MARRY ME OR STROKE MY HORSE ?

On a hillside which overlooked all of Barcelona we sat down with our lunchtime bocadillos but why, Pilar wondered, was I carrying a heavyweight cassette player? When the moment seemed right I pressed 'Play' and in seconds an amorous Mexican launched into a song which I hoped conveyed everything that I wanted to say - if only I could Spanish. The night before I had painstakingly translated every word of the song, yet one lingering doubt remained, was he saying caballo o cabello, only one letter but a world of difference. Was this Mexican singing about his lady's hair or asking to stroke her horse? I was about to find out. These were the days of high tension over Gibraltar, the Falklands Islands conflict was brewing and the local former Franco officials took a very dim view of any Catholic lady who had become something else, and worse still wanted to marry a Englishman. Six months later, thirty years ago today, the 27th of February, 1982 with a large collection of unnecessary papers in our hands, one even carrying the Britannic Majesty's seal, we were married, first in the City Courthouse and then more properly in a tiny Gayola Baptist Church hidden in an alleyway alongside Barcelona's magnificent Sagrada Familia Cathedral. I did not understand a single word of the proceedings, nevertheless when all went very quiet and every eye settled on me, I discerned that it was time to say 'Si'!  Our reception was a pizza for two at La Mama's and our honeymoon was three days in an unfurnished flat in Salou, loaned to us for the occasion by our 'matchmaker' Eduardo, the director of Youth for Christ where we had met, in real life Eddie from Catford in South London. The finishing touch of the day was the 'Guardia Civil' who emerged from the shadows as we parked facing the wrong way and gave us an on the spot fine which turned our romantic dining ambitions into a supermarket visit. Ladies and gentleman, from that point onwards, by the grace of God, it has just got better and better.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

This highly acclaimed film is not one that we have seen as we prefer our cannibals to be far away and not in our dreams. Nevertheless the title has a certain appeal and relevance. You see, when one of those 'lambs' that Jesus asked Peter and the rest of us to take care of, one that is normally talkative and hungry for your company goes silent you can say with a 99% certainty that it is either ill, lost or it has become a take-away for the wolf.  So a shepherd should leave the other ninety-nine sheep alone to go after the lost one, shouldn't he? You can almost see all the Judean hill farmers moving their heads from side to side but the fact is that Jesus, the chief shepherd, does do exactly that - which is how all of us came to be found by him in the first place. Now, we have three lambs of our own in different parts of the world whose present silence contains more words than any email. To go and find them would cost thousands of pounds in airfares, yet there is one way that we can be at their side in the next five minutes. This is what we know, whether you pray for light and truth to dawn or for whatever is hidden to be shouted from the rooftops, it will not be long before God reminds them to write home and if needs be to spit out their news, which is good because when a lamb comes out of silence that is the first step to healing.

THE STRANGEST THING

The strangest thing happened this week.  On Tuesday our friend Virgilio arrived from Spain and as we were talking about books that night, he being a very gifted author and we being learners, he said that he was reading Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by New York pastor, Jim Cymbala and that he had just finished chapter five.  Virgilio had no idea at all that I was reading the very same book and just that morning I had finished chapter five. We had never mentioned either the book or the author to each other, not once, not ever, yet we were both at the same sentence, he in Spanish, me in English. How do you explain that ? Add in the fact that many months ago I promised our lady pastor Sue Illsley that we would read this book that she was excited about, and I never did so, until now. Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire costs from just 41 pence plus postage at Amazon and tells the story of how some forty years ago Jim Cymbala, by no means a preacher, went as a favour to speak to a disorganised gathering of a dozen discouraged individuals in the Cross and Switchblade gangland of drugs, homelessness and racial tension. Today the Brooklyn Tabernacle is world-famous and overflowing with people and a passion for 24x7 prayer and soul-winning in the power of the Holy Spirit. Let this man and the story that took him and his wife by surprise speak to you, it’s uncomfortable reading here and there, but something deep inside you will say, “Yes, yes.”

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GLUE FOR BROKEN SOULS

If, or when, it all gets too much for you as it did for us last week then reach for these three healing gifts from Psalm 23: Stillness, Scenery and the Shepherd because taken together they are the caresses of God to restore a weary soul. Last weekend we hastily rented a one up and one down rustic cottage built in 1826 near Lake Tallyn in Wales, just a few yards beyond the last telephone line. We went "come rain, come shine, fog or snow," and sure enough in three days we saw all four but in the stillness and in the scenery the Shepherd mended our souls like no pills, no spa and no superglue ever could. Of course you don't have to go to Wales, even in busy homes there is stillness to be found, the scenery might be in the flames of a real fire, and the Shepherd never says no to an invitation.

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THE CARNIVAL IS OVER

It was always a mystery to us how our daughter Lizzie could describe scenes from our one and only visit to Brazil back in 1988. A mystery because Mum was 6 months pregnant and Lizzie (who at that time was confidently prophesied to be John) had not yet been born. Anyway, over the next few years a procession of ladies from Doña Lidia’s ladies only Bible School, Betel Brasileiro in Joao Pessoa stopped off in Nottingham on their way to the nations. Priscilla lived with us for months and Maria Nascimento, otherwise known as Ceda followed her and will be forever remembered for the way she went knocking on doors at lunchtime in the very multi-cultural area of Hyson Green where our School of Mission was based. No sooner than the lady of the house timidly appeared Ceda, who was carrying a guitar, would sing to her about Jesus. Being of native appearance and presumably just as oppressed by the white colonial residents as the local immigrants were, she was not perceived to be a threat and they made her welcome. It was not long before the grand finale of one of our Monday Celebration for the Nations meetings was the baptism of a Hindu lady in her sari who has remained faithful to Jesus to this very day. Ceda married Gary, a taxi driver from Ilkeston and settled into mission and social service not far from us, leaving a smile, an infectious happiness and a blessing where she went. This weekend Gary and Ceda, newly retired, take a one way ticket to Recife in Brazil where they have renovated a modest old house within sight and sound of the beach, in a part of the world where people come to the door to ask about Jesus and to receive counselling, teaching and prayer. Tears were shed when they came to say goodbye and to leave a permanent invitation for everyone in DCI to come and stay with them, just a couple of hours more flying time past the Canary Islands. Let’s all wish them God’s very best, we and the people of our city have been blessed.

WAITING FOR YOU, DON'T BE LONG

Gareth, from Manchester, originally trained as a male nurse but in fact has been in Thailand for the last 23 years after the poor invaded his heart whilst on a holiday there. He sold everything, got on a plane with his cousin and went to do something good. Years later in the same way that Cornelius from the book of Acts was talked about in heaven, Gareth's name must also have come up in conversation because it was not long before he was following Jesus, and the good that he was doing suddenly took a turn for the better. Just before this last Christmas, Gareth heard that his mum, the only other believer in the family, had been taken ill and was not expected to recover. He crossed the world in haste, fortunate to find a ticket at all at any price, and touched down in Manchester just in time to hold his mum who just a day or so earlier had whispered, "I will wait for you," and she did. Yesterday Gareth came over on a day return ticket and nine of us took him out for lunch and to listen. In one very poignant moment Gareth, an extraordinarily sensitive man, said, "my Mum told me just before she died that all the material things that she desired just a few months ago no longer had any value for her but what she treasured most was her good relationship with God and with the people she knew and loved." Gareth quietly added, "It's a lesson that we all need to learn because in the end money and things mean nothing." Gareth takes his mum's funeral on Monday and then flies home to the anti-trafficking Children's Home and Tribal Centre that he leads in Chiang Mai, near the border with Myanmar.

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IF GOD IS NOT BEHIND THIS THEN WHO IS ?

It seems that all was well before Job came along. Because before then bad things allegedly only happened to bad people and if they happened to you it had to be because you had done some heinously evil thing. Then one day those bad things started happening to a good man who loved God and for Job's friends this was a very uncomfortable idea, as scandalous for them as it is today for the prosperity gospel preachers. Nevertheless there it is, bad things sometimes happen to good people and this has been the story of our week. With 2012 hardly begun we have already had one funeral, four people held captive by redundancy, two others face imminent ruin, cancer has pursued an innocent child into the new year and one couple face seeing a much loved foster child taken away because somebody else's home is cheaper. "In his anguish Job put it this way, "If God is not behind this then who is?" He did not know but because of him, we do. Job's story is the earliest writing in the Bible, this tells us that from the very beginning God wanted to expose the real villain behind the malevolence and suffering on the world's stage, a theatre of tragedy into which all too often we are conscripted as unwilling actors. Yet let us not forget that in the end after the suffering and his friends had both done their worst Job was visited by God who brought him through into a kind of life part two, knowing the Lord infinitely better than before and enjoying a whole new prosperity and happiness. The Bible say that such things are written for our encouragement, we know that such things also still happen . .

"When you go through deep waters, the Lord says I will be with you, when you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown, when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned up. Do not be afraid, you are mine." Isaiah 43 (NLT)

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NO BILL, NO CHARGE,
NO TIPS, NO CATCH.



While you were sitting down to your turkey, trimmings and pud, in our case it was an astonishing Indian meal prepared by our son David and his family - anyway, whatever we all enjoyed, shortly afterwards because of your giving either to us or into the DCI Fund more than four hundred widows, orphans, AIDS victims and poor people off the streets of Mchinji in Malawi also sat down to a very unexpected and never before heard of afternoon of eating and drinking to the sound of African singing and then receiving gifts which hours later led right into some story-telling about the real meaning of Christmas. No bill, no charge, no tips and no catch. It was their Christmas Party, just one way for us to say thank you to Jesus because he says that whatever we do for the hungry, the ragged and the sick we do for him. Something similar happened over in Les Cayes, Haiti where our unemployed friend Johnny with his eleven Schools of Mission is still taking care of twenty-one little children orphaned in that massive 2010 earthquake. Father Christmas doesn't do Haiti maybe because the reindeer tend to end up in the oven, but Father God who has no such problems brought the children a bigger home and a gift for every child. We will have some photos maybe by next week. So, whether you got what you wanted in your stocking or not, and a new VW Golf TDi was noticeably absent from ours, together we made some less fortunate men and women, boys and girls very happy. And we might believe that our guest of honour smiled in heaven as well.

SHADOWY FIGURES

John Maxwell caught our attention this week when he said, "If you keeping on doing what you have always done, then you will keep on getting what you have always got." Time then to stop complaining about it and set our minds to make 2012 a year of adventure and change whether that takes us across town or across the world, to do something different, to be someone different, the person you always wanted to be before someone anonymous person in head office does it for us and without asking your opinion first. Whatever ever happens out there, much of which has probably already been decided by the shadowy figures behind the rise and fall of economies, because you follow Jesus and you belong to another Kingdom may your 2012 be continually filled with the presence of God and his overflowing peace, provision and protection, and his continual rescue. May this be the year when God gives you and us, the desires of our heart. Our love and prayers for you go into the New Year to meet with yours,

Some good stuff on this week's page of news, tweets and comments

RYANAIR REPLACES REINDEER

Sorry, you didn't get a Christmas card in the post because as you know we spent the money on the DCI Christmas Party in Malawi instead only to have it diverted en-route by someone in the National Bank there but wait a moment, you shall not go without your festive greeting. Just watch out for an email from Jacquie Lawson Cards slipping quietly into your mailbox tomorrow, don't delete it, don't spam it, don't be frightened of bugs and viruses in it - it's from us. And if Christmas is expensive this year it will be because Ryanair found their unexpected passenger, charged him their last-minute fare (plus taxes) and then they saw all those extra bags . . .

NOT COCA-COLA IN THESE BOTTLES

Jon, an accountant down in the south-west and a firm friend for many years went to India last week to see our partner Pastor Daniel and his Voice of the Gospel organization. Jon says, "My five days in Cochin were very illuminating in the bright, vibrant and very diverse country that is India with its 1.3 million men and women, 85% of them Hindus speaking over 1,000 languages.  I was amazed to find that Daniel did not have just the one worship centre and Bible school but more than 1,000 daughter churches, over 600 Banking for the Poor clients with 0% loans and 100 Mercy Homes caring for 1,000 abandoned children, and there's special care for widows, overseas mission and an embryonic wealth creation farm project as well. I asked Daniel the same question as I asked George in Uganda and Philippe in Burkina Faso, "What is the one thing stopping the spread of the gospel here?" The answer was the same in all three countries: money. Ten years ago Daniel's work was 99% funded by the West but nowadays 70% of Daniel's income comes from Indian believers, just in time it seems as tightened belts in the West once again make our giving to mission the very lowest priority in the churches. The photos show a man from a Hindu village who just gave one third of an acre of his land to start another Mercy Home. We became friends for life because he has a worm farm on an industrial scale, even bigger than mine at home. He fills it with leaves from his banana trees and manure from his cows and sells the worm pee in bottles." Now, just think what experiences you too could have if you went to visit some of our friends overseas next year !

THE MIDNIGHT SHOPPER
For everyone whose favourite
Christmas card is Visa.

The calendar is my dictator, I shall not rest.
It makes me lie down only when exhausted,
it leads me to deep depression, it hounds my soul.
The clock leads me in circles of frenzy for activity's sake.
Even though I run frantically from shop to shop,
I will never get it all done for the TV ads are with me.
Deadlines and my need to get presents they drive me.
They demand performance from me beyond the limits of my overdraft.
They anoint my head with migraines, my shopping basket overflows.
Surely fatigue and parking fines shall follow me all the days of my life
And I will dwell with the bills for Christmas forever.

REPELLING PIRATES
 
It was one of those weeks when one person after another in hushed tones felt that they should tell you about an unlikely and uninvited thought which came into their mind with your name attached to it, like a luggage label on a string. "Deuteronomy 15.6," they all said, "the Lord will bless you as He has promised and you will lend to many nations but borrow from none."  It took a terribly long time before these tantalising words even began to make any sense but in 2011, some 34 years later, we take the fund management part of our work very seriously indeed. By funds we mean your money and ours, by manage we generally mean repelling more pirates and boarders than Johnny Depp ever saw when filming in the Caribbean.  This has been one strange, hard to understand year, a year when the world overseas slowed right down and more than a few agencies and charities at home closed their doors, yet our own small circle of family, friends and supporters have still given an amazing £45,000 with a good deal more being sent by them directly to the developing world for mission or for the poor. Our older people keep sending in from their pensions, businessmen stay committed in the face of unpredictable profits, and even the men and women who lost their jobs (one lady in top management was given just 30 minutes to leave) even they continue to make giving a non-negotiable priority. Not one person, business or family has withdrawn. Our accounts are audited two months early, our reports to the Charity Commission and to Companies House are in ahead of time, every bill at home and abroad has been paid, our tax is up to date and despite the DCI Fund not being untouched by the prevailing gloom not one incoming proposal, opportunity or application that has met our criteria of character, communication, competence and chemistry has been refused or even delayed. To God be the glory, to Him and to you be the thanks and the promise in God's own words from Genesis 12.1-3 that, "I will bless those who bless you."

NO WHITE CHRISTMAS HERE
 
We can't invite Jesus to come in person, although Madonna did pass through this village once upon a time, but we can invite the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the ragged and the sick and they will come, and what we do for them, we do for Jesus who according to Matthew 25, 34-44 takes note of these things. With just one month to go then, our Christmas Party for all of our friends, family and supporters will be held in Mchinji, Malawi on the 26th of December and even though we shall not make it on time, and probably neither will you, some five to six hundred widows, orphans, AIDS victims, disabled people and poor families will come and enjoy a day they were never expecting nor will ever forget. Organised by our trusted and competent Kenyan friend Moses with his wife Rosalyn and their children, one of whom curiously is named Pilar, and with the help of people from their new church in Lilongwe, a lot of cooking will take place, drinks will be served and there's a program of guaranteed sunshine, African music, story-telling about Christmas, gift-giving and prayer, all for less than £1 per guest. You can see photos from our Christmas Parties with the Poor in previous years by clicking here, and if you wish we can arrange a smaller or larger party for your family which will make your own Christmas more than special, let's say unique. Gareth, our friend from Manchester who runs the House of David Boys Home to help fight human trafficking in Thailand said about his Christmas Parties with the Poor a while ago, "we were able to bring the gospel and win hundreds of souls, it was an incredibly humbling experience."

NO BEST BEFORE DATE ON THIS PACKET

This week an extraordinary story from Jim and Marie Morris who we met in Slough some 15 years ago and who now live in Nuneaton, near Coventry and keep in contact with us.  Jim wrote to say, "In the mid-90's we felt the Lord saying to us to go to Estonia but we had little idea of what we were supposed to do when we got there. So we sold our house in Slough and opened a charity style shop in Tallinn and from that first shop we saw nineteen more shops open, then a sawmill and later a sewing room for three ladies which soon became a factory with jobs for 10 people. We changed an elderly peoples home from a slum into a good place to live and we bought a forty-one room house to turn into a centre 150 children mainly with special needs. All of this happened by faith and trust in the Lord with the help of a lot of people over the years. Today the Estonians we helped now feed between three and five thousand children and elderly people each month while the shops are helping 100 men to get off drugs and start a new life after leaving prison. We are now working with two churches in Serbia to create the cafe which they have dreamed about for ten years to make money to help their youth and elderly people. We feel Serbia is next for us, not a good idea but God's idea, please pray for us and be encouraged by our story."  So there we are, God chooses, uses and changes the over 50's - the ones with stamina as well as the younger ones with the energy, in fact most non-western cultures honour the Retro generation more than we do, and the truth is that people who have followed Jesus through the school of life are priceless assets for the call of God. So if one familiar door closes for you and that might be a career coming to an end, a church looking the other way, a family that has left home or whatever, in the Lord and if you ask, another door is very likely to open. Like Jim and Marie you might be sent, or you might be doing the sending, either way we leave the world a better place. Several thousand Estonians, it would seem, would need no convincing.

I GO AHEAD OF YOU

This week the DCI Fund has helped to send Roland in Peru back to an even more remote part of the Amazon carrying 420 Bibles, the ones that have just come out in the Wampis language. We have also passed on gifts to buy 33 beds for orphans in India. Pastor Daniel said, "this will be the first time that these kids will sleep off the floor." We have put a further £1,150 into his hands to pay for two wells that will make life a whole lot healthier in two of Daniel's many homes orphans live as family with a mum and dad. So to everyone who sends their gifts into the DCI Fund, a thousand curry-flavoured thank-you kisses from Kerala.

And now our own little story from just a few days ago when we had to look twice and then look again and then look at each other but there it was: a £700.77 gift coming into our bank account labelled 'anonymous.' Trust me, such things do not happen every day, and from whom, for what and why were just some of the questions that we asked each other over tea and sandwiches. Not two hours later we heard that Pilar's mama, at age 89, over in Barcelona had become seriously unwell and by early next morning 'La abuela' had passed away peacefully with two of her daughters at her side, a comfortable end to a good life lived for Jesus and her family. Funerals in Spain generally take place the next morning but on this occasion the weekend and a final journey from Barcelona to Valencia delayed things until Monday which gave us a day and a half to get there in time. Of course at this point you fall into the hands of the airlines whose fares might well be £25 each way six months before your date of travel but when you book only hours before flying you discover the other far end of the fare spectrum, and you weep. Anyway with two trains, two airlines, two airports, two motels and a fast and furious 400 mile drive in a Seat Leon hire car on a near empty motorway we made it to the funeral on time and got home again the next day. You will not need two guesses to know how much it all cost, almost to the penny, amazingly there in our hands before we needed it.  Jesus said, "I will go ahead of you" and through someone who was so incredibly sensitive to His voice, His call and timing, He did just that for us this week. To you who are 'anonymous' to us but not to God we owe our own thousand thank you's.

THE NEXT WINDOW

One man passed me to another, and he to yet another, each glancing at my application, each adding his official stamp (or not) and passing me with a directional nod or a disinterested word to the queue at the next window. Finally from behind two layers of security glass, his voice muffled by the barrier, the hapless clerk looked me up and down, compared the photo with the now visibly aging applicant, stamped it and said, "OK, go the next window, they will give you your permit." I looked to the blank wall on my right and before I could say the words that he had heard innumerable times, without looking up he added, "New Ministries Buildings on the Castellano, Madrid." We however were in Barcelona, eight hours on the train away from the next window, it was 1982 and I just wanted to have a resident's visa rather than slink over the border with France and sneak back in a few hours later. The apostle Paul once wrote, "Against showing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and doing good there is no law," which was true then and it's true now. There are no laws anywhere against doing good, everyone says you should do it but how difficult the nameless 'they' can make it. Banks rob you, the US or the UN blockades you if you want to bless Cubans, Burmese or Liberians, widespread dishonesty, incompetence and indifference are daily bread and then there is Malawi. Michael, his heart bursting to bless the poor cannot move and barely has food to eat once a day because people in high places have taken all the money and without fuel the nation is paralysed. In Bolivia, Debora welcomed her first 13 year old abandoned girl with a 10 month old baby only to find that even with everything agreed she cannot take waiting children into the new home because behind those increasingly familiar double-glazed windows one official after another demands one more paper after another from Spain. Even worse the team that Armenius led into the jungles of Papua to do good were taken captive by the primitive people they went to help, two men lost their lives and the others were held captive for weeks until they escaped. Let's take our hats off to brave, long-suffering people like this, they carry God's goodness, they are the heart and the hands of those of us who cannot go, it is not easy for them so let's stay close to them in prayer and with words of hope as they discover that achievement where they have gone to live is best measured on a calendar and not with a wristwatch.

GINGER CURRY

Sue Morris who sent in last week's DCI Minute will be happy to know that her illustration about the broken jar of clay produced more reaction, and all of it positive, than any other DCI Minute this year. Margaret Wendels says she felt God say that we who have been following the Lord for a few years, yet are now largely unseen, are his secret army along the line of a story titled 'Ten Thousand Eyes' which tells how, following the invasion of France, very many ordinary people risked their lives to feed information back to the allies, being largely ignored by the Nazis because they were thought to be insignificant, yet this 'secret army' hastened the final liberation. To encourage us someone else sent in a BBC report of a 100 year old Indian gentleman from London who ran the Toronto Marathon this month and he, not a believer, put his agility and longevity down to ginger curry, tea, being happy, smiling, keeping stress-free, being grateful for everything and staying far from negative people. Apart from the ginger curry you might think he was quoting the Bible, the tea of course being the streams of living water.  David Ogilvy, the PR mogul quips "the secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years." Exactly. Anyway, our career, the latter one it seems, takes us this weekend to Bristol to visit Rubens and Nuira, our friends on mission from Brazil who handle all of our emails in the Portuguese language, and we shall get to see Owen and Claire who lead Vineyard's church plant there. Then we plan to have a catch-up on some overdue reading and writing in Paul and Jill Johnson's holiday bungalow in St Ives, which you can also rent very reasonably next year. Paul and Jill are on mission in Bulgaria this weekend. On the way home we see Jonathan in Cheltenham, who is off to visit Pastor Daniel in Kerala, India in December while Michelle leaves for Mexico any day now, and if all of that leaves you as breathless as we feel, call for the tea and the ginger curry and keep running . . .

DCI is an easy going community of faith and works offering friendship, experience, prayer and resources to younger leaders around the world who run the Schools of Mission, churches and small groups, our internet pages and who go for us to the lost, the last and the least of the world.

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LIFE AT THE BOTTOM

Sue Morris from Nottingham, our friend for many years and a professional counsellor brings us this delightful illustration about how those of us who have walked with the Lord for a half a lifetime or more can move into our new roles alongside the younger leaders. Sue says, "For many years in my garden I had a beautiful painted terracotta pot but gradually this lost its shine and last winter it finally cracked. So I took a hammer and smashed it into little pieces which now provide the essential drainage at the bottom of new pots holding tender plants. That lovely terracotta pot is no longer seen, just like many of us, yet in the background it is still fulfilling a crucial role in the garden and supporting new life, again just like we can do." Writer Bob Gass says, "Our culture shames itself by catering to teenagers who have less knowledge of what the church ought be doing, while by-passing people in whom the Spirit of God has been working for fifty years or more." Read more in this edition of The Word for Today. Isn't it nice when people explain to you exactly what the Lord is doing?  We, and maybe you as well, have felt that hammer more than once, only because no amount of our glue and repairs pleases the eye of the Gardener who carries it, so He just swings his arm again. In later years we like life to be in order but He wants it broken so the accumulated treasure within can be released and actually, life at the bottom, under Christ and under people who are going to grow is a pretty good place to be.

Click for The Power of Encouragement, the notes from our DCI Monday meeting.

DCI is an easy going community of faith and works offering friendship, experience, prayer and resources to younger leaders around the world who run the Schools of Mission, churches and small groups, our internet pages and who go for us to the lost, the last and the least of the world.

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THE DAY HISTORY HAPPENED

The planes and helicopters of the Peruvian Air Force got him most of the way in the back seat but then for Roland in Peru it was a case of climbing onto the already precariously heavily laden 'peque-peque' motorised canoe, the one supplied by us earlier this year for an enormous slow journey through endless invisible hazards in water, air and land, all to reach the Waomi natives of the Rio Santiago protected reserve high in the upper reaches of the Amazon. The cargo was 540 Bibles just published for the first time in all history in the Waomi language and to see what happened click here and press Slideshow for some very moving photos. One lady said, "I always knew God could speak my language, and now I have heard him for the first time." Roland says that in every village he left behind a free DCI School of Mission to explain God's word. Of the 540 Bibles, 300 were sponsored by all of us here, something that we can be very pleased about and would love to do again. Now, just to change the subject altogether you really must click here for a short article, some weekend reading about money from one of the world's wealthiest preachers and see if it is what you would expect!  Who is this man who calls one word that we all use every day as idle, nonsensical, stupid, miserable, vile, diabolical, the very language of hell itself and says that no Christian should ever utter it. No God TV show for him, that's for sure! 

By the way the DCI web pages registered a record 1,276,068 hits last month yet we thought it was a quiet month.

We are an informal, community of faith and works offering friendship, experience, prayer and resources to our younger leaders who run the Schools of Mission, churches and small groups, our internet pages and who go for us to the lost, the last and the least of the world.

THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

Back in 1985 Matt Monro told the world to dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go, to right the unrightable wrong, to love pure and chaste from afar, to try when your arms are too weary, to reach the unreachable star. He sang, "This is my quest, to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far, to fight for the right without question or pause, to be willing to march into Hell for a heavenly cause." Do you remember?  Click to listen again. In that same year we saw Burkina Faso for the first time, the beauty, the poverty, the ignorance, the women's hands with the texture of coarse sandpaper, the child that died for lack of a 50 pence medicine. It was hopeless, it was far away yet it was right to dream of doing something long-term just as 3000 years previously King David also had a dream of permanence. However the future owner-occupier of David's planned house of God said that it would not be he who would lay the stones but his son, Solomon in the next generation. In a curious repetition of ancient history neither have we ever come close to building our dream in Burkina Faso being led instead to invest in lives but now our close friends Angel and Abigail and their EMSI Mission team in Spain have been given the green light from heaven to construct a spacious centre to train African doctors and nurses with a free clinic for all West Africa and a permanent School of Mission in residence to train Africa's Christian leaders. Do please feel free to encourage your church leaders and friends in business to help make this happen because after all these years the unreachable star is within reach, and as Matt Monro sang, "the world will be better for this." 

We here in DCI Nottingham are an informal, serving community of faith and works offering our friendship, experience, prayer and resources to a second generation of younger leaders who run the Schools of Mission, similar communities, our Internet pages and who go for us to the lost, the last and the least of the world.

THE REAL GOLD IN SWITZERLAND 

IS NOT IN THE BANKS

Here we are a day early, and that is because in a few minutes we take Pilar's Jack Russell dog, María Carlota, over to David who together with Sally make the DCI pages a very friendly place to visit, then we catch the train to Luton Airport, and an EasyJet flight to Zurich. An  hour or so on the autobahn will get us to our friends Michael and Emily, and Michael's parents Reinhold and Regula. It is from their family home in Steffisburg that all our pages and support emails in the German language and in Indonesian come. The family have a wealth of experience in leading church and opening house groups. This very special weekend includes Michael's 30th birthday, the dedication of Ben who is Michael and Emily's second child and a service of rededication of wedding vows to celebrate Michael and Emily's fifth wedding anniversary. The sell by date on my pastor's credentials expired over 15 years ago but the print is very small so nobody will know if you don’t tell them!

Allow us to send you to this link, and please don't miss it because this is George Purkweri's very moving report and thank you letter to everyone who has ever prayed for him, helped him or just heard about his work in Uganda.

We here in DCI are an informal, serving community of faith and works, caring for a network of second generation leaders offering friendship, experience, prayer and resources to those who run the Schools of Mission, the Internet pages and those who go to the lost, the last and the least of the world.

LATE NIGHT CHAMPAGNE

The telephone rang insistently quite late on Tuesday evening, almost bed-time in fact and we looked at each other apprehensively. Pilar, ever more courageous than I am, went into the kitchen to answer it. “Me voy a casar, me voy a casar” shrieked a very excited voice so loudly that even in the lounge I heard every word, “I am getting married.” It was our daughter Lizzie. A few minutes later she and Zack were at our door, champagne in hand and although all sleep had gone it could still have been a dream. Zack had arranged a very special afternoon and evening out followed by calling Lizzie into a room already prepared with flowers and an incredible 284 glowing candles and there after almost five years of being such very good friends, he did the impossible, he caught Lizzie by surprise and asked, “Will you marry me?" Lizzie came wearing a very beautiful vintage diamond ring from the 1930's and two more happy people you will not find on God's earth. Both we and John and Debby, Zack’s parents are really delighted. The late-night champagne of course, had its effect giving us both several opportunities before dawn to rise and thank the Lord for yet again doing all things well.

Sweetie or to our Spanish friends, La Macho, 1997-2011.

Much loved by every visitor, Lizzie’s very affectionate dog, 
who passed away on Monday, leaving 14 years of very happy memories.



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THE LIMIT IS THIRTY

It was our one and only evening at the 30th Grapevine Celebration at Lincoln, August 28th, 2011. Worship leaders both ancient and modern and Chris Bowater in particular chose this night to reprise the music and words that had gripped our souls over three decades until the tissues came out and tears of nostalgia and God's close presence flowed. Stuart Bell, the founder of Grapevine talked about the journey of the people of God who came out of captivity, crossed over a fearful wilderness and now at the River Jordan chose to carry on rather than go back as some had wished to do, or to settle within sight of the promised land as some certainly did. He recalled his own coming out of the religion of thirty years ago and recounted fighting year after year for the freedom that Grapevine now enjoyed. Going back was never an option, settling only a passing temptation, the man was for carrying on. The applause that was so well deserved turned into a stunned silence with the preacher's next sentence: "There will be no 31st Grapevine in 2012." See, "I am doing a new thing," says the Lord; remember the past help of God by all means as fuel for future faith but paradoxically it is time to "forget the former things" for it will not be the same as before. So, in 2012 it is to be Grapevine not 31 but number 1 all over again. This prophetic word of the Lord thrilled the many Grapevine aficionados but in the quiet of the late night journey home it caused us to remember our own coming out from ecclesiastical captivity, the fearful wilderness that we entered and have barely left and the fact that next February 27th we also celebrate a 30th anniversary, that of 30 years of marriage and ministry together. On the one evening that we could be at Grapevine has the word of the Lord for others become the word of the Lord for us as well? As we, and all of us in DCI choose to carry on, neither capitulating nor camping in sight of Canaan, can God be saying that our limit is also thirty, that there will be no thirty-first year of things the way they are, and 2012 will take such a turn that we will mark it down as year one of a new move of God? It needs to be, could it be? Tell us what you think? 

Our thanks to Angel and Abigail, to Virgilio and Maria Jesus, to Pepe and Noemi, to Carmen, to Gloria, to Jean, 86 and Rosa, 89. We came to Spain last week looking for ways to bless you but in a conspiracy of kindness you all insisted on blessing us instead.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

In my mind's eye I could see Mah and his family lying on the dusty floor mobile phone in his hand: "All we can hear are heavy artillery shells falling all around," the text said, "but your money is safe." There was no reply just a minute later, only silence. Mah Malachi's family live in a remote corner of Ivory Coast and they chose to stay and help the weak and frail when government and rebel forces made Danane their frontline forcing thousands to flee for their lives into nearby Liberia and Sierra Leone. Mah had wanted to set up a sewing school to give a life to teenage girls who had been left on the streets after the last war but no sooner than funds from both the UK and Spain had been sent over, a war over a disputed election result suddenly broke out, the banks hastily closed, sides were taken and the tanks came onto the streets. Mah made a hazardous 1000 kilometre journey into the heart of the fighting, Abidjan, to wait for his funds and then dodging nervy soldiers, rebels and bandits on lawless roads he made it home again only to be pinned down by the violence. Last week in an uneasy peace the town officials came together to open the school, the first girls came in and as happens so often in Africa, hope of a better life was born again. Click here to see Mah's photos.

On another subject the comment of the week comes from Philippe Ouedraogo, our partner since 1984 in neighbouring Burkina Faso who unassumingly mentioned, "Our church has a week of prayer September 7th to the 11th and we expect a few thousand people to come."

DCI is a missions network with no walls, no frontiers and no fees, open to all, 

reaching the lost, the last and the least of the world by training and equipping leaders, since 1985.

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DO WE REALLY NOT KNOW WHY ?

Charles Johnson in Liberia, no stranger to violence himself, said, "Africa is watching with shock and disbelief as England burns and no-one on the BBC says why the youths are doing this." More emails in one language after another reveal a similar bewilderment, "this is what happens where we live not where you are." Let's try and understand what is happening here. Imagine for a moment that a professor holds up a pane of thin window glass before his class and says, "On one side of this glass are all the desirable things that people dream about and on the other side stand all the people who desire them. Why do they not break the glass and take what they want? The answer is that they intuitively acknowledge the rule of law which was formulated long ago from God's word. But when two, three or more generations go by without the gospel being made known in England nor the Bible being taught in schools then you have young people, and more than a few of their parents, who protest, "Who are you to say what is right or wrong for me." The invisible powers that move society, those made famous by the Screwtape Letters long since gave themselves a 'high-five' of congratulations at persuading so many modern church leaders to relegate the prayer meeting to the museum of yesteryear and to replace intercession in Sunday services with something more 'cool' so two decades of believers have hardly engaged in the restraining power of spiritual warfare. Now add in the opportune earthy mixture of long-term unemployment, lawlessness in high places, hopelessness in the estates and high-rises, empty pockets, the relentless marketing of 'must have' fashions, games and gadgets, heat this volatile concoction with messages and tweets from shadowy people with other agendas on their minds, then tell bored youngsters to bring all their 'friends' and suddenly the professor's glass pane breaks, hands snatch at anything and everything and no-one can tell you why they did it. The police in our own city of Nottingham had over 1,100 calls for help, a police station was fire-bombed and a million pounds was spent in restoring order, nationally over 3,000 people have been arrested. Happily prayer disempowered the strategy behind the scenes, rain fell, 16,000 police descended on London, the gangs melted away for now and far more people turned out to clean up the streets than turned up to tear them apart.  Yet whatever fix government introduces the promise of God still waits to be believed and embraced: "If my people, (that's us) who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their Eng-land." Put simply, if we will, He will. 

What do you think ?

WHEN DEATH SEEMED NEARER THAN LIFE

We said goodbye to Michael Singini six weeks ago when he returned to Malawi determined to finish building a clinic for his people or to die with them. Days without news turned into weeks and then a message got through that Michael had succumbed to severe malaria aggravated by asthma. His parting words over a handshake became our worst fears. Michael had arrived home to find all 20 rooms inside the clinic still at foundation level because the builder who taken Michael's money transfers had done nothing except to sell the cement to criminals and now hearing that Michael was coming he had run away. Michael said, "I worked day and night to raise all the rooms to roof level and then I felt sick. People put me in a cart and pushed me all night for 45 miles to the nearest clinic only to find the medical assistant drunk and the shelves empty. My nieces took me far to Mzimba and even there they had to search all over to buy medicine. For two weeks death seemed much nearer than life." Michael is now recovering by clearing his land to plant crops, fruit and vegetables for the clinic and he has found a Lister motorised grain mill to buy. The builder was arrested and jailed for two years. When he feels strong enough Michael will do the roof. His first email ended by saying, "I don't regret coming back, it was a wise choice. I have started to share in the sufferings my people go through and I will stay with them, this is the source of my joy."

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ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL 

TWENTY EIGHT YEARS

Tension mounted as the flight for Santa Cruz, Bolivia moved on to the runway at Buenos Aires, Argentina and stopped right there. Long minutes passed before the nervous silence was interrupted by the First Officer saying that they had been ordered back to the terminal because the crew's hours were up. For Debora, our niece, this was the third delayed flight of the day, first in Barcelona, then in Madrid and now this: "Later, maybe tomorrow we go." The journey actually began twenty-eight years earlier when Debora, just a tender eight years old at the time was moved by the misery of Filipino children. Five years later Debora came to stay with us in the summer of our very first rag, tag and bobtail School of Mission, only to find herself saying her own 'Yes' to the Lord who left his 'calling card' in her heart.  From that day to this it has not been difficult for her Tia Pilar and Tio Les to see the invisible hands of Jesus at work shaping a life: a degree in Social Service, visits to orphans in Rumania, to children at risk in Brazil and to abused children in Peru, coming with us to Kenya's Kibera - the worst slum in Africa, and on to hug pitiful Ugandan child refugees, all the while holding down not one but two jobs caring for vulnerable babies and children in Barcelona. Eventually the flight for Bolivia took off and Debora with her one-way ticket arrived safely, separated from her mama, her friends and all her luggage as well. She is now in charge of a home for abandoned single mums, often children themselves, and their babies, a major abuse that has been swept under the South American carpet for far too long.

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MARÍA CARLOTA

Filled with an overwhelming desire to reach the front door in the shortest possible time Pilar's dog accelerated in such a blur of speed that it lost its grip on the floor probably having forgotten to engage the four wheel drive that dogs come with these days. Unfortunately the poor creature was on the very top of the stairs at the time and with a growing sense of impending doom I watched her fall head over heels from the carpeted top step all the way down to the hard polished wooden floor of the hallway without touching the ground once. In fact time and space seem to freeze into an infinite scene of slow motion so much so that I had time to formulate exactly how I would tell Pilar the news that her dog was dead. However this literary daydream abruptly evaporated as Lottie, officially Charlotte, otherwise known in Spanish as María Carlota, and at other times called something far worse, landed upside down on its head and neck with a dull thud that made even the portraits on the wall wince. By telling you a story like this you will realise of course that it is the time of year when everyone is on holiday, or like us wished they were, and it is one of those weeks when no-one has been anywhere or done anything sufficiently noble to be worth mentioning in 'The Minute'. The silly season as the newspapers call it. This unwelcome dip makes me think about Smith Wigglesworth, the remarkable brusque Yorkshire plumber of the mid-1900's who often raised the dead, including his own wife Polly when she died without letting him know beforehand. He had a saying that, "if the Holy Spirit does not move me, then I move the Spirit," and of course somehow he did and the stories are the stuff of legend. So we were wondering if anyone might know how to do this and help us bring this trying season to a premature end. And Maria Carlota? - she shook herself and ran off into the kitchen.

DESTINY IN TINY HANDS

Answering a knock on the front door we were taken aback by the striking presence of a tall and confident young man from Burkina Faso by the name of Joel. Inexplicably we had been expecting a gangly teenager but then again, ten years had gone by, nevertheless we still had to blink and look twice. It was that long ago that one of our DCI families went to see Burkina Faso for themselves and in a God-given moment bumped into this promising youngster looking for a chance in life. For Joel his prayers were answered because from those days onwards we passed on a small monthly cheque that first of all covered Joel's basic education, then paid for a degree course in Ouagadougou University and later covered another higher degree course at Bamako University in Mali. Today Joel is a highly qualified professional metallurgist in the Russian sector of the gold-mining industry that more or less sustains the Burkina Faso economy. He is also a committed believer looking to help others make a start in life. Some 1,650 years ago the Greek sage Aristotle declared, "All who have studied the art of governing mankind are convinced that the destiny of empires depends on the education of youth." Knowing this to be true and after hearing Joel tell his story we were very happy this week to be able to sponsor a full year's school fees, uniforms, books and shoes for every one of Johnny's twenty-one earthquake orphans in Haiti, thanks to a four-figure gift from Nottingham High School for Boys doubled by the generosity and compassion of our own supporters. The gift of education is priceless everywhere but no more so than in Haiti for if this voodoo-blighted nation is ever to emerge from the rubble, violence and corruption that have made it the poorest of the world's poor then it will only be because of the care of godly men like Johnny and the investment of God's word and good education in children like these in Johnny's photos. This week a very beautiful thing has happened, the hands you see in the photo may be tiny at the moment but in them may be the destiny of a nation.

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DCI is a network with no walls, no frontiers and no fees, open to all, reaching the lost, the last and the least of the world by training and equipping leaders, since 1985.