature. The therapist was astonished: she said she’d never seen anything like it, Dunia was amazed too…. So much more I could write about the hospital but we’re about to be whisked away again…

Last night, at a church I go to often, Dios esta Presente (God is Present), we had a wonderful evening. All of us shared, I preached, and (conservatively) 95% of the people there – about 200 – came forward for healing and ministry. It was wonderful to go there and see 2 babies – both born in the month to people I prophesied over last year who couldn’t have children! Healings last night, more to come. A church, making a huge difference for the kingdom, under incredible attack on it’s leadership by the enemy. We;re going this morning to pray for a pastor who, having been appointed in January, aged 37, was instantly involved in a motorbike accident, and has irreparable brain damage. Every pastor of the church is either very ill or injured, cars are being stolen, finance is under attack…  God is about to say to Satan, I believe, that ‘enough is enough’ and will roar like he did for Samuel in 1 Kings 8…..

So, more later, as we have to run now! Hospital this afternoon, church in Palmira tonight…. please pray for us!

 

2 March

Wow, talk about hit the ground running….! And what a day day one was here in Cali, Colombia – without a day to unwind, relax, and settle in, God turned up in immense power…. More of that in a minute!

Heading back for the airport again before dawn on Saturday was NOT a blessing, but at least we had a plane with no dents and it managed to get off the ground and take us to the delights of Miami Airport, where we had a 6 hour layover. I have to say, having spent a grand total of 18 hours in that airport on the way to and from Barbados in December, it is really not an airport you want to spend more than about an hour in! We arrived in Cali about 9pm, 16 hours and a day after leaving for here.

By the time we’d got to the apartment we are staying in, it was past 11pm, and by then we’d learned that between us we were preaching 5 times on the Sunday, the first service at 7am. 4 services were in one church, 7, 9, and 11am, and 4 pm, the other in another church at 10.30am. I was in a church I’ve never been to before, Igelsia Fe y Esperanza (Church of Faith and Hope), and it’s a pretty big church. Well over 500 at the first service, rising to about 6-700 for the other two, and about 500 in the afternoon. I preached 3 of the services, with John taking the 9am service. Dave & Clare went to the church of my great friend Walter Torres, and though it’s not big, they had a blast… Clare preached, Dave prophesied, and it seems like they prayed for everyone, with very powerful results, including deliverance.

At Faith and Hope, in the first service, dozens responded to the call for salvation first, and then maybe 300 for healing. More saved in meeting two: many more prayed for: and increasing again in meeting three! It’s almost impossible to explain how tiring preaching and praying for crowds of people are, but it is oh so rewarding…. but by the time the 4pm meeting came around, we were shot…. but again, it’s amazing how God re-invigorates you when you need him to! During the worship, we were singing (in Spanish of course!) ‘Open the heavens, let it rain…’ when all of sudden the ceiling above the platform came crashing down under the pressure of an immense torrent of water… who said God doesn’t answer when we ask! It was a very prophetic moment, and paved the way for an unplanned sermon on my part!

During the 4 services, at a conservative estimate, 250 gave their lives to the Lord! I asked for testimonies of healing before I spoke: three ladies with cancer testified to immediate healing, feeling the cancer leave them, and (physically) seeing that tumours had disappeared. A lady testified that when John prayed for her, intense stomach pain disappeared: Alan saw arthritic fingers straighten, so did I…. diabetes, high blood pressure, osteo parosis were healed, along with a myriad back issues, and I do believe that we’ll hear the story of the healing of a lovely little girl, Ana, who was brain damaged at birth by oxygen deprivation….

I could blog on, but we’ll try and collectively get the stories ‘catalogued’ – and, truth is, after 7 hours of sleep in 4 days (hardly slept last night, the adrenaline of the meeting was pumping: I’d appreciate your prayers for sleep!), I need to go to bed soon!

Today we were at Club Noel, the children’s hospital: we saw some physical healing, but perhaps the most remarkable was little girl, Sara, maybe 3 years old, whom Alan prayed for – T.B, chronic asthma, immobile, lifeless – who instantly was up and kicking, and…wait for it… speaking in English, which she didn’t know, of course, being Colombian and only 3….. There will be many testimonies when we’re back there on Monday next week…..

 

27 February

Seems it might be possible that someone (!) doesn’t want us to go to Cali…. we all got up at 3.15am to leave for the airport at 4am, boarded the plane just a few minutes late, then all had to get off again because there was a ‘maintenance problem’. I guess with the two recent big high profile crashes here in the USA, there is heightened paranoia, but it seems there was a big dent in the small fin-type wings on the tail…. we were told it would be sorted in an hour, then another hour, then another hour…. until finally at around 10.30 am – when it was too late anyway to get our connection in New York for Miami – they announced what we all knew and the flight was cancelled…

We waited for our luggage to be returned, and somehow they’d managed to lose one of mine when it hadn’t even left the airport… it did come back in the end, then we all creaked and groaned our way home, to do it all again tomorrow. Thankfully, we’re NOT with Delta this time (YEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Hooray!) and we’re flying two hours later direct to Miami, then on to Cali…. so, an unexpected evening at home to sleep more than 45 minutes I slept last night, and maybe even watch a movie …..

We know now that it IS going to be a good trip….

26 February

Catch up time again! In a few hours, I’ll be leaving for Cali, Colombia, where, if God does there what he’s done every time so far, there should be lots of wonderful stories to relate here… please pray that the five of us going – Alan from Bangor, Northern Ireland (who God is using increasingly and wonderfully in healing even though he’s ‘only’ been saved 14 months!), John from Virginia, my Pastor here (he turns into a prophetic steamroller when he lands in Cali!), and Dave (prophetic, musician) & Clare (preacher, prophetic) Cleave, from Cornwall but now in Virginia too.. .will really sense the Word of the Lord, and know the power and release of His Holy Spirit….

Please continue to pray for Jenny (see 16th) – she’s doing better, but Satan is NOT going to win…. pray especially for Michael &Lynne that they will know the power of praying people all over the world supporting them as they defend their daughter against the onslaught of the enemy….

Some wonderful stories… I’ll have to try and be brief as I’m still packing to leave in 6 hours’ time and it might be nice to sleep for a couple of hours!

Robert in Northern Ireland, cancer… told by doctors a number of times not to plan too far ahead (!) in his late 70’s…. his dream 2 years ago was that he’d live long enough to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary to Betty… prayed with him then that he’d not only achieve that, but live to see many more than 50. The 50th is this year, now, and the doctors have told him that his cancer-cell count is the lowest it has been for a very long time…. Robert’s an amazing man, incredible faith, determination, and he’s become a wonderful friend.

Graham in Scotland… desperately ill last year (Aug/Sept), young (early 40’s), young family…. had loads of surgery, lots of things partially and totally removed. Really, his prognosis was no sort of normal life…. if there was to BE a life… he just ‘happened’ to be home from hospital on the weekend I was in Troon/Ayr, had the joy of praying with him and Lynne…. from what I understand, some of the removed organs have…er…. miraculously re-appeared, and they have just returned from a 5 week I think – I stand to be corrected!) holiday in Australia….

There are more…. but I really need to pack!

 

16 February

Please could I ask you to pray for Jenny, the lovely little girl in Northern Ireland? Jenny has been under constant onslaught since new year’s eve, with various infections that have gone way beyond ‘normal’ in the ferocity of the attack on her… she’s been hospitalised a number of times with chest infections, two of which (I think, might be more) have stopped her breathing. All I can feel and believe for this amazing little fighter – and she really is that – is that she has such a future ministry (though the enemy doesn’t know the future, of course, any more than he knows he’s beaten) that Satan has sent his legions after her life. Please pray that not only will he not succeed, but that Jenny will do such damage to the him in the future…. Please pray for Michael and Lynne, too, her mum and dad, who are so amazingly strong through these incidents….

Thank you. Bless you.

11 February

Wonderful few days here in Northern Ireland, with the beginning of at least one amazing miracle unfolding!

Despite the astonishing winter weather, flew here ok, which was a great relief. So much of the UK seemed to have ground to a halt with snow and ice. Had the privilege of preaching at both morning services of West Church, Bangor (my home church here!) – prayed for dozens of people for healing and many other things at the end of each service. In the evening, with it having snowed much of the day, headed south towards the border with the Republic of Ireland to Armaghbreaghe. A lovely Pastor, Ivan Thompson, is pioneering a whole new move of God’s spirit there, so it was a delight to speak at the healing service, which we got to with ease, as the snow seemed to melt in front of us! There was, though, a lot of snow around the church, and we wondered if many would come as it was bitterly cold.

Well, around 100 did… and I guess we prayed for around 60-75% of them at the end…. including the joy I had of praying with a lovely young woman, Diane, told by doctors about 3 weeks earlier, that there was nothing more they could do for her cancer… those words bless me, as it means that there is only one thing left for medics and cynics to acknowledge when healing comes – that it was God who did it. Diane had received a lot of treatment – including radiation, which gave her skin cancer, as if she needed that on top of all the internal cancer she had… she’d had many surgeries, scarred all over her body from neck down: had lots of tissue and lymph glands removed, many tumours taken away. Despite her dire acute illness, she’d managed to achieve a first class honours degree in Occupational Therapy, so all in all quite a remarkable young woman – who had been sent home to die with a supply of chemotherapy tablets to take until……

As I prayed for her, I found myself praying that God would give her new flesh, new skin, to replace all the scar tissue, that it would be external evidence of the internal miracle. (How many times do I think, ‘Me and my big mouth??’).

WELL…… Monday evening her dad said to her ‘I think the scar on your neck is shrinking and getting paler…’ – closer examination showed that not only was that true, but new, pink, fresh skin and flesh were appearing where the scar had been… that is happening on her chest, as well, I’m told…. if that’s not a miracle, what is???!! God is so, so good….. I’m waiting to get hold of her phone number to talk to her…. encourage her, pray for her, and hear as the miracle unfolds….

Last night, a lovely meeting at Towerview Free Methodist church…. prayed for a man named Robert, with parkinsons… Alan, my good friend, had prayed for him, then I prayed, having been praying with others whilst he was with Robert… and by coincidence (!) I prayed exactly the things Alan had… Robert’s face changed… he looked so different from when he’d arrived… looking forward to hearing what God has done for him today! Both Alan and I knew that we knew that we knew he’s being healed….

Miracle Jenny J is doing well…. dad and mum and family are such an inspiration, and quite amazing in their faith….

More to tell, and to come, but now I need to sleep, as I leave tomorrow back to England, en route to Romania Friday…. Colombia’s coming soon, too…. can’t wait!

 

5 February

A couple of weeks’ silence… can’t remember when I had a month at home, with only a few meetings locally in the USA to speak at… I’ve said before, I struggle a bit with relaxing – like with sleep, relaxation and I are not the greatest friends! – but as the days went by, I got more and more tired, which suggested that my body actually NEEDED the break… Added to that, it’s the first time in a long time that I’ve been able just to sit and listen to the Lord, and he said things to me, and did things in me, that I didn’t know needed doing! It was a precious and special time.

One of the -very – unexpected things that God did was in the most unlikely of ways… for years my brother in law did ‘slide’ photography, and had a mass of transparencies in his garage which he and my sister never looked at any more… until I told them a couple of months back about slide scanners, for the computer. Since they got one, they’ve been avidly scanning and printing. 10 days ago, they sent me a few pictures from over 40 years ago: with my mum, when I was 12: and with my dad, in May/June 1965. One picture, a picture taken from behind, was of me and my dad, who died suddenly 3-4 months later, with our arms round each other, and little 12 year old me with my head on his shoulder…. no sooner had I clicked on it to open it and the tears erupted…..for hours. Even as I’m writing this, it’s happening again….. Dad died in September ’65, only 41 years old, and I only knew him for a little while really, but boy, did I love him… and I realised in January 2009 just how much I miss him, what a wonderful dad he was, and how much I’d still love him to be in my life. The bible says that there are many teachers, but not many fathers… they are so important, whether ‘natural’ fathers or spiritual…. I thought that I’d dealt with the loss of my dad years ago: only to find that the grief was still sitting in an unknown part of my emotions and I had no idea….

Travelled back to England last weekend, to arrive just at the same time as the snow, and with the wonderful prospect of quite a bit of driving ahead! I was down in Cornwall to see my mum, sister and brother in law and nephew Stewart…. it was good to see them and be able to rpay for them. I went a day earlier than I’d planned to race ahead of the snow, as I was always told they never had any in Cornwall…! Hmmm…. they do, and a lot! It was ‘interesting’ driving on narrow hilly roads, with parked cars, and walls pretending to be hedges, where no car had gone before, on fresh snow on ice…. hmmm. Prayed a lot, as even a small dent on my trusty Toyota would see it written off (totalled, for any Americans!)… well, it is 15 years old, and on the journey back from my Rhinos get together last night (again, finishing early to race today’s snow – good job we did, as where we were had 8 inches (20 cms) today….

Talking of Rhinos, had a wonderful time away with them, even though two couldn’t be there. It’s so hard to verbalise just how vital this group of men are to me. It’s so wonderful to be in an environment where I know I’m loved for me, not for what I do, and where I can be …me. And to have a bunch of anointed, spirit filled men, anoint you, pray for you, and prophesy over you, is a wonderful blessing….

So, weather and open airports permitting, I’m in Northern Ireland from Saturday, preaching three times on Sunday, and doubtless a few more times during the week, before heading back to England onwards to Romania….. a few days there, then back to the USA for Colombia on the 27th. There seems to be a huge expectation in Cali for this trip, so my faith is rising up through the roof for it… And I’m believing for great things in Ireland too…. in the evening, the first ever (I believe) healing meeting in Keady/Armaghbreaghe, close to the border… come Lord Jesus, and do what only you can do….

 

24 January

Just a note to say an update to one testimony, and a lovely new one, have been posted on the ‘testimonies’ tab…. preparing here to preach at my home church tomorrow, value your prayers, I want to share something relevant and from God.

Also to say that my trip to Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro has been postponed (I’m beginning to get a complex about postponed trips!!!!) – very valid reasons, but it leaves me with some dates to fill in May. I’m due to be in Romania mid May, so if you want me to come to your church, I might well be able to!

The pound continues it’s merry way to the bottom of the world currency pile, it is down to $1.37 to the pound commercially now, which means for ordinary people $1.31 tops… to have dropped so far so quickly is a disaster! And it keeps going down….

19 January

Tomorrow’s a big day here in the States, following today’s national holiday (Martin Luther King Day), with the inauguration of Mr Obama. Who knows where the world will go now from a human perspective? On the surface, he seems to have it all, but I remember only too well a similar ‘young’ man with the looks, the answers, the smile, the charisma, and the oratory, riding to power to in the United Kingdom 12 years ago. Thank God GOD’S in charge…. we don’t have to know, believe, or want any more than that.

God is still faithful: I’ve had to remind myself of that over and over even in the last 24 hours, as the pound has once again plunged against the dollar – last week, it was mildly hopeful, when it reached the ‘heady’ heights of $1.53 to the pound (6 months ago it was $2.06). Tonight it is at the lowest it has been commercially for a very long time – $1.42 – and the commercial rate is always much higher than the tourist rate, so I guess for me it’s around $1.37. God is faithful….. but would you still pray for a miracle financially for me, please? Pray always helps accelerate God’s faithfulness!!!!

The next trip is pretty much non-remunerative, with a visit to my mum, the Rhinos accountability days away, and Romania… I’d really appreciate your prayers!

14 January

Well, no great revelation as to what to do with the ‘lost’ 10 days that will now be Alaska next year… at least, not yet! – so it looks like I’ll have a few extra days at home, which is a very nice prospect, as I don’t often get a ‘run’ of weeks at home. It might mean I feel compelled to do more cleaning (though I think that’s unlikely!), rather use the time to see people/pastors in this area and develop friendships and relationships. If I’m honest, when I’m at home, I sometimes feel guilty because, with people supporting me so sacrificially, I ought to be out ‘doing’. Truth is, the average pastor or missionary seems to get a sabbatical every 7 years, often for between 3 and 6 months, and in 30 years I’ve never had one! So maybe 3-4 weeks at home is acceptable…. This Sunday, 18th January, marks the 30th anniversary of my last date I received a salary cheque/check. Quite a remarkable testimony, not to what I’ve done, but to God’s love, loyalty, faithfulness, and provision. I really feel humbled and blessed: if anyone had told me in 1979 when the first scared and tentative step was taken to walk away from a career in banking, that 30 years later I’d still be on that path, I’d have laughed and said it’s not possible… So, here’s to the next 30. I’ll only be 86 then, so I should still be running….

10 January

It’s always a joy to go to visit my great friends’ Frank & Phoebe Shaia’s home fellowship – The Watering Hole’ – in Williamsburg. There is always a very real sense of the presence of the Lord there, and it’s always informal, relaxed, but extremely powerful. The people are a very prophetic bunch, and last night I was so blessed to be on the receiving end of some amazing words from the Lord through a number of them.

It is a great privilege to have prophecy spoken over you (when you sense it is right, and not ‘flaky’!! – there is plenty of that sort around!). Frank is very prophetic, and has prophesied over me a number of times in recent months, especially to do with God opening up Mediterranean countries to me, beginning with a picture of a door, very specifically Med ‘style’. Last night it was more detailed, mentioning ‘a pastor in Israel’ and another ‘pastor in Italy’. I have a few indirect links in Israel, but none in Italy, so but moving closer to Italy in a few months’ time as I go to Croatia and Montenegro, on the same trip as Serbia…. those of you who know me will know the ‘angel’ story: God spoke very clearly last night about an increase in his divine protection, and that (and this REALLY blew me away!) he will go wherever I go. Before you jump on theological ‘high horses’! that really is a direct fulfilment of God’s promise in Psalm 37:4, which I’ve taught for years, and then about 6/7 years ago heard Bill Johnson (Bible expositor extraordinnaire known to many) preaching, that it is not God’s desire he wants to fulfil through us if we delight in him, it is OUR desire… what do YOU want…. which in turn is fulfilled by Jesus’ promise of ‘anything you ask in my name, I WILL do it…

 

I’ve longed to go to Israel, never been, always feeling that as it wasn’t a ‘mission’ trip, I couldn’t justify it… I think, too, that I’ve always wanted to go with a specific English preacher, who knows Israel inside out, and the Muslim world, too: perhaps I need to contact him and ask him if he has plans to go again soon…. he’s in his 80’s now. I felt a few more pieces fall into place last night, and almost like a changing up of gears….

There was more to the prophetic words, but I’d value your prayers as I weigh up and get others I’m accountable to to weigh up, what God has been saying. Thank you!

 

8 January

If you get the chance, do have a look at the new testimonies from Victor and Roy on the ‘testimonies’ page… I will add the photo of Victor when I can remember how to do it…. 🙁

Christmas & Winter 2008/09 newsletter now available!

7 January

Well, things can change fast! A lovely Pastor in Bethel, Alaska, called yesterday- it seems that one of the churches I was going to be involved with, with Dave & Clare, has gone through a radical change, with the Pastor (not the one who called, he’s overseeing the transition) standing down, leaving the church in a state of flux. In a community that small (just over 6,000 people in Bethel) such a change ripples out through the community, and it seems better that the imminent trip is postponed. So, having bought clothes for -56F (that’s what it has been there!) it looks as though I’ll be asking Eddie Bauer to take them back from me before I take the labels off! What it HAS done is begin a lovely relationship building with the overseeing pastor, which will be a big plus when the visit does take place, which is likely to be a year from now….. so, I’m praying and asking God what he wants me to do with the ‘spare’ 10 days I now find I have!

6 January 2009

I’m so sorry, for anyone who keeps up with my blog, that it’s been a couple of weeks now since writing here, but Christmas, New Year, and the problems with the software have got in the way. Right now I’m downloading a new version of the web editing software, so hopefully that’ll be history!

I do hope and pray that you had a good Christmas, and that 2009 will be a year of immense blessing to you: in the face of a worldwide recession, I pray that (and believe that) God will ‘survive and prosper’ His people when other businesses are collapsing all around.

Having not been in the United Kingdom since 19 December, it’s funny to think that Woolworths, a shop that’s been around for a hundred years, almost twice my lifetime, will not be on the High Streets when I get back there at the end of the month… no more getting all the Roses & Quality Street caramels from the Pic’n’Mix 🙁

The last couple of weeks for me have been such a blessing, having the amazing privilege and delight of Christmas in the Caribbean as a gift, with a lovely family from Ireland: I can’t even begin to say in words what a blessing it has been. I realised when I ‘stopped’ how tired I was, and if I’d spent the holiday just about anywhere else, I’d have found stuff to do, especially at home…. so to be blessed in such a way was an amazing gift. I won’t say too much as I know it’s very cold where a lot of people who read this blog live…. but it WAS very warm, and the sea very blue…. and I hope my tan doesn’t fade too fast 🙂

Once the new software is installed, I will post a lovely testimony from Colombia, which arrived a few days ago, and a furhter testimony of the little boy, Sam, who began to talk recently…. hopefully, too, with a few days at home before Alaska, I might even get some more pictures and testimonies posted….

My newsletter is now here online, unsurprisingly on the ‘newsletters’ page under December 2008…. so if you didn’t get one, or binned it with the avalanche of mail you recieved over the holiday, you can read it and/or print it from here…

I’d appreciate your prayers as the dollar and euro continue to strengthen against the pound…. the rates in the press are very often the commerce rates, and tourist rates for mere mortals like us is mostly a few cents lower.

I have a lot to prepare for Alaska – I’ve been asked to speak into such issues/ subjects as hopelessness, despair, depression, suicide, lack of vision… in a culture which is affected so much by SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder – due to the ultra short daylight that far north, these are huge issues. I was briefly chatting to a Pastor on the phone today, from Bethel, which is about a far west as you go in Alaska, who told me that it was a little warmer today – it had risen to -40 degrees (yes, minus 40!)…. it sent me straight out to look for thermal clothes! Thank God for Eddie Bauer stores!!!! Please pray as I think through how to address all the issues positively, without it seeming I just don’t understand….

 

21 December

Seems that quite a few people didn’t get the newsletter I emailed out at the beginning of the month. I don’t know what my internet provider does with mass mail: in the summer, I sent it once to everyone, and some people got it over 60 times (what a blessing!)… if you’re reading this and didn’t get it, can you email me and tell me please, as I haven’t been able to put it on the newsletter page yet due to the problems with my software!

I’ve added a few more testimonies though, if you want to read them.

I’d really value your prayers (even though I know God is faithful, they still help!) with the British pounds’ crisis on the exchange rate front… as the pound slides down against the dollar and euro, both those currency devaluations affect me…. the commercial business rate, which is the one you hear on the news, is always higher than the tourist rate, which is the one ordinary people like you and I get. So though it gets reported that there are $1.48 to the pound, when you buy as tourists (and that includes using cash machines/atm’s) you get about $1.38 (6 months ago it was $2.06). And as for the euro (which I need when I’m travelling to eastern europe and other countries!), the official rate is 1.05 euros to the pound: at the airport on Friday, it was 0.95 (6 months ago it was 1.45). God IS faithful, but there is also a reality, and that is that I’ve lost about 35% of my ‘income’ plus the supporters who have had to stop their support due to the current crisis…..

 

20 December

Home again… long day yesterday flying! It was different for me, as I flew in the afternoon – it was nice not having to be at Heathrow at 5am, which I often am for flights! – but it made getting home really late! John was at Washington DC airport to meet me though, and drove home 3 hours, having literally just driver there the same amount…

Still having big problems with my web software – I keep trying to get this particular version of the software, but there’s a newer ‘model’ out now, and I can’t get hold of Tim, who designed the website, to find out if he can still use the old one if I get the new one… not exactly a world-shattering problem, but it does make it hit and miss as to when I can actually get the software on my computer to load….

Ireland continued to be a time of real blessing – is it ever anything else these days? Really is becoming my second home…. I’m back there again in February, which I’m already looking forward to.

Romania was good, too: only there for around 3 days, but busy, and a real blessing. I was going straight from the airport to visit my mum, in her home in Newquay, but there’s an awful bug going around, seems like everyone in the place has got it, mum included, and the staff, so it was better from their point of view not to go. Praying for mum that it doesn’t get worse for her.

Two lovely days at Chantmarle Conference Centre, in Dorset, with World Harvest Christian Fellowship. It was their annual church conference, and I followed, as speaker, my great friend Arnold Muwonge, a wonderful prophetic Ugandan missionary to England…. a hard act to follow. I had two main sessions, and after Wednesday evening’s, I think I must have prayed for just about everyone at the conference…. I was praying for a good 2 hours, and people testified there and then, and next morning, to knowing that God had healed them. I love being with African churches, they are so open to the Spirit of God, and faith doesn’t seem to be the ‘issue’ for them like it does for so many of us westerners.

They are also very honouring, and the Pastor, Wale Babatunde, was so gracious and kind in his introductions, and I hope and pray that this will grow to become a great friendship, not only with him, but with his churches. It is a great ministry, and effective in a number of nations.

4 days to the wonderful celebration of Jesus’ arrival on earth: I hope and pray that your Christmas will be blessed, peaceful, and joyful, that the problems of the world will become God’s problem for you, and that 2009 will be a year of blessing and anointing.

 

 

10 December

I do apologise but I’m having a spot of bother with my web page software! It keeps telling me, when I try to load it, that there are important files missing, so actually getting it to load is somewhat hit and miss…. guess I need to reinstall it again, but that means a long download which I can’t do until I’m back in the States. So, no blog update, newsletter not posted yet… hopefully soon! Some more testimonies to put here, too….

I’m having a great time here in Ireland, with lots of people to pray for, a few meetings, and chance to catch up with friends… I leave here in the morning though, to fly back to England, then crack of dawn Friday, fly to Romania for 3 days.

I’m sure that here, very soon, I’ll hear testimonies from these few days… often don’t hear them until I come back ‘next time’ 🙁 … heard today the story of a lovely lady (I won’t mention her name) who’d suffered from acute depression for a long time, and a stack of insecurities… totally transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit through prayer. Healing comes in all shapes and sizes! One lady, last night, with severe neck and shoulder pain, was healed…. a young lady with a curved spine and as a result, uneven hips and feet – well, her spine moved as she was prayed for…. God’s Good!!!!!!!

2 December

Starting to pack to get into yet another of those hollow metal tubes to be whisked 7 miles up at 600 miles per hour…. under the control of…..who? I’ve no idea who I entrust my life to every time! But, it’ll be worth it, as I’m headed for Bangor, Northern Ireland, very much a ‘home’ for me now. I go there Saturday morning, until the following Thursday, then a flying visit to Romania, followed by the real privilege of speaking at the prophetic conference of World Harvest Christian Fellowship, a church pastored and led by a man with whom I made a very real connection at the Detling Bible Week, Wale Babatunde.

The past couple of weeks have been great… filled with mail, email, videos, mail, laundry, videos – and the highlight – 4 days over in Houston over Thanksgiving, with my daughter and son-in-law, Katy and Joshua, and my two great grandsons, Ethan and Seth…. I have to say that, even though he’s ‘only’ my son in law, I’m so proud of Joshua, who graduates with a degree in accounting, which he has done in his spare time, alongside a demanding job with NASA and two young sons to ‘help’ with his homework… Katy & Josh have done amazing over the years he’s been studying, and he’s graduating with what would be in the UK a first class honours degree, and in the States, a 4.0 ‘score’…. It was fantastic to have time with Ethan and Seth, we ‘bundled’ and laughed a great deal, and it was good to have English stuffing with the turkey, and roast potatoes….!

So, 15 busy days now coming up, returning here on 19 December – but…. with the (still) amazing prospect of Christmas in Barbados…. still seems like a dream! I’m wanting to get as much sun as possible to stockpile it in my system for the trip mid January to Bethel, Alaska… where some days it could be 2-3 hours of daylight, and temperatures lower than -40 fahrenheit (no idea what that is in new money!)…. life’s certainly varied! And I do put this ageing body (56 years old on the 14th December!) through its paces, and hammer it with extremes sometimes!

My latest newsletter is now ‘out’ (if I can remember how to do it, I’ll put it on the newsletter page here!). Would value your prayers as the pound continues to plummet against the dollar, losing 5.2% yesterday, and taking it to its lowest point for many, many years…. that means the pound has lost around a third of its value in 3 months, which equates to about a third of my support disappearing!

 

20 November

It’s nice to have stopped for a few days! Though there’s a lot to catch up with now I have, and wonderfully exciting things like mail andlaundry (I know, they plague you, too: but often I can’t get near a washing machine so it stacks up a bit… 🙁 ! It’s been good to catch up with myself: the last few weeks have been so hectic…. I’m not sure I know how to relax any more!

Some lovely stories in the mail this week… I’ve put them on the testimonies page, if you want to read them. I have to set to on writing a newsletter, too: for someone who still doesn’t know much about computers, or design, it can be quite stressful!

Something occurred to me (maybe it was God reminding me??) a week or so back. January 2009 is the 30th anniversary of my living without a salary (some would say living without a job, I guess!). I’ll fill the story in in more detail in the newsletter, but by 1979. I had been arguing with God for a few years over leaving my job and going into full time ministry. I liked the idea of ministry, but I also liked having a salary on the 18th of every month…. I don’t ever believe that God makes us ill, but I DO believe that he uses it sometimes to teach us, or show us things that we wouldn’t see or hear in the normal ‘stuff of life’. I got a gastric flu bug, nothing too serious, was sent home from work early on a Thursday afternoon – and never went back. Fifty one and half weeks later, and many inconclusive hospital tests, including a couple of weeks IN hospital (for a while they thought I might have leukaemia – I actually had brucellosis, which until then I only thought cows caught…), I quit my job, having learned to live on less and less over that almost-year (I only got paid for a month as my length of service didn’t qualify me for me).

Ebenezer – ‘hitherto has the Lord helped us’ – more modernly translated as ‘God has been faithful up until now’…. back in July, in Cali, Colombia, American prophet Rodney Nelson prophesied over me that same name – and added that God will be faithful from now on. (That was the prophetic word where God said ‘the dead is raised…’ and it is recorded in full on the ‘who is Paul – what other people say about him’ page). God HAS been faithful: 1979 was tough, but God showed me a lot. Since then, God has been so, so amazing in what He has done, where He has allowed me to go, and allowed me to see….

Next Wednesday, I have the total delight of being able to go to Houston, to spend Thanksgiving (still none too sure what the celebration is all about!) with Joshua, Katy, Ethan, and Seth, my daughter, son in law, and lovely grandsons. I’ll be there until Sunday, so doubtless I’ll be a worn out granddad when I fly back here to Virginia!

14 November

Goodness me, time is flying by…. another week since I updated here…. so much has happened this week!

Super time with the Vineyard Church, Melton Mowbray – wow, how that church has grown in the 21 months since I was last there, and how God is blessing it! It was lovely to see so many respond for ministry at the end, and even lovelier to have the church ministry team take a lot of the praying! Looking forward to hearing stories… I’m sure there will be some!

Straight back to Addlestone, where I rapidly repacked and overnighted with my dear friends Keith & Margi to get to Heathrow early for the flight to Sweden. Hoped Sweden might NOT be cold and wet like England, but it was a vain hope! Four terrific meetings over a couple of days with Agape Church, Sundbyberg, Stockholm: some ‘immediate’ healings, including a lovely one of a none-too-young lady who had suffered lifelong pain from rheumatic fever, and her fingers had ‘seized’ up preventing her playing the piano in church, which was her delight and part of her worship to the Lord…. prayed for her Monday evening, she testified to no pain on the Tuesday evening, and played the paino in the worship…. other healings and ‘healings in progress’ were testified to, so it made it a great couple of days! Spent a few hours on Tuesday with my great friend Stojan Gajicki, which was lovely, and fixed up a return visit to Serbia, and also Croatia and Montenegro, too….

A trip to Finland also looks very likely, and a return ‘tour’ of Sweden…. in March and April… it really does seem that God’s sense of humour in having me live on the far side of the Atlantic and yet bring me to Europe consistently will continue!!!

Two great days away with the Rhinos, such an important part of my diary and more than that, my life… don’t know what I’d do without those guys speaking into my life, praying for me, and caring for me…. priority number one, without a doubt!

Busy weekend this weekend, Friday and Saturday in Cornwall visiting my mum, sister, and brother in law – and nephew Stewart of course – praying with them and for them, then on to Plymouth tomorrow, to speak Sunday morning in City Church, one of my favourite ‘visits’…. and another Sunday evening, to Maranatha Church, Exeter, both churches so alive and so open to the Holy Spirit….. a good day ahead of many hours in another hollow metal tube back to the USA….

7 November

Great time on Sunday at King’s Church, Wellington, Somerset, England: especially good to catch up with some ‘old’ friends (it’s probably 7 years since I was last there!), and even more special as it was wonderful to have Heidi & Stuart Plympton there, sharing in the ministry. It was Heidi’s first public ‘outing’ for well over a year: you’d never have believed it as she produced prophetic word after prophetic word for the church and individuals…. so good to work alongside her again! Prayed for pretty much all the people there, I reckon!

Lovely story in today from Scotland…. “I’m sitting here at the laptop still wearing my specs – but still hopeful of healing – but….with no pain in my neck for about the last 5 weeks and just as exciting, I have days where the alarm clock wakes me up! I’m sleeping so much better than I have done in such a long time”. I can vouch for the ‘struggling with sleep people’ (it’s not my most successful past-time!!) so when God does a healing in that area, it is such a blessing! Really did seem to have a ministry of sending people to sleep that week in Scotland!

Here in Romania now, just with a small group of students and one or two other meetings, and then a hurried return to England Saturday afternoon and a drive to Melton Mowbray…. quickly followed by 2 days in Sweden…. and then Rhinos!

An amazing blessing confirmed this week…. Christmas has been taken out of my hands and instead of spending it in the UK, Virginia, or who knows where, some dear friends have asked me to join them in Barbados, which has just blown my mind…. the whole thing is a gift, so it’s just an outrageous blessing from God for which I am extremely grateful.

Been working a little on the diary for the new year, and some provisional datesare in, but not confirmed…. hoping to get that sorted in the next few days!

30 October

Heard a lovely story today from a dear friend who, for many many years, has suffered the most amazing migraine attacks, which have effectively crippled him for days at a time, and often…. had the joy of praying for him (as many times in the past – never give up!) at the Detling Bible Week in August, and this is what he said….

“Thanks to all your prayer support the headaches which have afflicted me for so long, have been significantly better since Detling. I am grateful to the healing power of the Lord mediated through my brothers.”

Been praying for my brother in law, Derek, too, who earlier this year was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He’s been through radiation, and going through hormone treatment. The oncologist had said that it was a nasty tumour, quite aggressive…. a few weeks ago, his PSA reading was up (I’m told it should be less than 5, his was in 3 figures)…. been praying a lot with and for him, and he heard last week that it is now 0.1! Thank you, Lord!!!! The oncologist ‘couldn’t explain it’….

And so, tomorrow, Thursday, I head for the sky again, en route to Wellington, Somerset; Romania; Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire; Stockholm, Sweden; Cornwall; and Plymouth, Devon, before coming back home on 17th November.

For various reasons, the trip to Colombia has been pushed into the new year (probably end of February and into March), which, with hindsight, is a relief, as during these few days at home, my tiredness has been overwhelming. I think a couple of weeks before heading back to eastern europe and England again is probably a good thing!

 

27 October

Can I ask for your prayers please? It’s a purely practical thing, but 4 months ago, our lovely British pound bought 2.1 USA Dollars. So, on a 300 pound withdrawal from a cash machine/ATM, I was getting $620. This week, because of the collapse of the pound in the past months, I get $460 for the same 300 pounds. That means a loss, effectively, of 25% of my ‘income’, and if you add to that the fact that in the last 6 weeks I’ve lost 4 regular supporters, mostly due to the ‘credit crunch’ and loss of jobs, and all for very valid reasons (they still love me, which is most important!), and that’s another 130 pounds plus a month that has just ‘disappeared’. The pound shows no sign of stopping its slide: it’s the lowest it has been for years, and the first time it has dropped below $1.60 for 16 years…. so it is a very very tough time for me right now. Thank you for your prayers!!

26 October

Goodness, has it really been 9 days since I updated here…? My time at home (got home on 21st) seems to have gone so fast, and now only 3 days left before a very busy 3 weeks in England, Romania, and Sweden.

Sunday last week went well (at least, from my point of view!!) at Frensham Baptist Fellowship: it seemed to go well, too, for the high percentage of people from the meeting who wanted me to pray for them afterwards…. guess if it had gone badly they wouldn’t have come forward! It was a joy to pray them, and I hope and pray that there have been many ‘results’….

Hearing stories (slowly 🙁 …..) from other places! A lady in Devon who was off all painkillers having had bad back trouble (‘the physio didn’t quite know what to say…’)!! A lady, Beth, from my home church in Viriginia – her feet both pointed outwards severely, had done (as far as I gather) all her life…and couldn’t straighten them, let alone turn them in. It obviously affected her walking, general mobility, and also her self esteem: she would never wear skirts and always wore trousers/pants in order to cover her feet as much as possible. Just ‘happened’ to hear on Friday evening that her feet are now perfectly straight, she can turn them in if she so desires(!) and she wears skirts….how wonderful for her, and thank you Lord!!!

A lovely man from Ireland (I’ll have to check with him if he minds me using his name here!) two weeks ago was told by doctors that his lymphoma was accelerating and aggressive: the next week they said it was ‘in remission’! I sort of think that might be another word for ‘healed’!

It’s been good being home, but we had a very busy weekend of meetings at our church, and of course my great friends Dave & Clare Cleave are here too…. the church weekend was exciting in that it took place because there is real growth in the church, and it was a ‘restructuring for revival’ weekend…. though I’ll happily leave church structure and the worling out of it to others who might actually enjoy it! It’s been great seeing Dave and Clare, and seeing how well they fit in with the church here…. they’re going to be an amazing asset to Restoration Christian Centre in the months and years ahead.

 

17 October

Well, as usual it has been very busy here in Northern Ireland! So many visits to people’s homes to pray for them, plus the Conference in Coleraine (not too big an attendance, but a great time), and a few meetings interpersed with a lot more praying for people!

The Healing Rooms conference was a great time, despite being fairly small in numbers. It was great to get to know Andrew And Valerie Barr so much better (Andrew in the NI Director of Healing Rooms), and also Steven & Helen Anderson, who were also speaking, the Directors of the thriving and flourishing Healing Rooms ministry in Scotland. Some real connections were made, a lot of people prayed for (inevitable!!). Prayed for a lovely couple, Brian & Carol, Brian has been a Multiple Sclerosis victim for 14 years (he’s 54) together with crushed and collapsed vertebrae and discs in his back. Pain would probably be 15 on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the worst.. 🙁 but by Saturday night he was standing with his arms raised in worship, and ended the evening declaring out loud prophecies that had been spoken over that he will dance for the King, that his healing would continue, and that Satan would have to restore all that had been stolen from him…

Stayed with a lovely couple, Geoff & Wilma McGookin: fascinating to hear Geoff’s story of a transformation from being a convicted UDA terrorist to helping andrew head up the healing rooms….

Being here in Bangor (which I am until tomorrow, Saturday) has been great: very much a ‘home from home’. Didn’t preach Sunday night, but the pastor, Charles, asked if I’d pray for people after the evening service for healing, whaich of course I was delighted to do: thought at first no one was going to come forward and I’d get the evening off….well, the floodgates opened, and I was there 3 hours beyond the end of the meeting! Some people came to tell me that they had been healed in meetings earlier in the year, and needed prayer for other things, or even other people. I’m finding more and more that God is doing the ‘stuff’ by proxy, but then the precedent Jesus set with the Roman Centurion and his servant is a pretty undeniable and convincing precedent, well good enough for me!

Some healings then, some ‘measure of healing’ for others, and some lovely stories…. one lovely lady who a year a ago had major eye problems (like fast losing her sight and heading at best for major surgery) has 20-20 vision without surgery… people getting sleep that had eluded some of them for months and years… a man with a major heart condition that he knew was healed – my friend Alan, from here in Bangor, was with me praying for people on Tuesday evening, and he saw some people healed, too…. truth is, even as I write this, I’m so tired, I’m having trouble recalling some of the healings, so maybe I ought to go to bed and sleep!

Travelling back to England tomorrow, ahead of speaking at the church of Russ & Roz Parker, in Surrey: Russ is a fellow Rhino, a great preacher, and though I’d love to see him, I think I’m slightly relieved that he’s somewhere in North Carolina preaching himself! Guess all of us are insecure somehwere when it comes right down to the nitty gritty!

 

9 October

Back for a week in incredibly cold and wet Britain! Landed at Heathrow Saturday morning, and drove straight down to South Milton in Devon, an ‘open house’ pre-Alpha soiree on Saturday, and for Sunday’s meeting at Kingsbridge.Seems there could be 30 people on the Alpha course, which for a small rural town is pretty astonishing! Sunday morning was a lovely meeting: I don’t know how many people I prayed for, but it must have been around 75% of the congregation, as I stopped speaking at 12 (miracle!) and left the building just before 2.30pm! A lady, Monica I think, with a cancerous bone spur on her foot, and with legs of conisderably uneven length went away with legs the same length. She’d not been able to walk even from the church to the car previously: she did Sunday, and then went out for a 2.5 hour cycle ride! I know many other good things happened, just waiting to hear….

Down to see my mum in Cornwall from Kingsbridge, and my sister and brother in law. Then the long haul back to Addlestone, for the flight to Belfast Tuesday morning. Straight into praying for people in their homes, Tuesday and all day Wednesday, and much of today, Thursday. Driving to Coleraine midday tomorrow for the Healing Rooms conference.

1 October

Wow, the time is flying and my time of’respite’ is nearly over… I didn’t realise until the last few days how much I HAD wound down, and tiredness hit me very hard! One more day before I head back for Washington DC airport, and the delight of an overnight flight landing at some ungodly hour Saturday morning…. still, I have the delight of spending Saturday evening and overnight with my long-time friends David & Sian Fenton-Jones in the heart of the Devon countryside before having the privilege of speaking Sunday morning at the church they attend, Kingsbridge Baptist. Then a drive in the afternoon down to West Cornwall to see my mum, sister, brother in law, and nephew, before heading back to the dear friends Keith & Margie Bland, close to Heathrow, for the flight out to Belfast on Tuesday. I’d appreciate your prayers for strength for this trip, and all of the next 3 months: I know I keep asking, but it is quite a gruelling schedule! My fault, I know, I admit it! But everything seemed like a ‘God idea’ at the time….

I’m looking forward to hooking up with Andrew Barr, the Director for the Healing Rooms, Ireland, again. We’ve met a few times, and it’ll be good to get more time with him, as he’s one of ‘those’ people there’s an instant connection with.

Spent Monday afternoon with a few men who I really think could be the american version of ‘Rhinos’…. John, my best mate was there of course, along with Frank Shaia, from Williamsburg, and Bill Beni, a terrific pastor from Cumberland, about 2 hours west of where I live. There’s a real desire to ‘be there’ for each other, to be honest, share fellowship, and watch each other’s backs. We’re meeting again at the end of the month. That will never, of course, for me, mean quitting Rhinos in England!! The dates we meet together are the first thing in my diary/agenda each year! And ‘m looking forward to being with them in November.

 

27 September

It’s been a nice week at home…. spoke at my home church last Sunday, I felt it was a good word(!) and John did too, which is always a relief! World events are moving so fast, and it is going to take those of us who want to run with what God is doing to run even faster. God spoke to Jeremiah about running with the horses, which is what I spoke about on Sunday….

Some lovely meetings this week with different people, especially with a man who is becoming a very dear friend, Ian Roberts, an Aussie who, with his great wife, Bev, live a few miles up the road, in Willimasburg. Last night, Friday, I was with a home fellowship (‘The Watering Hole’) with great friends Frank & Phoebe Shaia, their fellowship is wonderful and all of them are good friends. It was a joy to pray with a number, some for healing, others just for blessing or prophecy.

Time seems to be racing on now, and in just a few days I’m back on a plane, the same day Dave & Clare Cleave arrive here from England: they are looking for somewhere to live, feeling this is a good place to ‘settle’ for the time being, and they seem to want to travel a bit more with me, which thrills me to bits, as they are great to have ‘on the road’ with you!

Friday begins the hectic spell that leads into Christmas, so I’m praying for God’s increased strength and anointing for the busy days ahead.

20 September

Wonderful time with Southside Christian Fellowship, in Ayr, Scotland…. a weekend of meetings, plus lots of people to pray for in their homes who couldn’t make it to the meetings. Seems last weekend I had a specific ministry of sending people to sleep! Not in the meetings, I would hasten to add…. I lost count of the number of people I prayed for who had major league sleep issues, and a good number testified to having slept the next night, and subsequent nights. One lady, who had not slept more than a couple of hours for some years, slept 8 & 9 hours…. I know only too well that lack of sleep is devastating, so for people like them this is a real miracle, and such a blessing.

It was so good to get to know Colin Mutch, the Pastor of Southside: felt a real connection with him and with others in the church. Colin’s sense of humour is similar to mine (aarrgghhh!!! I hear you shout!), and the meetings were fun, as well as being blessed by God, much as a result of Colin’s lovely spirit and humour.

There were many other healings, and I’m pretty certain that there will be more testimonies coming out during the week and in the days ahead. I’d love to go back to Ayr again soon!

The long drive south went well – I had to be around Heathrow in order to fly home – and it was so lovely to be able to stop off in Keswick (what a gorgeous town) to spend a little time with my cousin Robert, Norma, and their son, Stephen. It’s been a few years since our paths last crossed, and it was such a blessing to ‘hook up’ with them, as my family is unbelievably small, and to lose contact with them almost halved it!

Then the long day coming home…. flight delayed nearly 3 hours due to a cracked outer panel on the plane (!! glad they found it!!), but it was a good flight after that, and great to see the smiling face of John, my Pastor and best mate, in Washington DC airport.

And coming home was so good, too, as at last (I think, hope, and pray!) everything that needed doing in the house is done…. so I can shower, do laundry (delightful!), flush to toilet (even more delightful!!!), AND use the kitchen…. I need a few days of ‘chilling’, I think, though I’m preaching tomorrow at my home church, and will probably have a few more meetings here and there.

13 September

Lovely few days in Bangor and the surrounding area in Northern Ireland. Kicked off by meeting an amazing ,missionary couple from the United States, whose passion for Ireland knows no limits, and who are so wonderfully God-driven crazy. Had opportunity to pray with a couple of their childrem, who suffer from varying degrees of autism. Bangor is where lovely 2.5 yr old Oscar, suffering from acute autism 5 years ago, began his ‘road’ to freedom, so praying for autism there has a good ‘history’ which always makes it easier to pray!

‘House’ calls filled the rest of Monday and Tuesday – going to the homes of very sick folk and praying for them: then a great meeting Tuesday evening at West Church, Bangor, my adopted home church in the UK. Probably about 60 in the meeting, and I think I prayed for just about all of them! My good friend, Alan (who was in Colombia with me) was there, and there’s a wonderful young lady at West who has a real heart and anointing for praying for healing, Ellen. Ellen is, I think, 16, and boy, is God using her already! A lovely young woman, Fiona, was suffering from a neck joint that was very painfully out of place. As Ellen and I prayed, she started making a lot of unusual movements: I asked her what was going on, and was she in pain… no, what she was feeling with my hand on her neck was what the physiotherapist did to her, and had tried to solve the problem over a long period of time…. seems like God did it in a few moments!

Would you pray with me for a terrific man, Paddy (is there a BETTER Irish name??!!) please? Paddy is a very fit man, footballer, 46 years old, with a wonderful heart, who has been hit hard by motor neurone disease. I’ve got to know him over the last couple of visits, and I know God is healing him…. I’m praying that his heealing will be total by the time he and his lovely wife Joanne are due to go on holiday to Spain on 10 October….

Spent some time with John & Karen: their little girl Robyn was the one who went home to be with Jesus just 3 weeks or so ago…. it was such a privilege to be with them, in their time of questioning, grief, and yet a closer and closer walk with God every day. They have become real, dear friends in the past few months. Please remember them in prayer…..

More house calls, including to see my adopted family, the Johnstons, in Donagadhee… just a year ago we met, when their lovely daughter Jenny had been issued with a medical death sentence of maximum 2 weeks…. so good to celebrate her life a year on from that weekend! And my lovely friend Harry, who a year ago was at deaths door (and looked it!)… still some way to full recovery, but he looks a different man, and God’s future for his life is wonderful ….

Then down to Dublin with my friends Robin and Sharon…. to hook up with Joan Hunter, daughter of Charles & Frances Hunter (the Happy Hunters) as Joan was speaking in a great church, Victory Christian Fellowship. So, so good to reconnect with Joan after a good 5 year gap, and meet many from the church there. Joan was fantastic that evening….

Now in Ayr, Scotland…. and a super meeting last night! With Southside Christian Fellowship, God touched loads of peoples lives, and a number were healed, with (I know!) more testimonies tonight….

 

8 September

Lovely day with the folk from Selkirk Baptist: 2 very different meetings, but with many people responding for prayer and ministry…. another one of those situations where the stories will be heard over coming days, even weeks. I’m realising more and more that the purpose of healing is not only to bless the sick person, but very often God has a bigger picture that he wants to fulfil in bringing that person freedom from their illness. So often, too, we look for the ‘instant quick fix’ healing, and if I; hearing god right, he wants to grow the faith of the person being prayed for even if it is an ‘overnight’ healing. Faith is belieiving that you have received what you have not yet seen…

So I’m looking forward to hearing stories and testimonies coming from this past 24 hours! Head off early this morning on what doesn’t look a long journey (in a straight line!) but unfortunately, there aren’t many straight lines amongst roads in Scotland! So 100 miles plus will take about 3 hours, then I fly to Belfast for my few days in Bangor, Belfast, and maybe Dublin…. just praying that Ryanair won’t sting me for excsess baggage!

6 September

Having left behind the 94F/33C hot dry temperature of Virginia, it’s a bit of a shock to come back to the cold, wet British summer – 46F/9C when I landed yesterday! Incredible rain here, flooding everywhere, meant I didn’t attempt the 420 mile /700 km drive to Scotland straight off of the night flight…. did that today, with howling gales and driving rain not presenting quite the hazard they might have done in my exhausted state yesterday!

Lovely being here with Brian & Jess Talbot, in Selkirk, Scotland: I’ve know them for many many years, first meeting on the then Spring Harvest counselling team in Ayr, then in their church, Bulawayo Baptist, in Zimbabwe. 10 years since we last saw each other, feels just like carrying on where we left off! They now pastor Selkirk Baptist, in the Scottish Borders, and it’s a real privilege to be them in their church tomorrow. One of my lasting memories of Brian, especially, was being with him in Hwange National Game Park, very early in the morning, and getting his pickup truck stuck in deep sand…. not SUCH a problem… UNTIL a herd of charging elephants, headed by the most enormous bull elephant, came crashing through the trees straight towards us! Fortunately, at almost the last minute, they veered away from the truck, and went past without bothering to take any notice of the cowering humans, only a few feet away from us! Life is not often dull!

Really looking forward to, though the nerves are there, to this coming 9 days of ministry, in Scotland and Ireland…. value your prayers that what I have to say and share will be from God, and fresh and relevant.

2 September

Well, two thirds of this year have gone – seems unbelievable the speed with which it has disappeared! Thursday kicks in the start of another journey, which really doesn’t end – apart from a few days here at home – until about 22 December. There are some busy months ahead, but I feel at peace that God is in what’s planned! I’ll try and keep updated here – I’ve acquired one of those marvellous ‘mobile internet’ thingys which connect you anywhere that there is a mobile phone signal (in the UK – they cost an arm and a leg to use abroad!). Depends on the strength of the signal of course, as to how much you can do! With my mobile phone company, they say they cover 99% of the UK – I wonder, as someone who travels all over the UK, why I’m so often in the other 1%….

In case you don’t get a newsletter (my Internet provider here in the USA is NOT good at sending multiple emails with an attachment – some people got the current newsletter 15 times, others not at all!) – there’s a downloadable copy on the newsletter page. It has some of the stories that have been recorded here over the past months.

 

30 August

Eight days at home – been nice to have the chance to rest a little, though there’s still disruption in my house with kitchen related jobs unfinished 🙁 I was hoping and praying that it would all get done quickly once I returned home, and that I could ‘enjoy’ my time here, but it’s not to be… I need an electrician, and the one who’s already been paid is away at least until Tuesday, which means I have bare wires out of the wall in the kitchen and things not working… so as I leave on Thursday for Scotland, it means that this time home, too, hasn’t been what I needed. Six months now where I’ve had things going wrong, and contractors of one sort or another in and out or delayed… please pray that it might all be done by Tuesday and I can enjoy Wednesday at home! Hopefully, please God, when I’m back at the end of September, THEN it might all be working as it should!

Two great meetings last Sunday, one at my home church, Restoration, where I preached, and another at the lovely Fellowship in Williamsburg run by Frank & Phoebe Shaia. Good relationship building times too with some other friends from Williamsburg, Ian & Bev Roberts, from the United Methodist Church. Ian & Bev are Aussies, so our ‘English’ is much more similar!

This weekend is a holiday in the States, Labo(u!)r Day, so everything is a little more relaxed generally. Then comes a hectic 3 weeks in England, Scotland, Ireland, Scotland, and Romania…. in fact, it’s a pretty hectic time right up until Christmas! Value your prayers for supernatural strength!

19 August

A few more days with insufficient internet connection… ! Sorry! Ireland was a lovely few days, with my feeling that it was right to go there confirmed by a number of real divine appointments. It has been an increasing blessing to go back to Bangor so many times in the past year, and to build some wonderful friendships as well as see God move and bless.

A few days in England now, preceding my return home to the USA on Friday. Hopefully no more returning home ‘water woes’! I think it should all be ok now – please, God!!!!

13 August

With 10 days due in Romania turning out not to happen (!) it means a little bit of breathing space here in the UK, to catch up with people I rarely get the chance to see. Tomorrow I head for Bangor, Northern Ireland, for a couple of days to pray with a few people for healing, then down to earth as I do a car boot sale as I can use the cash! A few days then seeing people before heading home to the USA, and working on my autumn/fall & winter diary, and doubtless some meetings thrown in! I think God had a hand in this ‘break’, which, as I enjoy it, I realise more and more how much I needed it! September/October/November are pretty manic, with still some things to try and ‘shoe-horn’ in….

7 August

Wow, what a great week! Not been easy to get online sufficiently to get edit the site, nor has the connection been brilliant… also, so, so busy! Amazing week of preaching, teaching, exhortation, ministry…. I ended up doing far more than I’d envisaged in terms of seminars, praying for people… I was involved in seminars with my great friends Eric Delve and John Pressdee (3 sessions), Arnold Muwonge, a wonderful Ugandan missionary to England, with a huge ministry back in his homeland (4 seminars)… I most certainly lost count of the number of people prayed for! I spoke at the Communion service Sunday, which was a wonderful time (no, RT Kendall, John Paul Jackson, and Jackie Pullinger were not there… phew!) nad last night spoke at the youth celebration with about 3-400 15-17 year olds there… huge responses at both meetings…. tonight, in the final celebration, where there were probably 2-2,500 people, Eric Delve asked for people who’d been healed to raise their hands…. about 500+ did, which is wonderful.

Some quick stories… prayed for a lady yesterday, who was healed – but as she fell, Dennis, the ‘catcher’ dropped his glasses and she fell on them. Later, he asked me if I prayed for broken glasses… laughing, I said ‘no, but I’ll pray for your eyes!’ – and his sight was restored! His distance sight was fully restored from having been very blurred….

A lady due at hospital for big tests was having trouble with her creatinin levels… don’t ask me what that is, I have no idea – but she saw me the next day, and the doctor had postponed surgery as her level was normal, and she was healed…

Many back and bone issues were healed, and sight restored….

Arnold Muwonge has asked me to speak at his leaders conference in Kampala next year, and preach in some big healing evangelistic crusades… another amazing African, Wale Babatunde, has booked me to speak at his church conference in December… need to do a bit of juggling of the diary to fit that one in, but I’d certainly love to do it. Wale and I ‘clicked’ the instant we met…. I’ve known Arnold for some years. This really is a quite wonderful conference, and every time I come here, it seems to be better and better.

3 August

Great opening night at Detling, with Eric Delve preaching on 1 Samuel 30: David recovering everything that had been lost – EVERYTHING, after making so many mistakes The God of the second, third, fourth, and more chances…. A real word of encouragement, challenge, and passion.

Today the programme ‘proper’ kicks in, and my first time ‘up’ is to preach at the communion service at 2.30 pm. Steve Hepden is a hard act to replace, but I’m believing with great faith and expectation for God to do some miracles and many healings. Made all the more daunting for me, as the preceding main speakers are R. T. Kendal (known to just about everyone)l, and John Paul Jackson (the wonderful American Bible teacher and prophet), with R. T. Kendall to come after me…..the butterflies are already being commanded to fly in formation! Then tomorrow night, of course, it is Jackie Pullinger-To: God has this wonderful way of making sure I stay humble and not a little insecure!!!! Please pray…..!

31 July

Seemed like a strange few days at home, but now the water is dealt with, the kitchen can be restored while I’m away 🙂 so I can really look forward to going home on 22 August!

Busy day in England today, then heading off to the Detling Bible Week where I’m now due to preach at the communion service on Sunday due to the indisposition of my good friend Steve Hepden…. so I’m hurriedly at short notice asking God what he wants me to say, as the conference wants it to be a healing message with a lot of ministry…  It’ll be great to be back at Detling, which is such a lovely event, growing each year, though it is a bit daunting to be on the same speaking team as R T Kendall, John Paul Jackson, and Jackie Pullinger-To! On Sunday, the communion is ‘sandwiched’ between John Paul Jackson and RTK! Hmmm….

 

28 July

Wow! I’ve got water! I had to get a plumber in and was intending to get 2 or 3 estimates, but the first one who came arrived within about an hour of calling him, he looked at it, and told me he could repair it there and then… which he did! It seems to be fine, and I’ve been like a little boy in a toyshop, running water, doing laundry, flushing the toilet – it’s quite vexciting! Tomorrow, the tiler is in finishing off the kitchen floor, and then Thursday (sadly, from my point of view, after I’ve left for England), the kitchen guys are in, so by the end of this week my little kitchen should be brand spanking new with water…. I never thought I’d enjoy hearing the sound of the washing machine!

It’s all cost more than I’d anticipated, but, like the prophetic word reported the other day, given by Rodney Nelson in Colombia (the ‘who is Paul’ tab, ‘what other people say about…’), God has been faithful up until now, and he’ll be faithful from now on….

I’ve spent the last two days catching up really, and though my house looks like a hurricane has passed through it, there’s not much I can have done to tidy up until the kitchen is done. So I’ve caught up with emails, people, phone calls… and just have tomorrow at home before flying back to the UK. Still trying re-enter the atmosphere from the statosphere, too, which is harder than it might sound!

 

27 July

Back home now, after a long and gruelling journey: it feels a bit like someone has pulled out my plug after the high intensity of the trip to Colombia. It is sometimes hard to ‘re-orientate’ – not just culturally, but spiritually. John my Pastor said on the journey home that it had been the best of the 3 trips he’d made to Cali with me, each one getting better and better, and with more happening. It is hard to sum up in even more than a few words what this trip was like!

Maybe we’ll never find out a categoric answer concerning Andres, the little 4 year old boy who had died in Buenaventura: that’s hard, except that to me, John, Alan, and the two Colombian pastors with us, we felt that God had done the miraculous. That was ‘cemented’ with the prohetic word to me from Rodney Nelson (see ‘Who is Paul: what other people say….’) who knew neither me, nor the situation, and yet who so powerfully prophesied ‘God says that the dead IS raised’… Thank you, Lord!!

Countless miracles, I heard on Thursday from her pastor, Edier, that Angela (see blog entry for 20 July) is walking, getting stronger every day, and has no pain…. wonderful! Thank you Lord! Carmen, Edier’s mum, is also healed of her breast cancer… and I hope that someone videos tomorrow’s meeting in Dios esta Presente, when the young man who woke from the coma having had his breathing tubes pulled out, gives his testimony in the church!

Thursday evening, John spoke in my long-time friend’s church (Jhon & Adriana Bermudez) and seemed to prophesy over everything that moved! He also released a gift of prophecy to many in the church, which is just what that Jhon & Adriana had been praying for. I spoke in a radical new church in the north of the city, and prayed for healing for many: pain went, sickness went, faith rose, and I prayed for a number for the gifts of healings and miracles to be given to them, especially for 2 young men who so passionately want to be missionaries, a crazy wonderful guy named Fernando, who is an extreme evangelist, and for Richard, who has a powerful prison ministry (I met Richard 18 months ago when he was in a Cali prison with us and 220 out of 350 men gave their lives to the Lord….)

Coming out of the ‘stratosphere’ is kind of difficult!

But it was back to earth with a bump…. home at 1am yesterday morning – to no water….seems like the problem is even bigger than was thought before I went away. My good friend, who wanted to have it fixed, found it was more than he could do. So, my house, already looking like a bomb-site with half the kitchen gone, is going to remain that until (maybe) the whole main pipe from the street is re-laid to the house. So, no kitchen on Monday, and I have to be honest and say it is almost impossible to ‘rest’ here, which is what I needed so desperately before heading for England on Wednesday next week. I’d value your prayers for supernatural rest! And… that I can find a plumber (an honest one!) Monday or tuesday, who will do it while I’m away, and that maybe the kitchen can go in then, too, before I get back here on 22 August. I’ve sort of got 13 days then when I can relax a bit, before the merry-go-round that is the autumn kicks off in Scotland on 5th September!

 

24 July

Wow! What a day yesterday! The hospital, Santillana, only saw us pray for one family, but it was a divine appointment, with a lovely couple, Victor and Clara, and their great 12 year old daughter, Hepzibah. All three were sick: Victor with an undiagnosable swelling in his throat, which made his Adam’s apple about 3 times the size it should be; Clara, longing for more children having had 6 miscarriages, with doctors having told her it was impossible because of a chronic womb condition (and more so as she has just reached 50 years old), and Hepzibah, with a strange brain condition that had defied all treatment, as well as having fast degenerative myopia. Prayed and prophesied over all of them in the waiting room of Dr Dunia Quiroga’s consulting area at the hospital. They were blown away, as God began to speak a time frame on the healings, which for me is always exciting but scary! (72 hours isn’t long, Lord!!!!!!!!!)

I thought there might be 100 at the healing meeting I was speaking at: I walked in to see at least 350-400, so I knew it would be a long night! When I arrived at the church, Dios Esta Presente (God is Present), the Pastor, Cielo (heaven!) immediately told me of an amazing miracle following my ‘preach’ there Sunday. A young woman, Diana, asked for the healing of (I think) her brother-in-law, who had been in a serious road accident on January 26th this year. He was very badly injured, on life support machines and a ventilator, with tubes in his throat. Doctors said he would die, and the family had fought for 6 months to keep him alive on the machines. The family have worked out it was virtually to the minute of the prayer that the mum accidentally pulled out the tubes, and neither she nor the doctors could put them back in, normally a relatively easy process. (Dr Dunia says that it is always possible as the holes stay open for around 24 hours)… the doctors gave up, said there was nothing they could do. The next thing was that he opened his eyes, was breathing, and he will be in church on Sunday (I only wish I was going to be here!!!) to give his own testimony (I got Diana to share it with the church from the platform last night).

Also, the sick pastor, Alvarro, who was paralysed 2 weeks (and for 9 months prior to that), walked into the church last night, using a frame, but that was impossible 2 weeks ago…. he walked out WITHOUT IT….!!! He’s also eating, which he hadn’t been, as his throat had been paralysed too, and his voice is returning. I plan (when I can remember how to do it!!!) to put pictures on here as soon as possible!

Maria Fernanda testified publicly last night to the fact the in November, she had a large tumour and could not have children…. I prophesied over her that she wouldn’t need the surgery the doctors were saying she needed imminently for the tumour: the tumour went, and on the platform last night was a young woman 6 months and 1 week pregnant….

Another Fernanda’s husband, William, testified to her miraculous healing from her thyroid cancer (scan down to 1o July to re-read the story) and his daughter’s miraculous new kidneys…. it still all blows me away totally, and I just want to cry. I feel so inadequate 99.99999% of the time, God is just so, so amazing, and I’m so blessed to be in the places I find myself where this all happens….

Last night, there were instant healings – back conditions, bent spines, hearing, chronic pain, a number of knee issues… probably of the people there, we must have prayed for 250-300. Many testimonies to follow, I know that….

John had a great night speaking at pastor Walter Torres’ church, about 50 people there, and he prayed for and prophesied over a good number. We’re going out with a bang, not a whimper, it seems…! Two more meetings tonight, John in the church of our dear friends Jhon and Adriana Bermudez (wish I could be in 2 places at once!), and I’m at a new church, about 100 people, pastored by a lovely guy, Rodrigo Valencia. Expecting great things in both places.

Spent lunchtime with the prophet from Tennessee that I’ve mentioned, Rodney Nelson. Really feel that there is a ‘connection’ there with him. It feels as though I’ve known him years, but until 18 hours earlier, I’d never heard of him, and he’d never heard of me. When he prophesied, he hadn’t even talked to me… had the chance to hear and see the video of his prophetic words over John & me, on Tuesday night…. for me, it was such an ‘affirmatory’ word. John feels I should put it on the website, so if you’re interested in reading it, it will be on the ‘Who is Paul?’ page, under what other people say about me! So, it’s there in full…. those who love me, weigh it for me, and let me know what you feel God says to you about it please?

Strength for today (and bright hope for tomorrow???!!!???) please, if you’re praying for us: we both arrived home totally shot last night, and we’re on ‘catch-up’ today to say goodbye to people before leaving for the airport at 5am tomorrow and the 19 hour journey back to Norfolk, Virginia. And then, the kitchen…..!

23 July

Busy day today! Lunchtime meeting, hospital a few hours this afternoon, then John and I are in different churches tonight. Last night, we went to a meeting at our friend Pastor Walter Torres’ church, where a prophet from Tennessee was speaking, Rodney Nelson. God gave him a blockbuster word me, which was an amzing blessing: and a word for John which confirmed a few things to him. We’d never met him before, just had a chance to say hello and shake hands before the meeting, and, after his message, he had us both up front immediately…. his first word to the two of us was that we were ‘more than apostolic’… the word for me, if, when I re-read it (it was recorded, thank goodness!) is appropriate, I’ll put it on the website….

For me, tonight, it’s a specific ‘healing’ meeting, which I struggle with a little, as, though I know God has called me to pray for the sick, I can’t tell him or make him turn up to heal…. though I’m aware that wherever His presence is, so there is healing! It’s the ‘big’ church from Sunday, so it might be quite a late night…. So many miracles have happened there on this trip, and last November, that I know my faith is high for tonight!

Tomorrow, possibly a cell group meeting over breakfast in Jamundi, about 30 minutes south of Cali, then a lot of people to see, say goodbye to, and pray for, packing, and two more meetings in the evening… we’re going out, hopefully, in a blaze of GLORY…..

22 July

Two wonderful services for John & me on Sunday, and Alan was with me in both as the emphasis was on healing. The first service, Dios esta Presente, at the rather ‘interesting’ time of 7am, was to around 1,000+ people, and only had a few opportunities afterwards to pray for people as we had to rush to the 10am service at another church, El Abrigo el Altisimo. John prayed for quite a few at the end of the second meeting, and I’m due back at Sunday morning’s church for a special healing meeting tomorrow evening. Prayed for loads of people at the second church: some people told me about pain and sickness going, and there’ll be others….

Still no news on Andres, from Buenaventura, we can’t seem to get any, so I’m just running with what I believe – and all of us who went believe – that what I heard God say was what happened…. that he did come back to life.

Yesterday, we had a tremendous time in the very poor Social Security hospital: with many of the patients, you could SEE the peace of God come over them, and the joy of the Lord fill them. So many had major brain diseases – tumours, haematomas, brain trauma of many varieties…. one lovely 15 year old young man, Dairo, had been in an accident in December. There were no obvious physical effects even though he’d hit his head hard: but there was considerable brain trauma which meant that he was totally out of control of his body, which convulsed and jerked every few minutes. Despite that, he seemed happy, and was thrilled that we went to pray for him, as was his mum. His future (without a God-intervention) was major brain surgery which is extremely dangerous, according to our dear friend, Dunia Quiroga, the neuro surgeon who has been mentioned many times in the blog before. Well, guess I spent 15-20 minutes praying for him, then moved on to other patients. Before leaving his section of the hospital, I went back to see him, and talked to him and his mum, and he’d been totally still for over 40 minutes, something that hadn’t happened for 8 months…. I know God healed him, and that he’ll leave hospital totally restored by the weekend.

Just heard that today’s visit to Club Noel, the kids hospital, has been cancelled, as Dunia has so many major surgeries in hospitals all over the city today…. so we’ll just have to phone and check that all the kids were healed, like last November!

A myriad invitations back for later in the year, which is always encouraging…. what a trip it has been so far! Still a good few meetings and another hospital to visit yet…