A few weeks ago, I received a friend request on FB from someone I once knew. He was ‘new’ on FB, and to be honest, a very ‘unlikely’ Facebook person. Last time we ‘communicated’ (11 years ago) he was quite abusive and angry even though he’s what I’d call a ‘flaky charismatic Christian’. I was desperately hurt as we’d been close, and quite angry if I’m honest, though – I hope – I managed to keep my cool, composure, and did everything I could to ‘save’ the relationship. In that respect, it was a failure, sadly.I responded positively to the recent friend request as I felt it was an opportunity to reconcile, and messaged him and his wife with a ‘chatty’ message saying it was good to be in touch again and hoped that God was blessing them. that it would be good to hear their news.

Seeing his profile and photos actually opened up a whole pile of extremely painful emotional information for me concerning my (totally) dysfunctional family. One piece of information opened up another that became increasingly devastating and so it went on.

After 3 weeks or so I’d had no reply to my message, so I went back to his timeline/profile, and his account was closed. Seems he’d opened it and ‘befriended’ me to cause hurt and pain. It’s still closed. For some days – a couple of weeks – I was wrecked, hurt, and so blown away that anyone would open a profile here simply to hurt another ‘fellow Christian'(?) brother.

But some time back God (through another friend) spoke to me about not taking offence, more importantly not holding on to offence, as it destroys the person who holds on to it. With God’s help there’s nothing we can’t ‘walk past’ and move on, and I’m so grateful that Jesus gave us the freedom to forgive – his wonderful, famous words ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they do’ was a greater level of forgiveness for something we’ll never experience.

Don’t hold on to what hurt you: it’ll destroy you. I found and reposted this on Facebook today:

I know that if I’d carried the pain of every time someone had hurt me (or – if I’ve hurt someone else, them too) it would have destroyed me long, long ago – long before it would have affected the man who hurt me.

Met with a lovely young mum yesterday with Jonathan and Kathryn, doesn’t yet know Jesus (on her way to that now, and very bold to meet 3 people she didn’t know to be prayed for) – chronically wrecked right knee, and advanced endometriosis. The knee was wrecked merely by turning over in bed and her foot and didn’t turn at the same time: 5 surgeries had only made it worse, and she’s too young to have her knee replaced (she’s 33). The knee made life almost impossible with 2 young children as she could hardly walk. No cartilage, torn meniscus, soft tissue damage, and bones grating together so osteoarthritis on the menu for the future if not ‘on the plate!’. The knee caused her back pain, too, and she felt the weight of the world on her shoulders.
We met in Costa and spent some time just chatting, and as she relaxed and got ‘used’ to us, prayed for her. I didn’t tell her what to expect as I wanted her to tell me what she felt without having any pre-conceived ideas. Kept the prayer relatively short as faith had been raised in her just in chatting.
I asked her what she felt – and she’d had all the ‘right’ reactions(!) – tingling sensation in the whole of her abdomen, heat and tingling in her knee, her face and eyes had changed as the ‘weight’ went, the pain decreased and she felt God working in her… and a good Costa hot chocolate as well!
More Costa meetings like that in the future…Thank you, Jesus for what you did for her,,,,

I’m often asked if people who are healed by the power of the Holy Spirit through prayer ‘stay’ healed. The answer to that is – YES – many do. Only ‘many’? There are numerous reasons why some people DON’T keep their healing – maybe that’s a blog for another day – but for most who are miraculous healed, their healing stays with them.

In my own life there are some great testimonies – healed of celiac disease (incurable) when I was 13, in the days before healing was even ‘around’ or ‘controversial’ in the church (no one prayed for me, I believe God was preparing me for what was to come in my future!). Then healed of a chronic back condition when I was 18, terrible constant pain caused by a hole in my spine’s neural arch – not good for a regular (and not too bad!) rugby player to have constant back pain… A guy named George Tarleton came to our home fellowship to pray for me – put in touch by ‘lifelong’ friend Clive Calver – and when I went to get my back x-rayed afterward, as George suggested, there was no hole…

I’ve been able to eat anything since being healed of celiac, and apart from ‘usual’ tiredness/exhaustion/uncomfortable beds in some of the more ‘exotic’ (lol!) countries I’ve been to, I never have backache. Celiac healed 54 years ago, hole in the neural arch healed 49 years ago! Thank you, God!!!!

I received this message from my very dear friend Yvonne Pressdee last week – she thought I’d be blessed by it (I was!) – testimony from a church she and John used to lead:

I met D**** who used to be at the Green and we were talking about you – you may remember her because she was due to go Into hospital for an operation on her shoulder the next day and you prayed for her. When she went to hospital the surgeon said there was no need for an op but if she had any more trouble, she could ring him straight away and he would fit her in. That was 10 years ago and she hasn’t rung him yet!.

Wonderful Jesus!! Thank you!!! And bless you D****, and thank you, Yvonne!!

Being someone who will never give up – unless I have no choice – I’ve fulfilled all the meetings that have been asked of me in these past months, even though preaching is challenging for my knees, and in the days following I REALLY know it’s been challenging! I’m still convinced that God will heal these knees: and having pursued the ‘surgical’ route, mostly because people have pestered me to have my knees replaced (!) I’ve discovered that realistically it’s not a route open to me. Why? Because the really good (and nice) orthopaedic surgeon at one of the best Ortho hospitals in the UK (Gobowen, Oswestry) told me that he could do it, that he could have me walking pain-free within 3 months, he then discovered both my history (pulmonary embolism 5 years ago), and my family’s history of deep vein thrombosis, and I was told that instead of 3 months and ‘healed’ I was a 50-50 or worse ‘candidate’ to die of clotting blood on the operating table… not a difficult decision for me once I knew that! And, having looked at what the osteoarthritis in the knees had done to my legs – if I stand with my feet together, it looks like the horse has bolted from between my knees! – he said he could make SOME improvement to the shape of my legs, but not much…

And he must have been prophetic ahead of my reaching (or not!) the operating table, as, within three weeks, the enemy had bludgeoned me with pretty severe DVT AND cellulitis in my left leg. It wasn’t hard to know that something was wrong as my left leg swelled up to 10 cms (2.5 inches for Americans!) bigger than my right. The DVT has had a humongous impact on my knee(s) as the swelling on top of the osteoarthritis had severely impacted my mobility. Daily blood thinners should ultimately reduce the swelling, but of course, the increased pain in my left knee has put more pressure on my right knee (which was the worst one pain-wise).

So I’d really value your prayers for healing – DVT, osteoarthritis, cellulitis as I hope – and pray – the fairly early in the new year, I’ll be moving into my new home, and I need some legs for that, as well as preaching opportunities that come in. There are a number of overseas opportunities next year too, needless to say Colombia will feature a few times! – and of course, the revival in mid-Wales….

Back in the early 1980’s I’d been working for a ‘centre’ of British Youth for Christ’s (BYFC) national ministry for a few years, covering much of East Sussex. My role was to organise/participate in evangelism in towns and villages, organise events, visit schools and prisons to share the good news of Jesus. I never really saw myself as an ‘upfront’ speaker/preacher – I was – and still am – pretty shy (there might be some who’d question that(!) but it’s amazing what you can overcome with God’s help!

In 1983, BYFC organised a small conference, with a small invited audience, that seemed to be ‘outside’ of their brief as an evangelistic movement. It was on Healing – then very marginalised, and somewhat (in certain doctrinal circles) controversial. I’d become extremely interested in, and convinced by – God’s supernatural healing , as I’d been healed twice in earlier years – once from celiac disease, and then from a hole in my spine that caused incredible back pain. Though the conference was invitation only – about 50 people – and all of the delegates were the then ‘well-known’ leaders of that era: and I wasn’t – but I knew I had to be there however out of place I’d feel as a shy guy!

The speaker was Ian Andrews,pioneer of the wonderful God-given ministry of healing, and a founder of Chard Christian Fellowship, a pioneer church in healing from the sixties. The conference was where God got hold of me, and through Ian’s ministry, I knew – though terrified! – that I was going to embark on a whole new phase of life that involved praying for the sick all over the world.

Ian has been the instigator of numerous revivals in the past 30 years, one of his great gifts is ‘ushering in’ the power of Holy Spirit and seeing whole churches, towns, and cities turned upside down. Ian and I have remained in contact since that conference, and when I came here to mid-Wales just knew Ian would be the man to invite to begin a whole new transforming life for this area.

So, for just two days early this month, Ian was here in Welshpool, and a small village a few miles away, Abermule. The area has a history of ‘rejecting’ the Welsh revival early in the last century, and of not allowing John Wesley to preach here, so spiritually a rather tragic history!

On the Saturday evening, in Welshpool, a good number came – more than were expected to be honest – as Ian spoke, the Presence of God was tangible, it seemed touchable: and he got people praying for each other as well as praying himself – and to say the power of God was cut loose would be an understatement. A lot of people were healed and were confident in what God had done enough to testify in the meeting.

But in little Abermule, a much bigger number of people came – and Ian, from years of experience of being in revivals – knew that revival was right on the brink in this little Welsh community as numerous people testified to being healed, set free, touched by the lovely power of the Holy Spirit. When we talked later on, Ian felt that if we’d had a third evening of meetings, ‘full-blown’ revival would have broken out – and doubtless we’d still be having meetings even now!

All being well, it’s our hope – plan – to have Ian back in February, and in the meantime we’ll be continuing to ‘welcome’ revival to the county of Powys, and to Abermule especially!!

GIVING TUESDAY

Today is Giving Tuesday, a movement where people give to a cause they’re passionate about and inspire others to take action.

I’m not sure if you’d consider the ministry God has called me to be something worthy of support, but I’m so grateful to those who do give to the work of preaching the gospel, seeing many, many sick people healed, encouraging and releasing others into ministries they never dreamed they could or would have, the provision of beautiful purpose-built homes for street kids in Colombia to keep them out of the hands of narco-traffickers, and the provision of a hospital wing in West Africa, multiple numbers of toilets in bush villages in Africa and so much more.

This year, for quite valid reasons, I’ve lost (for me, at least) considerable monthly support (so far in 2019 it’s well over £300 a month, £200 quite recently). and because of more recent mobility limitations, a good number of ministry opportunities where I might have received an offering – which are infinitely more valuable than you’d imagine!

If you feel ‘giving Tuesday’ is something that might inspire you to see me fully back in harness in 2020. I’d be grateful! Message me if you would!

My great friend Lee, computer and medical genius, has managed to get me to a page I can do something with (and I mostly recognise!) so a post I just put on Facebook I can repost here what I put on FB – would really value your prayers right now as I’m aware that there are things God has up ahead that the enemy doesn’t like, and I feel as though I’ve been bludgeoned by incessant attacks….

There have been so many demonic, witchcraft, and satanic attacks this year I couldn’t even begin to list them – but last weeks I thought I’d pulled a muscle in my left thigh – I won’t go into great detail, but my thigh began to swell – and is currently 10 cms bigger than my right thigh and 10 cms bigger than it should be… then my shin started to deepen in colour, and I’ve been diagnosed now with Deep Vein Thrombosis, and a return of Cellulitis (had it last year in Colombia) – the doctor at the hospital; and nurse at the Medical Centre have said that both could kill me (heart attack/sepsis) – so after stabbing myself in my gut for a few days last week I’m now on double-dose anti-coagulants for the DVT and double dose antibiotics for the cellulitis. Back at the docs tomorrow and Friday, and I doubt you can imagine a hugely swollen(whole) leg now has impacted to an already osteoarthritic knee – the pain is excruciating (fortunately I have a high pain threshold) and not being able to bend my leg really doesn’t help mobility!

I’m in pretty severe pain with the DVT but trusting that the anti-coagulents will have an effect pretty soon. My shin looks like someone has put it in a woodworker’s vice and planed all the skin off!

Would really appreciate your prayers! Thank you and bless you!