THE DCI MINUTE

2012-02-17T15:45:00.000Z

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.

2012-02-10T18:28:00.001Z

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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2012-02-03T18:08:00.001Z

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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2012-01-26T15:22:00.001Z

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.

2012-01-20T17:37:00.001Z

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.

Click here for more news like this, and all the tweets and comments.

2012-01-14T14:31:00.001Z

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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2012-01-06T17:41:00.000Z

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.

2011-12-31T12:44:00.000Z

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

2011-12-22T10:47:00.000Z

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 . . .

2011-12-16T16:25:00.000Z

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 !

2011-12-10T12:13:00.000Z

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.

2011-12-02T19:59:00.003Z

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."

2011-11-25T18:43:00.001Z

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."

2011-11-18T18:12:00.002Z

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.

2011-11-11T18:29:00.000Z

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.

2011-11-04T17:54:00.000Z

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.

2011-10-21T19:57:00.000+01:00

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.

Please don't miss this week's DCI news page

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2011-10-14T16:33:00.000+01:00

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.

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Click to see the photos of the week

2011-10-07T16:16:00.004+01:00

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.

2011-09-30T19:41:00.001+01:00

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.

2011-09-22T07:46:00.002+01:00

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.

2011-09-16T16:33:00.000+01:00

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, evermore courageous than I am, went into the kitchen to answer it. “Me voy acasar, me voy a casar” shrieked a very excited voice so loudly that even inthe lounge I heard every word, “I am getting married.” It was our daughterLizzie. A few minutes later she and Zack were at our door, champagne in handand although all sleep had gone it could still have been a dream. Zack hadarranged a very special afternoon and evening out followed by calling Lizzieinto a room already prepared with flowers and an incredible 284 glowing candles and thereafter 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 camewearing a very beautiful vintage diamond ring from the 1930's and two morehappy 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, hadits effect giving us both several opportunities before dawn to rise and thankthe Lord for yet again doing all things well.

Sweetie or to our Spanish friends, LaMacho, 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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Click to see the photos ofthe week
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2011-09-08T17:09:00.002+01:00

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.

2011-08-27T12:48:00.000+01:00

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.

Click here to see this week's news page

Click to see the photos of the week

2011-08-18T18:37:00.000+01:00

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 ?

2011-08-06T10:07:00.000+01:00

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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2011-08-01T14:42:00.001+01:00

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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2011-07-15T16:42:00.000+01:00

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.

2011-07-08T18:03:00.001+01:00

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.

2011-07-02T14:28:00.003+01:00

BLANK PAGES MAKE A VERY QUIET TIME

Only a few years ago you were considered ‘naked’ if you came to church without a Bible in your hand and a man wishing to be noticed would carry a thick black one with notes, maps and a concordance. These days the spiritually committed fiddle with their I-phones, pads, pods, HTC’s, Blackberry’s or Kindles in the meeting whilst the unenlightened flick their eyes between the obligatory big screen behind the speaker and taking a sneaky look at the blue glow of the neighbour’s mobile. Back home five or six different Bibles may never be opened again yet if you asked the Maindo people of Mozambique about the version they read it would look something like the book on the left. Blank pages because not one word of the scriptures has yet been translated into a language they can understand and this would be true for another 2,500 people groups across the world. Think about it, not one word, this makes for a very quiet, quiet time. When a tight economy makes you decide between what is important and what is not we felt no hesitation at all to send Roland from Peru up the Amazon carrying 540 first-ever editions of the Bible newly-translated into the Wampi language. DCI people paid for 300 of them at £1.50 each. Roland said, “I will never forget seeing one lady sit for three hours, turning page after page, her eyes shining and her face a picture to watch as tears of joy fell. She told me that she had always believed that God spoke her language and today she has heard Him speaking it for the first time.” It was John Wesley who said “I want to know one thing, the way to heaven. God himself has shown me the way and written it down in a book. Oh, give me that book! At any price give me the book of God.” Two centuries later it is still the cry of the world evidenced, for example, by our Free Literature page being by far and away the most visited page of any of the 3,500 pages on offer.

2011-06-24T15:31:00.001+01:00

WHERE DOES A CANDLE BURN BRIGHTEST?

Michael Singini came to the United Kingdom to learn and to work, quite legally. His wife Emily had come a couple of years earlier and together not only have they studied successfully but they have sent every spare penny home to Malawi to build and staff a village school where there was no school, and lately to build a clinic in another village, some seven hours walk from the nearest doctor. Doing jobs that most British people would rather not do, Michael has worked long shifts and done all-night overtime mostly seven days a week, Emily and he passing as they say, ‘like ships in the night.’ Malawi has recently had much of its overseas aid frozen by donor nations amid allegations of ‘flagrant opulence at the expense of the poor’ and the British High Commissioner has been expelled. Michael too has seen his own hard-earned money stolen and abused, ironically one particular family member collected an incoming transfer and promptly spent it on beer. Later on when illness struck he spent seven agonising days in a distant clinic that had not one pill or treatment on its bare shelf yet had he been a little more sober the clinic he delayed could have treated him at home. Another man is in prison for stealing Michael’s building materials and pushing the lorry he was driving into a swollen river before fleeing the country. Only this week as we said goodbye to Michael, he was under no illusions about the future, “I have heard how poor Malawi has become so I am going home to get the clinic open myself. If needs be I will share the poverty, pain and sorrow of our people and die with them in the village. The state now charges the sick £1 to be seen and £25 if they have HIV yet with no aid coming in even the biggest hospital has no medicine, water or fuel. You go there to die.” It was John Keith Falconer, a man who lost his life for Christ in Aden over a century ago who said, “I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light.” So be it Michael, God speed, you go with everyone’s love, hopes and prayers.

2011-06-17T16:52:00.000+01:00

THE HACKER

When you find 76 e-mails waiting for you at 6.30 am on a Monday morning your first thought, if you are me, is that revival has broken out around the world. When you discover that every one of the e-mails is total nonsense and probably has been sent by the same person you return to your cup of tea, if you are me, only to find it cooling as quickly as the early morning excitement. When the e-mails continue to pour into your mail box like the incoming tide faced by the legendary King Canute, and when you fail to stop the waves just as he did, you know that it is going to be a long day, and sure enough it was, and so were the days that followed. By the evening emergency measures were in place but just like some of the toxic therapies in a hospital, the treatment was killing off the good news as well as the bad and still the tide of meaningless messages came in at 15 minute intervals driven by a sophisticated computer program possibly in China, one that had harvested the addresses of thousands of people around the world, and had probably taken control of their computers as well. That is until 76 year old Capt Fred Mercer prayed in the DCI Monday small group for the man behind the cyber-attack to have a Damascus Road experience, although some momentarily might have thought that to have the man under the Damascus Road would be even better. Can you believe that within thirty minutes all the e-mails had stopped and next morning when there might have been thousands to be deleted, we looked everywhere for them but there was not one. It was F.B. Meyer who said the greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but not praying at all.

Our thanks to Capt. Fred for praying when we didn’t, and to Graham Crosbie, our technical genius and webmaster for all the hours he has put in this week, repairing the damage and closing entry doorways to make sure this never happens again. Graham, we are all very grateful to you.

Les and Pilar serve in the middle of DCI, an influential network with no walls, no frontiers, no fees and open to all since 1985, where everyone helps someone else one way or another to reach the lost, the last and the least of the world.

Click to read this week’s news page

2011-06-10T16:07:00.000+01:00

THE DARK KNIGHT

A thousand congratulations to Dr. Philippe Ouedraogo upon his graduation in Oxford this week, a well-deserved recognition of three years cutting-edge research into ways for African governments to eradicate the widespread illiteracy of girls in their nations. Philippe is a founder member of DCI from way back in 1984 yet his life began very precariously as a poor village boy and if it were not for a passing missionary explaining the gospel to him he would still be in the scorched fields following the ways of his ancestors from time immemorial. After he chose to follow Jesus, door after impossible door opened for education until today Philippe watches over 350,000 believers and mission in 14 nations. Together with Josephine his wife of many years, they have a clinic, they provide education for 7,000 poor children and have a very fine leadership training centre built with a $300,000 gift from one American family who wished to leave a lasting mark of their gratitude to God. Philippe was recently made a 'Chevalier de L'Ordre de Mérite,' in Britain we would call this being knighted for service to the nation. The beautiful thing is that after Philippe and Josephine’s visit yesterday, Pilar said, “These two have not changed since 1984, they are still quiet, humble, unassuming people who laugh all the time and are grateful for any small kindness that comes their way.” And it is true, in fact looking back it was one of our better days all those years ago when the Lord allowed us to meet this couple who had a call and a vision from God and precious little else in the leaky patched-up shed in a school yard that they called home. Of course there are many others following Jesus who will never be recognised in this world for who they are and for what God is doing through them in quiet service yet in the next life when it is promised that the last will be the first, how many men and women that we know will unexpectedly find their names written on front row seats in those gatherings where the speaker is Jesus himself. Compared to the view they and Philippe and Josephine will enjoy we expect to have to buy binoculars to even see the front.

Click here for Philippe’s beautiful new website designed by his UK trustees.

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2011-06-03T15:32:00.000+01:00

THE SUNSHINE OF MY LIFE

On the gloomy Spring Bank Holiday earlier this week we were praying for people and their projects in our Monday morning small group that has been meeting for years. At one point through my closed eyes I saw such a bright light appear that I thought the sun must have come out at last but a few moments later when I looked up it was just as grey, wet and dreary outside as it was before. As we continued praying the ‘sun’ came out again until I opened my eyes. It was so strange that I said nothing but later on Sally said, “do you know when we were praying, twice I thought the sun had come out. Our time together was filled with such a peace and such a gentle, lovely presence all around us that we didn’t want to go home. We said it must have been Jesus visiting the meeting. You are very welcome to come and join us on Monday mornings or for how to do something similar where you are click here, or e-mail us and we will help you to get started. To give you the idea let Stevie Wonder sing “You Are The Sunshine of My Life” to you before you go, from way back in 1974.

Pilar

June 1st marks the end of the DCI financial year and we thank God that in 2010-11 your loaves and fishes and ours have blessed and equipped many people all over the world. Every bill has been paid, DCI has no debts or buildings and pays no salaries but we do have several baskets full of funds to carry into the year ahead. A big thank you to everyone and to God be the glory, he has done great things.

Les and Pilar serve in the middle of DCI, an international small group with no walls, no frontiers, no fees and open to all, where everyone helps someone else one way or another to reach the lost, the last and the least of the world.

Click to read this week’s news page

2011-05-27T18:33:00.001+01:00

THE MAN TRAP

At the beginning of the year a pastor from an island in the Pacific Ocean made a very credible and eloquent, educated application to us for a small amount of money to bless the poor of his remote village. He did tell us the truth, but because truth has three levels it turned out later not to be quite the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Somehow he forgot to mention that for the previous ten years he had been backslidden, a minor detail he may have thought and not one to worry us about. Unfortunately when the funds arrived a little more backsliding took place whereupon a long and sorry tale began to unfold with literally half a world between our different cultures, understandings and living standards. This week there has been a happy ending which has released mercy for wrongdoing, justice for the givers and grace for the offender, and the funds have found a proper application. On the way it was not just our native pastor who learned a lesson or two, we did as well, and if you would like to know what that they were then you can in a moment. When Jesus said, “it is impossible that offences will not come,” his choice of word for offence was ‘skandalon’ which intriguingly describes the part of a trap to which the bait is attached. In Satan’s mantrap his bait is that little something that is said or done to you that you don’t like; bite on it and you can be in the hunter’s keep net for a quite a while, in fact some people we know have spent a lifetime in there, but to avoid the trap or to escape it, click to read on . . .

DCI is an international small group with no walls, no frontiers, no fees and open to all, each member helping the others to reach the lost, the last and the least of the world. Click to read this week’s news page

2011-05-24T14:19:00.000+01:00

HELLO MAGAZINE - WHERE WERE YOU ?

If you missed the DCI Minute last Friday we are sorry but we were in Barcelona, Spain for the wedding of our niece Ruth to Toni, which took place in the garden of a very elegant old hotel still frequented by the Poirot generation, overlooking the spectacular rocky bay of Aiguablavas on the Costa Brava. Ruth who speaks four languages, and Toni who is an architect and graduate from Cardiff University, are both very committed believers and this was reflected in a beautiful, short open-air ceremony conducted by their two pastors, Julio from Barcelona and Miguel from Madrid. The worship was led by our nephew David who is rapidly being deservedly recognised as one of Spain's best. The ceremony was followed by an all-day and half the night celebration that no-one will ever forget, especially the groom and his friends who inevitably ended up in the hotel pool, fully clothed. Pilar and her sister Gloria must have taken a thousand and one photos, the fruit of almost as many agonizing decisions about what to wear and nearly as many last-minute changes. Over the weekend we stayed with our niece Debora in her fourth floor apartment which you reach by climbing 70 or so steps, this keeps you fit at no extra cost, especially when you leave something on the kitchen table and only remember it when you get down to street level. Debora goes to Bolivia in July for twelve months to lead a centre for the many very young single girls there who have been either abused or thrown out or both because they became pregnant, with only the cold streets for a home. She cares for similar but older girls in Barcelona at the moment with a dedication that has not gone unnoticed by Carmen, the lady pastor of our age who we have known for 30 years and who is behind the Bolivia Project which you can see here. A lunchtime paella with Carmen in a £3 a person restaurant in the centre of Barcelona left us well-fed in more ways than one after hearing her retirement plan to go to Bolivia on a one way ticket, to live there and die there for these girls. There was only time to see one more person and that was Virgilio, the on-line pastor of our Spanish pages. Virgilio brought the draft copies of two of his books which are about to be published and told us about his meetings with young people in some of Barcelona's prisons where he was going that afternoon. He also leads a couple of friendly small groups for people who have said their 'adios' to church for their own reasons. He is doing OK but finding a job in Spain's collapsed economy would be a blessing right now. And that was our weekend, and the reason why the DCI Minute didn't pop into your inbox on time, we only wished you could have come as well.

DCI is an international small group with no walls, no frontiers, no fees and open to all, each member helping the others to reach the lost, the last and the least of the world.

Click to read this week's DCI news

2011-05-14T20:34:00.001+01:00

EXQUISITE PERFUME COMES IN SMALL BOTTLES

This is our Monday prayer group, Sally, Margaret, Kathy and Pilar together making a small group that has been meeting for years and to whom we and many people around the world owe a debt that can never be repaid in this life, more than once the prayer of these ladies in the morning has been answered by the evening. Some Mondays an evening group will meet, and the next day another in the afternoon and this is us, six people here and five people there around the world, alone yet together. We have all the usual ingredients that make small groups so nice to be part of – the worship, prayer, knowing and being known, caring about each other and enjoying lots of nice things to eat and drink, but we have one little extra as well and this has made, literally, a world of difference. The story is something like this. Back in the 1930's Pastor Oswald Smith was reaching the end of his patience with people who couldn't grasp his passion for souls and the challenge of mission. It is said that one Sunday he put his Bible down on the pulpit with a thump and said, "If you can't go yourself, then for God's sake send someone else in your place." Whether this word was intended or it just slipped out from his heart before long People's Church, Toronto had sent hundreds of men and women to the four corners of the earth and Smith was travelling the world looking for more people to send. People may say to you, as they have said to us, as they said to Smith that you either too old, too young, too single, too married, married too many times, with too many kids, too many debts, too unwell, too much to do or too something else to go too far for more a couple of weeks and it may be true but my, over the years how many people have we sent in our place and what fantastic, world-changing things they have done for Jesus. Sending is our little extra and Jules in the Congo will be the next man to go carrying 700 Bibles with him to give to new believers he is going to win next month. You know, we would love to fill the world with people like you and small groups like the ones God has given to us and perhaps, just perhaps you might like to start one in your home and see where the Lord takes you and who He brings you to send. If you hear a ‘yes’ just now then write back and we will give you all the help we can find, priority number one because exquisite perfume comes in small bottles.

2011-05-06T16:01:00.000+01:00

THE WITCH DOCTOR

George Purkweri, our friend from longer ago than we can remember who lives in Lira, northern Uganda tells this week’s story that, “a few Sundays ago some evil men came and put many big sharp thorns across the door of our mud-brick and straw Church for the Poor in Pader, built on land that we had legally purchased. The leading man said that he wanted £150 to let the people enter. We went to the village elders who feared to help so not having the money between us we put the matter in God’s hands. The following Wednesday two dogs belonging to these men died instantly within moments of each other and this brought fear to their hearts so they went to the witch doctor with an offering. His advice was to scatter blood around our church land to appease God’s wrath, which they did but then a swarm of African bees came literally out of nowhere and killed all their chickens, hurt their goats and finally stung three of their people so seriously that they were rushed to hospital. The witchdoctor said to sprinkle more blood because the God was not appeased but as they did so the wife of the very man who demanded the money turned yellowish from head to toe and was urgently sent many miles to the hospital in Lira where the doctors found no evidence of disease and sent her home with some paracetamol tablets. At this point the witchdoctor revealed that all this was happening because of what they had done against the Church. In fear the entire family turned to God in repentance and took the lady to the believers to be prayed for, after which she quickly returned to health and we were asked to go back into our building where we received our new brothers not as enemies but as forgiven friends. While all this was happening the believers met under a tree where twenty eight new people and their children decided to follow Jesus and as we go back into our building they will stay there and become a second church.”

DCI is an international small group with no walls, no frontiers, no fees and open to all, each member following the call of God alone yet together, and each supporting the others.

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2011-04-30T16:05:00.002+01:00

YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DESTINATION

The most significant event of our week was to meet with Miguel and MariCarmen of Remar Spain, our friends from way back in 1984. From the smallest of beginnings in Miguel’s own home in Vitoria in País Vasco, Remar now works with street people in 67 of the world's most troubled nations, and houses, heals, clothes and provides work for well over 40,000 former drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, orphans, AIDS victims and society's cast-off's in general. With no waiting list and no selection procedure there is always room for one more, there are no age limits and nothing for anyone to pay. In this atmosphere of love, prayer and serving it is not surprising that the success rate in getting people off whatever it is that is destroying their lives is very high even if the process is a little demanding, basically it’s all or nothing, God or bust. This week it was no inner-city back street that we were looking for, in fact the postcode that we were given to put into our GPS took us with increasing disbelief to a locked gate in Shipley Country Park whereupon the Tom Tom lady announced, "you have reached your destination." “I don’t think so,” I said to the machine which remained silent and convinced. Then Rui from Portugal waved a key, unlocked the gate and led us way down a rural lane and there at the end were our friends waiting for us, along with Rosa who Pilar led to Jesus in 1984, her husband Joaquin, and Anna who came to Spain with us in 1981 and stayed. There was Jason from Liverpool too, who remembered word for word some meetings we took 12 years ago before he went to India with Remar. But why this last-minute call to come? In turned out that after 18 years of prayer in Britain and in Spain with many a hostile refusal of planning permission in that time, the Lord had finally provided 32 acres of the most beautiful green English countryside not thirty minutes from the red-light district of Nottingham, yet in atmosphere a million miles away. Even as we walked around the farm buildings a man from Belfast who had definitely known better days was welcomed, they had flown him over that morning, no charge, and it looked as if this might be his last chance in life. Now, if alcohol or drugs has got the better of one or two people in your family as it has in ours, on the day that they are seriously willing to change you might want to have this phone number written down: 0208 5390452, or this 24 hour mobile 07917585056 or this website and don’t hesitate to ring. On the other hand if you would like to serve with Remar anywhere in the world, or bless their work in the UK with part-time voluntary work, skills or money then click here to e-mail Miguel and help this movement heal a broken world, one person at a time.

DCI is an international small group with no walls,

no frontiers, no fees, serving worldwide and open to all.

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2011-04-24T14:06:00.005+01:00

THE MOSAIC

In our international community loosely called DCI as also in a mosaic each little piece or person taken alone can seem so insignificant. One piece may be bright red, another cold blue or a dull green, another sharp yellow, yet another warm purple joining one of shining gold. Some look precious, others more ordinary. Some look valuable, others perhaps less so but first impressions can often fool you. Some look gaudy, others delicate. As individual stones, one can do little with them except compare them and judge their beauty and value. When, however, all these little stones are brought together by the moving of God’s Spirit into one intricate mosaic that attempts to portray the living Jesus, who would ever question the importance of any one of them? If even one of them, even the least spectacular one of us, is missing, our portrait of Jesus would be incomplete. This makes each little stone to be indispensable and a unique contribution to the glory of God. As Henri Neuwen says, “This is community, this is us, a fellowship of little people who together make God visible in the world.”

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Inspired by Can you drink the cup, by Henri Neuwen

2011-04-15T18:28:00.002+01:00

THE SUITCASE

I pulled it, I pushed it, I rocked it, then tried to drag it but move it would not, not an inch. My face went crimson, sweat trickled as perplexity increased and time accelerated. I had just seen Etienne put his suitcase on the ground, “let me take it to the train while you get a ticket, quick, it goes in four minutes,” I had said, and now the case seemed cemented to the pavement. Etienne Zongo, the Burkina Faso minister for sport sprinted back ticket in hand, leaned down and with a smooth, effortless upward motion swung his case onto his shoulder and ran for the platform with a very embarrassed red-faced, weak, white nasarra trying to keep up behind him. He jumped on the train with only seconds to spare and as it pulled away he shouted from the doorway, “Au revoir, mon ami, see you soon.” My wounded pride rather hoped not. It had been an impromptu, hurriedly arranged unexpected weekend back in 1984 with this tall, handsome man, so dark that he was almost purple, from somewhere called Ouagadougou, who spoke Mooré and had his tribal identity etched by knife into his face, who sang the songs of God and talked about thousands of poor Mossi coming to Christ. In no time at all Etienne led to Philippe, a gifted but penniless young man in 1985 but who today watches over some four thousand churches and has opened 70 schools for 7000 village children, then Philippe welcomed Miguel from Spain who wept every night for three months at what he saw and today feeds, houses and clothes hundreds of poor Burkinabe men and women. Meanwhile a stream of pastors began to arrive at East Midlands Airport to be trained, often carrying no more than a plastic supermarket bag containing their few possessions, and later John Clements single-handed took his Academy of Mission over there. Philippe and Miguel then opened the way for Angel and Abigail from Barcelona who this very weekend with a 45 strong medical team begin a tenth visit to Burkina Faso, still the world’s sixth poorest country where hundreds of deaf, blind and otherwise sick people already patiently wait in line for their one chance in a lifetime to see a doctor. Angel and his colleagues will see each one and as many more again and give them whatever they need medically with the gospel and prayer added to dentistry and surgery. Looking back, if that case belonging to Etienne was so impossible to grasp, and it was, perhaps it was so heavy because it contained the future.

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2011-04-08T17:45:00.000+01:00

DANCING FOR AN AUDIENCE OF ONE

It happened in same pulpit where the measured words of the Oxford martyrs Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer caused their arrest and subsequently to be burned alive on the 16th October, 1555. Two hundred years later John Wesley preached some of his most stirring sermons from the same pulpit culminating with his often quoted 'Almost Christian' in which he so denounced laxity and sloth in high places that he was never allowed to speak there again. Yet on Sunday 20th February 2011 the witnesses down all the ages since the 13th century beginnings of the prestigious Oxford University Church of St Mary's must have let out a collective gasp of disbelief as the minister welcomed the preacher of the day, the author and celebrated atheist Philip Pullman who ascended to the pulpit and began by saying, "If you invite an unbeliever to preach a sermon, you mustn't be surprised if he doesn't talk much about God. Theology this is not." And indeed it was not as you may read if you wish. In total contrast only last Sunday in another gathering of believers, smaller and less prestigious by far, anyone who looked out of the corner of their eye in the worship time would have glimpsed a lady in her middle years elegantly and quietly dancing before the Lord. Almost a year ago to the day she had lost her daughter, a beautiful mother and Christian leader in her early 40’s, to an inexplicable and irresistible cancer. We never thought that mum would ever smile again. Even that very week had brought one more family difficulty that had crushed her soul but in a time of such helplessness God himself had sent words, pictures and a meaningful gift through a friend which together had brought healing, peace and acceptance of a loss that forever will be a mystery. Mum’s dance was thanksgiving and worship for an audience of One and we few guilty onlookers tried to look away but could not because the message it preached and the smile that illustrated it far outshone the sermon that was to follow and eloquently said everything that Philip Pullman did not say to the future elite of England. Isn’t it so true that God has a way of choosing the weak to shame the wise and the strong.

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2011-04-01T17:18:00.000+01:00

THE WRITER

When in the early eighties the call of God came to make known among the nations what God had done, by making leaders who would go to the unreached, train their new believers and consider the poor it did seem to be a job for an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor or a teacher, la crème de la crème on the lists in God’s job centre. The trouble was (and still is) that neither myself nor Pilar are any such thing and to be frank we even find the Romans 12 beginner’s list of serving, encouraging, giving and showing mercy to be the work of ten lifetimes. I am a writer and Pilar is a poet whose verse is described as more akin to prayer than poetry. We can empathise with Philip Yancey who confessed, “My calling is to be a writer who works out my faith in print yet sitting in a chair all day herding words around makes for a solitary life, I can hardly write if someone enters the same room. I trust that God may use my own feeble efforts to connect with readers out there, most of whom I will never meet.” So Pilar wrote poems that to this day touch the whole Latin American world and I wrote a School of Mission curriculum which has found favour all over the place. Some days Pilar awakes with a poem before breakfast and afterwards I write my letters to leaders, graduates, beginners and all sorts of people with hopes, dreams and problems. Someone once extinguished my doubts by saying that writing letters is a very New Testament ministry because Paul did lots of it. Listen, you don’t have to be an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor or a teacher to change the world so wait no longer. All you need are your five loaves and two fish and the courage to ask the same two questions that occurred to Saul when he was lying face down on the Damascus road in the presence of the risen Christ that he had no love for: “Who are you Lord?” followed by “What do you want me to do?” The rest as they say, is history.

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2011-03-30T16:20:00.003+01:00

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

Marmite is a curious English delicacy dating back to 1902 when the Bass Brewery in Burton on Trent famous for it's bottled Double Diamond beer found an innovative use for a growing surplus of yeast. For anyone who has not been initiated into this rather addictive gourmet delight we are talking about a thick, sticky, smooth, dark brown paste with a smell akin to that of unrefined petroleum and with a taste not dissimilar to asphalt. Generally you put Marmite on toast with butter usually at breakfast time. Just a passing remembrance causes ex-pats in faraway places to drool and to secretly fantasize about it at sunrise making a pot of Marmite the number one on the 'please bring me' lists sent to prospective visitors. Don't try it though if you are flying 'hand-baggage only' because the screen of the airport scanner will detect explosive and bleep at you menacingly whereupon the guards will remove the opaque jar from your case along with your tweezers and other weapons even as tell-tale smears on their lips betray the destiny of yesterday's similarly confiscated contraband. Nevertheless as the Marmite adverts have said for years – you either love it or hate it. No in-between. No grey areas. The first taste fixes your opinion forever. We recently visited an aspiring mega-church where the music that opened the way for worship was truly extraordinary and the talk that followed was relevant, compelling and very multi-media yet for us it was like a gathering of strangers drawn together by a common but private interest. In the crowds we could not see anyone we knew and with everyone being so very British and needing to be introduced no-one could be persuaded to venture beyond a charismatic 'Good morning, I'm fine.' Afterwards we walked to the car park filled with the Spirit, the Word and a penetrating loneliness. Like Marmite, a cathedral such as this you either love or hate. Or perhaps there is way of loving it and hating it all at the same time? Let Zig Ziglar bring the word of wisdom, "If you go there (or anywhere, really) looking for a friend, you're going to find they're very scarce but if you go out to be a friend, you'll find them everywhere."

2011-03-25T15:17:00.002Z

OSCAR TIME

Not the Hollywood kind which are awarded for tremendous acting ability, au contraire our OSCAR is awarded not for acting but for being completely genuine. Our OSCAR is for Outstanding Service to Christ And Revival and our winner comes not from Hollywood but rather more modestly from Sellers Wood, Nottingham – ladies and gentleman put your hands together for Dennis Bull with his wife Evelyn. Not because after prayer Dennis survived incurable TB in his teenage years, not because after prayer Dennis saw his paralysed daughter stand and walk away healed and not even because after Dennis said, ‘Keep it for us Lord,” a highly desirable bungalow remained unsold for twelve long months. Dennis gets our OSCAR because in a day and age when commitment to anything and anyone is short-term and unfashionable Dennis has served the people of St. John's at Bulwell continuously, wait for it, for 77 years. No, that is not a typing slip, we also had to say 'Excuse me, what did you just say?' At 81 years of age Dennis, and Evelyn as well, are both a picture of health and happiness, they talk about nothing else but the Lord, they support mission with DCI, mission with YWAM Hungary and mission to children in the developing world. They overflow with the presence of God, they love their church, they serve ‘hands-on’ and would not be anywhere else. Ladies and gentleman, honour where it is due, an OSCAR for an incredible seventy-seven years of Outstanding Service to Christ and Revival for Dennis and Evelyn Bull.

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2011-03-23T10:04:00.000Z

THE MIRACLE DANCE

The road to Aduku was long and dusty and when we finally arrived we found a village that no-one goes to and no-one cares about. Poverty was everywhere in the streets and hardship was written on many a weary face. Our driver George took us to a simple shop where a secretary greeted us in her language, gave us seats on the shady patio and brought some very welcome cool water. We waited, quietly wondering why we had come all this way. Suddenly a long line of ladies, young and older danced onto the patio, a swirl of bright colours, singing and shrieking, for ten minutes their smiles lit up the world. “George,” I said, “What is this, who are these ladies?” “These are all widows because of the war or AIDS,” whispered George. “We gave this ‘Cooperative’ some of your money and these ladies were the first to be loaned $50 each. They began buying or making things and selling them in the market and now every one of them has food, clothes and medicine, and she sends her children to school. They have repaid their loans and they walk around with dignity. For them this is a miracle and the dance is their way of saying thank you to God.” The truth is that God has many more miracles like this, one may be for you, or perhaps God will ask you to his hands to make the miracle possible for someone. Either way, say yes and your world will change.

Written for a village newspaper in Peru to help introduce DCI Banking for the Poor into the community.

2011-03-18T16:12:00.003Z

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SOMEONE ?

People who are supernaturally gifted to lead must yield themselves fully to God. They must communicate powerful, biblical, God-honouring visions and build effective, loving, clearly focused teams. They must fire up the followers of Christ to give their absolute best for God and they must insist with pit bull determination that:

the gospel be preached, the lost be found,
the believers be equipped, the poor be served,
the lonely be enfolded into community,
and that God gets the credit for it all.

This deeply moving quotation is from Bill Hybels in his book Courageous Leadership, and we can add nothing except to say that if you happen to find men or women who can do this - and the bottom line of every prayer, every pound and every page in DCI is to meet them - then do what we do and give them everything you have got to get them started and to keep them going until they are flying with their own wings of faith. We have never met Bill Hybels but no-one can say it better, “Give your life to this. Give all the money you can give. Give all the service you can give. Give all the prayers you can give. Give whatever you have to give, because for all eternity you’ll look back over your shoulder and be glad you did.”

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2011-03-12T14:20:00.005Z

MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM

It was Monday morning, our hand luggage was packed and the ever-punctual Swiss train was coming in an hour or so. There was time to pray together, ourselves and our hosts Reinhold, Regula, Michael, Emily and the children. Reinhold, a leader in the radical European house church movement moved to the grand piano and began to play what his heart and ours was saying, "As the deer pants for the water so my soul longs for you." Regula, a pastor with the classical Swiss Reformed Church joined in with her violin and as two very different church expressions of the same love for Christ met, heaven touched earth. Such a presence filled both the room and our souls that eyes filled up and like the beloved in Song of Songs we could only ask, "Who is this?" yet all the while knowing the answer. Being Switzerland, the first of many clocks struck ten but Chronos, the time on earth had turned into Kairos, a never to be forgotten time of God's visitation. Maybe for Julie Andrews, years ago, the alpine hills were alive with the sound of music but for us Matt Redman captured the moment when he wrote, "I'm coming back to the heart of worship, and it's all about you - Jesus. Forgive us Lord for the thing we've made it, (whether the old or the new) when it's all about you - Jesus." When we first arrived we said to ourselves that we could sit here forever and never move again because of the breathtaking views and now as we said goodbye we felt just the same but this time it was because of the presence of God. In another age and in a long abandoned language when worship opened heaven and explanation became impossible they simply called it Mysterium Tremendum which means just what you think it does. The words might even make make you suspect that these days despite all the use of technology for 'worship' we could be missing something or dare I say it - even Someone?

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2011-03-03T16:53:00.002Z

MIDDLE AGE SPREAD

At our meeting today is was decided officially and accordingly entered into laws of the Medes and Persians which cannot be revoked, that in DCI middle-age begins at sixty-five, unless of course anyone dies of old age beforehand. Failing that in the spirit of Caleb we will consider 80 years of age to be the beginning of retirement years. Armed therefore with this new lease of life, our middle age spread takes us today to Geneva on BMI Baby, the airline that tells you that they have ‘tiny’ fares, until you want one of course and then you find that the baby has grown alarmingly. From Geneva airport we catch one of those punctual to the second Swiss trains to Bern and another to Thun where Michael and Ameylia will collect us and take us home to Steffisburg. Michael is the editor of our pages in German, Ameylia is from Indonesia and they have two children - Josi who we met in Nottingham and Ben who was born just a few weeks ago. Michael’s parents Reinhold and Regula are founder members of the European arm of the DAWN – Discipling a Whole Nation movement that has achieved so much around the world over the past few years. So we have a weekend to look forward too! At the same time our daughter Lizzie is spreading her own wings by going to Barcelona to visit Angel and Abigail who are who are getting ready for their 10th visit to Burkina Faso this Easter with a team of 40 medical people coming from all over Europe. Their daughter and Lizzie’s friend is Keila who is a very accomplished musician and this weekend sees the launch of a new CD by her band Paper Mache. The stars will shine in Barcelona but our minute has gone. There’s time for a final word of thanks and appreciation for Alan who also saw the stars because he got out of bed at a breath-taking 4 o’clock this morning to take Lizzie to Birmingham airport and right now is coming back to take us to East Midlands for our flight.

2011-02-28T13:11:00.007Z

WE DESERVE BETTER

Last night we went to hear comedian Mark Thomas a self-declared atheist and political activist from a family of vicars and pastors who was speaking about what he found and who he had met as he walked all 750 kilometres of the security wall between Israel and the Palestinian controlled West Bank. Mark spoke without notes, without multimedia or video clips, yet he never once lost his way or his thoughts, never hesitated and with a obvious passion and rather too many rude words he gripped this Sunday night paying audience, including me, for two whole hours from his first words to the last making us laugh and then weep. By the end we knew what he believed and there will be no forgetting it. This morning I asked myself what happened to passionate preaching in our churches instead of the tedious, monotonous and infinitely forgettable visitor friendly 'talks' about God in general and nothing in particular that are so in fashion these days. A century or more ago someone once asked David Hume, a well known unbeliever why he was going to listen to the famed George Whitefield, a gospel preacher. "You don't believe in all that," the friend said. "No," the man replied, "but Whitefield is no fool and he certainly believes, I want to know why." It would be a shame if today the only man left who can move us and convince us of what he believes is a stage comedian.

2011-02-25T16:53:00.000Z

THE SECRET

World-famous author and speaker John Maxwell says that the secret of good communication is found in three words: brevity, levity and repetition. As this is all we have to say today brevity is therefore accomplished and a little levity now follows. "A pastor was asked by his daughter why he always prayed before he entered the pulpit. He answered, “I do that to ask God to help me with my sermon.” The little girl thought for a minute and replied, “Then why doesn’t he do it, Daddy?” And now the repetition, same as last week. Do please click here to read this week's world news and then here for our local news, comings and goings and prayer requests.

Shall we say it again for extra repetition? No, we will just say much love, always, and ring or write anytime.

2011-02-18T19:01:00.008Z

MUSEUM PIECES

When we started out in the 1980's to the sound of encouraging words like illegal, illegitimate and mongrel ministries all because we enjoyed serving everyone from Russian Orthodox believers to hyper-charismatic Brazilians, our first stop was in post-Franco Spain followed by post-colonial Africa. In those dire days two Spanish believers was a church, four became two churches and when that four became five you soon had three churches and two denominations, none of whom talked to the other. Further south in the so-called dark continent no-one had two coins to rub together and a church was 20 people clothed in rags who welcomed you with outstretched, calloused hands the texture of sandpaper, into their mud or straw churches lit by candles and populated as much by the reptile world as by God’s chosen poor.

Yet today just for example our same friends in Spain, Miguel and Maria Carmen care for 40,000 people and EMSI take out medical care to thousands, while over in Africa CNN reports that Enoch Adeboye in Nigeria regularly has one million people coming to his church, and other mega-churches are not far behind. Our own Schools of Mission were designed to train at no-cost the penniless leaders we had met, and this they still do for thousands, yet recently Yves Gaba in Togo like others before him last year reported that his newest School of Mission will cost £3000 a year to run, and then casually added, “but we can take care of that." It is true that the narrower-minded world of thirty years ago that we cut our teeth on is vanishing into history as God's Kingdom irresistibly advances and although as someone suggested this world of yesteryear belongs in a museum, the glint in their eye and the peculiar smile they gave us also suggested that we might feel at home in there as well. Today's world belongs to the young and to their children of course, but I think we can look after it for them for a little longer, and to be honest whatever age we are there is always someone we can serve and bless, younger or older. It is still our generation.

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2011-02-11T18:03:00.002Z

NOT GUILTY

One by one fifty people, mainly women many of them bandaged and limping some carrying children who displayed livid red marks of violence, looked across the courtroom and said, 'Yes, these are the men that did this to us and demolished our building.' A senior police inspector, previously thought to be an educated and fair man declared that he could find no reason to detain the accused whereupon the magistrate duly declared them innocent, one and all, and with knowing smiles they left the courtroom only to reappear minutes later in the streets carrying their automatic weapons. Money of course had quietly changed hands. The next day they gave the pastor the option to leave now, this very day, or to see his family home burned, his children kidnapped, and a notorious medieval law would be invoked at the earliest opportunity which would have him on death row before he knew it. Unless of course more money changed hands which it did not. We can’t tell you any more of the story but we are working with Remar in Spain and the Spanish Consulate to bring this seriously endangered family of believers to Europe however the outcome is far from certain. The UK Consulate did not feel that they qualified for a visa on the grounds of escaping persecution and the government of the nation concerned declined to comment.

The persecution continued this last week in Indonesia when three churches were burned to the ground and another forcibly closed down while on this side of the world the dominoes of Algeria, Jordan, Sudan and Yemen began to wobble following the changes in Egypt and Tunisia. Will the exile of super-rich colonels and presidents really bring the freedom the crowds and the Christians hope for or might they find a worse tyranny coming their way as happened years ago in that uncanny premonition of today’s news when the Iranian people celebrated the departing Shah only to find out that their Ayatollahs were taking them back into the dark ages. Curiously, one returning Egyptian politician gave the game away to the BBC when he said, "No, of course we wouldn't bring in Sharia Law, - unless of course the people asked us for it."

There is much to pray about and even more if you stop to think about Israel.

2011-02-04T17:00:00.002Z

ONLY THE LONELY

Perhaps it was my imagination but could I hear the Celebrity quietly mouthing ‘Only the Lonely’, the Roy Orbison song from the 60’s? The spotlight was on him, they had given him centre stage and by the magic of lighting he seemed suspended in time and space but the audience as fickle as crowds alone can be, had glimpsed a glamorous dusky skinned lady beautifully dressed in gold watching from an upper alcove and they rushed the stairs cameras in hand, aspiring paparazzi each and every one. Only one or two of us remained in our seats and I felt for the real Celebrity. I told him this as he waited patiently, displaying all the timeless and unassailable dignity that had made him who he was, and I knew that he appreciated my words. We were in the great hall of Montserrat, perched on the curious mountain peaks that tower high over Barcelona, two Sundays ago. The dark-skinned lady scarcely visible through the camera flashes was the acclaimed La Moreneta, a world-famous carving of the Virgin Mary; and the abandoned Celebrity was Jesus. Touching La Moreneta will bring you luck they say, touching Christ the Bible says, brings healing and forgiveness yet in a twenty-first century world of i-pads, i-pods, and i-phones the crowds still seemed to prefer a twelfth-century i-dol and went home with only a photo, the memory of an unreturned kiss and their needs unmet. It was a curious sight in a sophisticated world, so much so that we wanted to share it with you. Is there anything that you would like to say to the Celebrity right now whilst the queue to speak to him is so small ?

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2011-01-28T17:07:00.000Z

APPLAUSE FOR AN ACTOR

Well-known actor and major celebrity of his day, Charles Laughton was attending a Christmas party with a family in London when during the evening the host asked everyone attending to recite a favourite passage that best represented the spirit of Christmas. When it was Laughton's turn, with consummate skill and all the right gestures he recited Psalm 23 and everyone applauded his performance. People took their turn until the last to participate was an elderly aunt who had dozed off in a corner. Someone gently woke her, explained what was going on, and asked her to take part. She thought for a moment and then in her shaky voice she began to say, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want, and so on until the end at which point everyone was in tears. When Laughton departed at the end of the evening, the host thanked him for gracing them with his presence and confessed his embarrassment about the very contrary responses of his family to the two recitations of the same psalm. When asked his opinion on the difference, Laughton responded, "I know the psalm; she knows the Shepherd," and left into the night.

Click here for our local news, comings and goings and prayer requests.

Click here to see The DCI World News Page for this weekend and yes, please do share this Minute with your friends.

2011-01-20T11:37:00.000Z

THE WHIRLPOOL OF TIME

The rushing around in circles is under way, the clock is ticking and time which is universally constant accelerates, swirls and vanishes before your eyes. You know the feeling, it only happens when you have a flight to catch and even though everything seemed to be done, ready and organised so well the night before, the moment you wake next day a list appears before your eyes. And it's already late. One dog to here, another dog to there, Pilar to the doctor's coughing like a horse, the news pages for the weekend to Indonesia, the fax for the bank transfer won't go through, the adaptor for the charger can't be found, and now there is too much stuff for the hand-luggage. As the saying goes, time, tide and the airport bus wait for no man.

Today we fly to Barcelona, God-willing and our favourite airline Ryanair permitting. We shall see Pilar's mama who is almost 89, and our niece Debora who is flying to Bolivia for a year to help care for abandoned teenage single mums, including one or two who incredibly have not even reached teenage years. Tomorrow we take Virgilio and his wife Maria Jesus out lunch to say thank you for the 14 very popular books that Virgilio has given to our readers, all free. As our online pastor he also replies to hundreds of people from South America who write in with their sometimes quite extraordinary questions and problems. We have a banker's draft for an amazing 5300 Euros to give to Angel and Abigail who are taking forty medics to Burkina Faso at Easter time to do surgery, dentistry and treat thousands of poor people free of charge, and the weekend will not be complete until we see Pepe and Noemi who have supported Pilar since she was little more than a teenager. As you see Spain has more to offer than sunshine, sangria and siestas, but where did we put that adaptor, look at the time will you . .

As always, you travel with us in our hearts, in our prayers and in the way we tell our friends in Barcelona all about you.

You can follow our journey on Twitter

Click to see The DCI World News Page for this weekend

2011-01-14T16:36:00.000Z

CONNECTING

Most people who put the move into the DCI movement don't complain, not about anything really, not even when it hurts, although some of them have good reason to be sure. Be that as it may we think that community, for that is what we are or at least would like to be despite the miles between most of us, works best when we connect with each other and especially when we feel each other's pains and weaknesses, and in feeling them we pray for each other and as we do distance disappears.

On the other hand what brightens the day more than hearing someone's good news? Like everyone we love this but on the day that it does hurt somewhere, don't be afraid to ring or write back and tell us. Not being God and not even having his private number we can't often fix things in five minutes, but we can pray and after all these years of seeing the power of God at work or learning patience or both, we will walk through the problem with you and if needs be we will get others praying too. Prayer makes it very likely that things will change for the better or you will find new grace coming your way to get you to the other side. It's the least we can do, and probably it's the best thing that we can do as well, just a small, far too small, return for all your friendship and support. So, lean this way then if you need to, we and people right round the world are here for you.

We would like you to keep an eye on our Twitter Page because this is the new DCI Notice Board for people like you in the heart of things, we update it throughout the day. Take a look and if you wish, register your name and e-mail to join in by computer or by mobile phone.

Click to see The DCI World News Page for this weekend with everything from Charlie Brown to how 100,000 British people have turned to Islam.

From time to time Ana in Honduras, a respected pastor sends a prophetic word to us, click to read the latest.

2011-01-07T17:34:00.000Z

THE CLEFT IN THE ROCK

In the first year the weakest companies went to the wall very quickly and by late in the second year even some of the household names were feeling a chilly ill-wind on their Christmas sales and profits. Some of today's men of Issachar, the people who know the signs of the times, say that the world, and maybe the Church too, frittered away seven prosperous years of the Genesis 41 fat cows and now we have the third year of the thin cows. Are they right? If so things are not going to get a lot better anytime soon. Were Greece and Ireland just the first dominoes to fall and who will be next? Will there be 'wars and rumours of wars' over energy supplies, water, food prices and Israel? Will the seventh year be the platform for the long-awaited eloquent peacemaker who displays an unusual ability to end terrorism, revive the economies and so wins the ear of the whole world? Those with an eye on the end-times prophecies say they know what comes next.

We don't see so far ahead but whether 2011 brings the thin cows onto the streets or not, can you hear the Lord saying that for those of us who love Him and follow His call that He will crown this year with a bountiful harvest and even the hard pathways will overflow with abundance. This is from Psalm 65.11 NLT. Let's not forget that when it was darkness in Egypt the lights were still switched on and it was business as normal in Goshen where the believing people lived, and even though the plagues in Egypt caused distress to thousands and the ripples will have affected Goshen, not one catastrophe bruised God's own people. In fact the Lord has a way of putting the ones He loves into a cleft in a rock, a bit restricted it may be but only for a while, and it is a safe place with the hidden attraction that you get to see the Lord passing by and you hear him speaking. That's where we want to be and where we want you to be in 2011. Will you join with us and thank God now and every day, ahead of time, for working out His Psalm 65.11 promise in the face of every contrary circumstance and by his grace we will have a good year.

Click the DCI News Page for this week to see some amazing photos and a startling video.

You can now follow daily events and travels on our Twitter page.

2010-12-31T13:21:00.000Z

ALWAYS WINTER AND NEVER CHRISTMAS

You will be thrilled to know that officially in 2011 it will always be winter but never Christmas. It looks like the infamous icy lady of Narnia, the witch of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, having been defeated by Aslan has found a welcome in the higher echelons of the European Union and taken up residence in Brussels where a cool summer may now be expected. We may look forward to Diwali, to Hanukkah and even to Eid but in the EU's new 2011 day planner for school children, and this is no printing error, there is no more Christmas. So Come All Ye Faithful sing the carols one last time, freeze some turkey and pud as a souvenir, make those new socks last and keep your Christmas cards safe for the grandchildren to gaze at in awe.

As 2010 draws to an end we can look back at all the ways, and there are many, that the Lord has helped us in the last twelve months. For many of us brilliant blessings have been balanced by other darker days but through it all the Lord has been faithful yet again, and He will be no less faithful in 2011. If it is true that some of your prayers still remain unanswered, and we have a list of our own, it does not mean that God is either absent, uncaring or saying no. Present in some things, silent in others and all at the same time, yet God is working things out His way for our greater good and we should trust him for in the end we will not be disappointed.

You have also been very faithful too, and the Lord knows that Pilar and I and lots of us in DCI could never, ever, ever have done what we have done this past year without your help, support and friendship.

May your New Year, 2011 Anno Domini, be unforgettably good whatever they say . . .

2010-12-10T16:23:00.000Z

WHO GOT YOUR GIFT ?

This year we have chosen to hold our Christmas Party and yours with some of the poorest, most landless, homeless, stateless, rejected and abandoned men, women and children in the world based on Luke 14.13. On December 30th all the Badjao sea-gypsies that we can find will come to a day of celebration, eating, drinking, music and story-telling and leave with gifts and hope. These particular Badjaos known locally as the 'lumaan' or God-forsaken have been forced off the seas by war, piracy and hard times and now live hand to mouth, destitute and despised in the streets of Ipil, in the exotically named southern Filipino province of Zamboanga, ill-treated by the state and untouched by the church, but not by Antonio, a journalist and pastor of a handful of poor people, and his wife Elvie, a political scientist, two friends with a big heart who live right there.

As Mother Theresa always said, "In the poor Christ comes to us in his most distressing disguise," because what we do for the hungry, thirsty, ragged, sick and imprisoned we do for Christ himself, according to Jesus' own words in Matthew 25, 35-40. So a thousand apologies because all that we would have spent on your Christmas card and a present to say thank you for your friendship and support this year is on its way to the sea-gypsies in Zamboanga. Let the shock and pain of this be eased by the words of Nehemiah 8.10, well, more or less that is: "Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks this Christmas season, and allow us to send some to those who have nothing prepared. This 30th day will be sacred to our Lord, do not grieve for you have missed but little, allow instead the joy of the Lord to be your strength."

2010-12-04T10:46:00.000Z

THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES

As an opening line its get's your attention which was Charles Dicken's intention in A Tale of Two Cities and it is also an apt description of the past week. On the one hand, the good one, the Chinese Government lifted its blockade of our pages allowing one Beijing university professor, Paul, to immediately open the first of five Schools of Mission. One month later all the students say that they have heard God call them to go overseas with the gospel and they have their eyes on the trade and aid routes into Africa. Our Asia week continued apace with new contacts in Vietnam and Cambodia, while Marion brought Fiji back to our screen, as thankful as ever that years ago we were the first to support her call to be there because today she looks after God-given land and schools worth some $2,500,000. Now, get ready for what comes next. Antonio is the pastor of a handful of poor natives in a remote corner of the Philippines and he asked if he could send 10% of his church's quarterly income over to the Amazon to help take the gospel to the unreached peoples there.

We said 'Yes' and Western Union, better known years ago as Wells Fargo - do you remember their stagecoaches being held up in every John Wayne cowboy film - promptly delivered £8.70 to the far side of the world. Yes, the decimal point is in the right place just as Antonio's heart is also in the right place proving that the best of times can also bring a tear to your eye. On the other hand the injuries in Pakistan that we told you about last week, the calls with news about illnesses, jobs, family problems, a car crash and the combination of it being Christmas and year two of the recession have conspired to make it the worst of times for some of our friends and supporters. The ebbs and flows of life, the invisible but cruel spiritual warfare, the wheat and the tares growing side by side - "an enemy has done this," said the Master, all vividly tell us how much we need the Lord, who as often as not comes to us through the love of a visitor, someone who laughs with us when things go right and passes us a tissue and make us a cup of tea when they don't. There's no magic wand to wave but you could make someone feel so much better and after a prayer who knows but their worst of times might become a best of times.

Click to see this week's DCI Page with actual photos of the rubble that was Sarwar's church.

2010-11-26T17:47:00.000Z

TROUBLE ON OUR DOORSTEP

This week Asia Bibi, a Pakistani lady and a believer facing imminent execution after 15 months in jail on truly unbelievable charges of blasphemy was released by President Zadari after intense international media pressure, but now comes this news, a little closer to home. Read on. Muslim extremists with heavy weapons have interrupted a worship service and beat the entire congregation, seriously injuring escaping women and children. Using a bulldozer and a heavy crane they then demolished the whole church building and destroyed Bibles, musical instruments, the sound system, everything. How do we know this ? The pastor who was also beaten is Masih, the leader of a DCI School of Mission and a man who has opened 20 new churches, a good friend to us for many years. He said, "We called the police but they did not come to help and the Government will not protect us from the death threats that are intended to make our families leave this area. Our lives are in danger, please pray for us and let the international community know that we need legal assistance and help."

For security reasons we have only used our friend's most common name, we have deleted the actual location and obscured the photograph. Can we do anything to help ? We can pray, we can help to rebuild Masih's church and we can protest to the Foreign Office or to the Pakistan High Commission in London about the 'blind-eye and deaf ear' of the heavily sponsored Pakistan Government to its minority Christians.

Click for The DCI Page with more truly extraordinary stories, photos and comments.

Click for lots of photos from 100 albums.

2010-11-20T10:46:00.000Z

MY FAVOURITE READER

I know that a lot of people read our news pages, so many in fact that last Saturday our web site was suspended because of excessive traffic way beyond our contract limits. Happily after a little extra money greased the digital palm of our hosting service this 'end of the world' scenario was soon resolved but not before the 'did you know' e-mails began to arrive. God alone sees how people respond to the journal of the last, the lost and the least and all those who reach out to them, but people do return in their thousands for more, and then more. Do people believe what they read, are they inspired, are they moved to believe or do they quickly surf on to something more appetising to their souls?

Whatever the answer is, whatever a million hits a month means or doesn't mean, it does me good to write the pages, in fact I often feel that I write them first of all for a readership of one. I am saying to myself that despite all the unbelief, materialism, sensuality and indifference that plagues not just the land we live in but many a church too, that yes, the God that saved me and saved Pilar, brought us together and called us to follow Jesus is alive, present and doing some amazing things through the hands, feet, lips, faith and giving of those who love Him. It is true that some days I may start the editor's job a little weary and wondering if it makes any difference but by the time I press the button to update the pages I have seen God and I always feel better. I may be a writer but it seems to me that I am also my favourite reader.

What do you think about The DCI Page this week ?

Click for lots of breathtaking photos from 100 albums.

2010-11-12T17:36:00.003Z

PEQUEPEQUE

Three weeks ago small, wiry men who live precariously in a protected reserve on the banks of the River Amazon walked in single file down a track deep into the steaming rain forest to carefully select a tall tree which they then laboriously felled and carried on their shoulders to another man who had never heard of 'Health and Safety.' This man fired up the community chainsaw and before long planks of equal length were stacked in front of sun-wizened craftsmen and their apprentices who would employ age-old techniques of wood-carving that had been passed down from father to son since time immemorial. By the end of this month a new pequepeque, pronounced peck-ay peck-ay, will slide into that dark river that crosses an entire continent from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Roland is a former military chaplain and a city dweller by birth who is passionate to take the love of God to the hidden peoples of the impenetrable rain forest and in doing so frequently comes down with one dread fever or another, last week he was badly burned in an accident. Roland says, "This pequepeque will be transport for us and the gospel by day, it will be a water bus for the Schools of Mission in the jungle, an ambulance for sick villagers, a welcome sight for the poor and hungry and finally our shelter by night."

This month with £450 we are helping to buy a motor, a propeller and a rudder for Roland's pequepeque, we are part-funding the printing of Pastor Eric's book in Burmese for £250, buying another 10 goats for orphans in Uganda for around £200 and with £565 opening a sewing workshop in Ivory Coast to rescue young girl's from the streets. We have sent emergency funds of £50 to treat Roland's burn, £50 to treat the severe malaria that Charles, 62, in Liberia has caught while taking relief to flood victims, and £50 to help Moses in Malawi with his visa renewal. We have £1180 ready to go to Haiti, £1000 ready for Cuba, £1600 waiting for the next EMSI medical mission to Burkina Faso, which leaves £681 in the bank which in the unlikely event that it is still there in December could go towards our 2010 Christmas Party with the Poor. What do you think ?

Click for some really beautiful news on The DCI Page this week or Find Us on Facebook
Click for lots of new photos from Peru, Liberia, Burundi and Yoppi's team on the volcano.

2010-11-05T18:09:00.000Z

A WEST SIDE STORY

Set in New York City in the 1950s West Side Story turned Romeo and Juliet into dark macho-rivalry between the local blade-carrying Jets and the immigrant kids from Puerto Rico, the Sharks. Stage and screen sparkled with spectacular dance and haunting lyrics yet the impending tragedy kept you on the edge of your seat. Who didn't reach for a tissue when Tony, a Jet impossibly in love with María, the sister of the leader of the Sharks sang to her, "There's a place for us, somewhere a place for us, peace and quiet and open air, wait for us - somewhere." Can't you still see María clinging to Tony and singing back, "There's a time for us, some day a time for us, time together with time to spare, time to learn, time to care, some day! Then straight from the heart, eyes meeting they promise each other, "We'll find a new way of living, we'll find a way of forgiving, a time and a place for us; hold my hand and we're halfway there, hold my hand and I'll take you there. Somehow, some day, somewhere!"

This week Carmen, also from Puerto Rico came our way, a lady who is looking for that time, that place and that new way of living. She said, "There just has to be more than this, life cannot be what I have, no money, struggling with asthma, being deceived, having to ignore the insults, unable to trust people, I have got so much to give but no-one will let me give it." Puerto Rico is still one of the poorer parts of the USA, like Haiti next door it's a Caribbean island that everyone wants to leave, yet Carmen, unemployed, the same as her husband has said "Enough" and has got hold of God for herself and her household. Carmen has made a start on gathering every Puerto Rican in the world who nobody else wants to bring them into world mission where they are needed, with a trip to the poor of India the first stop. Carmen, you sound like a truly astonishing lady and we believe that God will give you the desires of your heart. Just remember Tony and Maria's song, take the hand of Jesus and before you know it you will be half-way to that place in God, that time that you were born and born-again for.

With tissue in hand don't miss "Somewhere" sung by Tony and María or Il Divo and Leona Lewis
Click for this week's DCI News from all over the world or DCI on Facebook is even more up to date.

2010-10-29T17:29:00.000+01:00

AND SARAH LAUGHED TOO

The voice on the telephone was annoyed, "Come and collect your wife, she is anesthetized but the surgeon has gone home and he is not coming back!" Pilar was having a suspicious growth on her vocal cords removed, one that had stolen her song as well as her voice. We had put the day in the Lord's hands but in the language of the King James Bibles of those days, what meaneth this? It was about five anxious days later that Pastor Eric dared to say, "Believe this if you want to but Pilar needs to buy a bottle of cider vinegar, mix it with honey and warm water and gargle with it three times a day." As we drove home I repeated this unlikely comment to a very hoarse Pilar, who laughed. "And yes," said the Lord in our hearts as clearly as any audible voice, "Yes, and Sarah laughed too."

If you are familiar with the Bible you will know the story, and you will know why we turned the car around there and then to go looking for this unheard of commodity. In the promised land of vinegar and honey the gargling of obedience began until on day three there was such a cough from the bathroom that I ran upstairs to find Pilar staring at the shattered remains of a large black cyst whose grip had been broken, leaving no soreness, never to come back. That was more than twenty-five years ago but this year's problem is arthritis and there are only NHS pain-killers on offer. Juan, a former taxi driver in Peru e-mailed out of the blue to talk about an improbable concoction that he was making out of magnesium which he said had released him from all joint pain, and then a coincidental passing remark from Peter in London mentioned Margaret Hills's classic book from years ago called Treating Arthritis without Drugs. Do we believe in these kitchen remedies? No, we believe in a Jesus who is alive and present and after prayer has a way of taking you where you have never been before. Like Sarah we have learned not to laugh too quickly, so our old friend cider vinegar has been back on the menu along with molasses, Epsom salt baths and magnesium tablets, but don't laugh because all the severe pain in Pilar's legs has gone, her hands are a whole lot better and although there is some way to go yet, we are learning again that it is still definitely better to doubt your doubts rather than to risk doubting the word of the Lord.

2010-10-23T13:15:00.000+01:00

UNSPOILED EMINENCE

The eminent surgeon had only just arrived at church in time and had left early. While his theatre nurse who just happens to be his wife cleaned the table he prepared himself. Hands carefully washed, an apron tied tightly as the next few minutes were likely to be messy, familiar instruments laid out in order and then some specialized metal dishes, his own acclaimed invention were put in place. A small flame was lit and it was now only a matter of waiting a short while. Before long Pilar's 88 year mother was gently helped in by her two daughters and her niece, not entirely aware of where she was, who the people were or what was about to happen.

She had no need to worry because this was no operating theatre, this was in fact the patio of Angel and Abigail's very beautiful home near Barcelona, Spain. It was last Sunday and the eminent surgeon, although he had 1,001 other things to do had asked to bless a fragile lady in the evening of her days with a barbecue of everything she liked best yet probably would not remember even two hours later. Now multiply this act of kindness to a multitude of people and you have the atmosphere of EMSI Misión and the EMSI Medical Practice.

In Ezekiel 14.4 God commends the righteousness of Noah, Job and Daniel. Noah did the right thing in isolation, Job said what was right in unexplained suffering and Daniel lived the right kind of life in eminence. For Angel and Abigail doing what is right in eminence means taking a team of forty medics and dentists to Burkina Faso next Easter to give free medical treatment and the gospel to a thousand or more deaf, blind and poor villagers. The same eminence may never come your way yet even if you feel more like Noah at the place where you work, or like Job because of a disability, your righteousness can still make your life count and to be talked about by God.

2010-10-15T12:31:00.000+01:00

THE CLOSED DOOR

Many years ago Benson Ida Hosa came to know the Lord in isolation with just a New Testament for company. As a brand new believer he read how Jesus healed and how he should do the same in Jesus' name and so this is what he did, even to the extent of knocking on village doors to ask if the family had any sick or dead people inside. If young Ida Hosa found someone he prayed for them and they were raised one after the other. That is, until some well-meaning older believers told him that this kind of thing doesn't happen any more. It took a long time and considerable 'unlearning' before Ida Hosa recovered his faith and went on to lead a legendary 20 year miracle-filled revival in Nigeria that turned vast numbers from idolatry.

When bad news comes is it not better to eat of the promises of God from the tree of life whose leaves will one day heal the nations than to be always harvesting the latest information from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which has no healing properties.

Was this what Jesus was getting at when he said, "When you pray, go into your room, close the door, (that is no mobiles, no e-mails, no visitors and no information other than the words of God) and pray to your Father in heaven, who sees what is done in secret and he will reward you." Just thinking out loud as we try to support our friends Patrick and Paula whose 11 year old daughter was taken seriously ill only a few days ago and is now in chemotherapy. Right now we think that it will be better to close the door than to reach for the telephone.

Click for this week's news page where Johnny Auguste, Haiti says we have started a 3rd DCI School of Mission this month because 25 people from St. Jean walked for over three hours to ask me for the free lessons.

2010-10-08T17:25:00.000+01:00

THE TENT

Back in 1978 a few rather naive men, young both in years and in the faith, seemed to hear God asking them to buy a breathtaking if rather travel-wearied red, white and blue 3,000 seat tent from Roberts Brothers Circus. Somehow we trusted God for the eye-watering asking price of £20,000 and it was not long afterwards that a lot of people were deciding to follow Jesus. This was no camping tent. The tent poles formerly supported telephone lines, the tent pegs were sharpened lorry axles and a 40-ton articulated lorry had to be contracted to deliver the rolled canvas to the 50 strong volunteers who waited at each venue, sledge hammers in hand. Neither irritated local ministers, gales, a whirlwind nor even a midnight siege by Satanist bikers managed to stop the celebrations and on a good night we might have seen 1,000 people in the tent although a depressing 100 people or less was equally possible. It would take a visitor like Luis Palau to have all the new plastic seats filled. Back in 1977 a lively church in the UK might have welcomed 200 people to its Sunday services so for us to have 1,000 visitors midweek was brilliant. I only say this because last Sunday, a long 33 years after this adventure of camping extraordinaire another 1,002 people were raising the roof, this time not that of a circus tent but the roof of a Nottingham church with the sound of their worship. From a perch at the back because all seats were taken, the sight of the crowd and the sound of the worship unexpectedly evoked the smell of canvas and sawdust and God whispered that His Kingdom is actually coming even here at the disbelieving ends of the earth.

2010-10-01T18:52:00.000+01:00

THE GUARDIAN

It is said by those who understand the changes that come with age that in your twenties you are learning your trade, in your thirties you are go-getting, in your forties you defend all threats to your achievements, in your fifties you mentor your successor whilst in your sixties and onwards your role is to guard the vision.

Find out what we are guarding by clicking here.

Click to open our news pages for the very beautiful story of what happen when our partner in the Congo, Jules took a team to a very ungodly village and don't miss the message from Ranledis in Cuba about why sorcerers, lesbians, prostitutes and young offenders are pouring into his church.

2010-09-25T12:28:00.000+01:00

DR. LIVINGSTONE I PRESUME ?

After a very long 7,000 mile journey on foot Henry Morton Stanley found his man in 1871, but will we find the man or the woman that we are looking for ?

Click here to see if it is you.

The story of the week is about Johnny Auguste, our partner in Haiti, and the 21 orphan children that became his instant family after this year's earthquake. Johnny needs a good job in order to feed, clothe and educate the children and in Haiti that is asking the world, unless you have a university qualification in the Management of Human Resources in which case the government, like Henry Morton Stanley will come to your door and say "Johnny Auguste I presume," and pay you £10 an hour from then onwards. So far, so good, until a more or less penniless Johnny discovered that would he have to pay £2,000 for the studies and worse still, the 2011 term was due to start in seven days. That was this time last week. He prayed, we prayed, not one of us had anything to say to the other. Johnny asked for a loan on the DCI News page and a good friend in Brazil sent £50. Now it was Tuesday this week with three days and a million miles to go. This Friday morning, just a few hours ago, a very excited Johnny started his distance-learning program because in one moment despair turned to dancing when the Business College of the University of Madrid came along with an unheard of 75% discount on their €2,200 fees and an hour later we thought to look in a little used account in Barcelona and found every one of the Euros needed by the next day.

Click here for this week's DCI News

2010-09-17T17:15:00.002+01:00

THE PANTOMIME HORSE

In a vain attempt to escape the swirling afternoon fog and drizzle that saturated our Devon campsite we followed the brown tourist signs and found ourselves driving into a rare free car park, one belonging to a charity that delighted to put it's quite remarkable facilities on display. Pristine exterior walls displayed a long line of varnished rolls of honour that named the many hundreds of donors who provide in excess of £22,000,000 a year for this particular mercy mission and its outreaches in Cyprus, Spain, Italy and Ireland. The spacious and most immaculate accommodation, the clear goals, the commitment of the staff and the donors, the special food and the round the clock medical care were all deeply impressive and to be envied. All four hundred residents seemed to be content only molested by the occasional persistent fly which they dismissed with a flick of their long ears or a swish of their tail. We were in the Donkey Sanctuary at Seaton.

Years ago, on a day when ends were reluctant to meet, the gruff Yorkshire plumber turned preacher Smith Wigglesworth who frequently healed the sick and raised the dead said that if God could not provide for him better than he could provide for himself then he would leave the pulpit there and then. As a hazy late afternoon sun just began to make an appearance we decided with a certain irony that if God's people cannot provide more for the multitudes of lost, hungry, ragged and sick men, women and children than kind but misguided people provide for donkeys, then it is time for us to hire a pantomime horse, lie by the side of road and ask a passer to make a phone call to Devon where a carefree retirement awaits for all who qualify. Smith Wigglesworth never did leave the pulpit and may it please God that we never have to raid the wardrobe at the Theatre Royal.

2010-09-10T16:27:00.000+01:00

NEXT MONDAY IS DCI MONDAY

Come for 7.30 onwards to Trent Vineyard's building because Colin and Lynne are going to show their photos of Haiti and Cuba on a big screen and tell us what they found there. You won't want to miss this, especially if you helped towards the £2,200 that everyone raised for Haiti.

Click here to read or download for free, Philip Vogel's classic book either for you or for your pastor. Philip was our mentor for many years, yet now at 77 years of age he is still passionate to serve the Lord. In his day he was the quiet influence guiding many of the men and women who became the famous names of the 'new' churches and celebrations. Shops in the USA are offering rare second-hand copies of this book for £41 plus £12 postage but we have it for free. Edye in Brazil has already translated it into Portuguese and hopefully it will only be weeks before we can give it away in Spanish, Urdu, Chin and maybe in Kiswahili too.

On the news pages this week you will see that David Roselli from Nottingham is going to Pakistan to personally work in the flood relief. If like us and many other people you have been reluctant to send any funds that way because of all the corruption and misuse of money then allow David to distribute your gift where it is needed most with not a penny being diverted to anybody en route. Still in Pakistan, click to take a look at the DCI news pages in Urdu edited by a young third generation believer, Anthony Gill, who has a charity of his own in Faisalabad.

Just to end with, we can thank God that in August which seemed so quiet, the website actually handled well over one million visits for the fifth month running, and has now passed a total of fifty million hits.

2010-08-27T17:09:00.000+01:00

NO SINGING IN THIS RAIN

After twenty-seven hours of rain our tent on a Devon campsite was then engulfed with swirling fog which made us wonder just what the BBC really meant by sunshine and showers. Could it get any worse ? Yes, it could. In Indonesia Yoppi's ducks died after weeks of non-stop rain and in Peru, Maria's 'Chicken Bank for the Poor' succumbed to the unexpected cold. From Mexico awestruck people sent in photos of cars all but submerged in torrents of water raging down the main streets whilst the tragedy of Pakistan still fills our TV screens every evening. Over in Liberia, unnoticed by the news media, weeks of unceasing rain have left tens of thousands of poor people shivering and starving as fetid rivers overflow and swallow the dry, flat land. Our friend there, Charles, a dignified, silver-haired old man travelled for hours to reach a village where he had planted a new church last year only to find that the streets had been under water for weeks as the photos show. Borrowing a native canoe he paddled over to one marooned family with a newly born and very sickly baby with nothing to offer them except himself, his love, his prayers and some words from the Bible. Yes, it can get worse but it can also get better because next week Charles goes back to Bokay Town but this time with enough medicines, dry clothes, food and mosquito nets for hundreds of people, a very beautiful gift from a family in Nottinghamshire.

Click to see Colin and Lynne's photos of Haiti with the orphanage and the School of Mission and here to see their photos from Cuba, with the church, the baseball tournament, the School of Mission graduation and lots of very lovely children. People sent in over £2000 for the 23 orphan boys and girls in Haiti, so a thousand thank-you's. Hear the story first-hand at the next DCI Monday, September 13th.

2010-08-21T10:52:00.000+01:00

AN ACCIDENT OF BIRTH

The hospital called for Pilar to come in for tests so we each took a book expecting to pass the day with dozens of other people all punctually on-time the same 10 o'clock appointment. Instead we were given a free bus ride to a brand new privately owned centre where we were welcomed with free tea and coffee, seated comfortably and then immediately interviewed by a nurse, followed by a lady doctor who examined Pilar and took her for X-rays which were instantly visible on a large PC screen. A senior consultant entered to explain the ghostly images whilst the lady doctor organised blood tests and called in a therapist and ordered three kinds of pills from the pharmacy. There was no charge and the 5 star treatment made the diagnosis of arthritis seem almost like good news!

Meanwhile some thousands of miles to the south the students of the Likasi School of Mission in deeply troubled Congo went to plant a new church in Kolomoni village only to find dozens of people including pregnant women and little children languishing with deadly malaria or typhoid or both, with not a single pill to be found in the village. Our partner in this part of the Congo, a man we trust by the name of Jules has asked for our help to go back to Kolomoni with four doctors, all graduates of his DCI School of Mission, to take medicines and 600 mosquito nets at £2 each for the people to sleep under. No-one doubts that the nets combined with ten days of teaching on how to prevent malaria, typhoid and AIDS, accompanied by the gospel, prayer and regular return visits will save many vulnerable lives for both now and for eternity. No accident of birth should keep God's love, grace and healing from people who hurt like we do, we find even manage some free tea and coffee as well !

2010-08-16T10:23:00.000+01:00

NO UNDERSTANDING REQUIRED

One heaped teaspoon of Liptons Yellow Label tea, then what was it? Think . . yes, one teaspoon of Earl Grey tea, pour the boiling water, wait three minutes and that's it. The delicate taste pulled back the velvet curtains of time and it was 1985 again and we were in John and Bron Fergusson's kitchen in Ebbesbourne Wake, deep in tranquil Wiltshire waiting for the farmhouse teapot. These days John and Bron live in New Zealand and often hold a School of Healing under the shadow of Mount Everest, in distant Nepal.

John writes, "I was teaching in Hawera when I rested my hand on the shoulder of a lady at the end of a row who immediately felt heat in her legs and was instantly healed of knee pain that she has suffered for forty-one years. She had been prayed for many times and the pain in the front of her knees had been healed, but the pain behind them had remained. She was obviously delighted, but why then? A man was brought to the School suffering from cancer and the doctors had given him five weeks. He had also been mentally ill for most of his life. We prayed for him but saw no obvious change, yet he woke the next morning totally in his right mind, called his family and they were able to enjoy each other for the first time for years. Five weeks later he died. When things like this happen, it makes me ask if we can honestly teach about something that we understand so little about? How the lady was healed while I was teaching and why the man was able to show his love for his family and put his house in order remains a total mystery. We continue to minister these gifts from God and teach others to heal the sick not because we understand, but because people are healed and blessed. In fact we cannot teach from a position of knowledge, we can only encourage the church to obey the command to heal the sick. When we do, people are healed and when people are healed, other people are saved. We are not expected to understand, simply to obey."

This very lovely couple have a God-given faith for healing and employ none of the razzmatazz and money-making that sometimes goes on, you can find out more on John and Bron's webpage.

2010-08-06T11:07:00.001+01:00

HAITI

Colin Sedgewick writes, "Haiti was a real experience, a step backwards from where we have been before. Port au Prince is a desperate, threatening place and Johnny, who is a lovely man, was very nervous until our beaten-up old pick-up truck was out of the city and even then someone tried to take our bags. Collapsed buildings and massive, stinking piles of rubbish are everywhere. Our trip to Les Cayes took six hours on rough roads at up to 60mph with only one weak headlight after dark to see people, animals, bicycles and motorbikes with or without lights all drifting across the pot holes, boulders and debris. You can imagine Lynne's face and nerves. Our room was nice with a flushing toilet, a dribbling shower and intermittent electricity but when a cockroach ran over Lynne's foot, did she scream! The orphans are lovely and all twenty-one are looked after by a two close friends who face many hardships with cooking, the lack of doctors, electricity or running water. Johnny is very genuine and he works hard to deal with the many problems in this difficult country where you pay UK prices for many things. Getting around is a major issue, when we left it was on a moped with the driver, myself, Lynne, our suitcase and backpacks all on it heading to the bus station."

The BBC Panorama program reports that six months after the earthquake only 2% of the rubble has been cleared and only 10% of the pledged millions has been spent, mainly on paying off existing international debts. We hope to have the photos of Haiti very soon meanwhile click to see photos of Colin and Lynne in Cuba, a much happier place.

2010-07-30T17:30:00.000+01:00

TEN GOATS FOR THE TIE

The phone rang. "This is Phillip Vogel, I would like to come and see you, will tomorrow morning at 8.30 be alright? It was 1988 and my ears were already ringing with words like 'illegal,' 'illegitimate,' 'mongrel ministries' and similar encouragements from local clergy who were smarting from reports of God's favour on our first and very amateur School of Mission, free of charge and open to all. I already knew that one or two local pastors were upset with us but when a respected national charismatic leader like Phillip Vogel rings, advisor to Gerald Coates and co-founder of Team Spirit with John Noble, the radical names of those days, you know that actually it is not just the city but the whole nation that is up in arms. Phillip had driven from Wales yet was precisely on time for what my restless night had convinced me would be our last day but within thirty minutes we had gained a friend, a mentor and a travelling companion who stayed at our side and poured the oil of the Holy Spirit on troubled waters. In Uganda he is forever remembered to this day for finally agreeing to wear a tie when teaching, at the insistence of some rather serious African pastors. Somewhat controversially though his shirt remained draped over the back of his chair. You know, summer is a such lovely time for meeting old friends like Andrew and Ruth in Manchester who were among the first people in DCI back in 1985 yet we had not seen each other since 1992. Last night was pure nostalgia as Clyde and Yvonne showed us the photos on their I-Pod from way back in 1978 when we worked together doing mission in a crazy 3000 seat former circus tent. The last time we saw each other was in Spain in 1982 when Clyde needed to go home in a hurry, so we loaned him our old red Simca car which we never saw again. And now after fifteen years we get to see Phillip and Hilary again in a couple of weeks from now. Now in his mid-seventies Phillip says he is still radically passionate about serving the Lord. However, we do wonder how many goats our more sober friends in Uganda would give us for a copy of this very lovely holiday photo? Such a mischievous thought, shame on us.

2010-07-23T17:04:00.005+01:00

THE BETTER QUESTION

What is the cause of poverty ? Anguished academics endlessly search for the elusive answer while millions languidly hope for Western aid and the more impatient among them flood our e-mail boxes with their improbable appeals and scams. However a better question is: What is the cause of wealth? We have a two-fold approach to this question that visibly releases life-changing prosperity even in the developing world. Cambridge professor, Peter S Heslam says, "all attempts to solve poverty need to start by seeking to understand how to create wealth," so firstly we back both spiritual and commercial entrepreneurs starting from the orphan with his goat and the widow with her micro-enterprise for even in the global economic krisis, a word that means judgement these people find a kairos, that is a God-given window of opportunity. Secondly when entrepreneurs also embrace the Godly virtue of thrift, a war on waste, a word that comes from the verb to thrive, they disempower the bank-driven temptations of wasteful borrowing for the accumulation of cool or excessive things, leaving themselves with significant amounts to invest in the family and in the doing of good. It was in 1760 that John Wesley examined the 'The Use of Money' and concluded, "Having first gained all you can, and secondly saved all you can, then give all you can." By saying this Wesley did not envisage having large deposits in the bank as this would be incompatible with giving all you can, he meant 'saving all you can' in the sense of thrift, a saving from waste so that instead you have much to give. He died in 1791 having lived well yet leaving behind mere pence in his pocket and a record of having blessed the lost and the poor with £30,000 the thrift from his lifetime earnings, the equivalent of millions at today's prices.

Practical advice about thrift here

2010-07-17T13:06:00.002+01:00

THE GRADUATE

Yesterday in a medieval ceremony in the Great Hall, after considerable mother and daughter indecision over dress and colours, the vice-provost of Leeds University shook our daughter Lizzie's hand and she graduated after three years of very hard work and endless hours in the Library, with a 2:1 BA degree with honours in International Development and English Literature. Just as breath-taking to us is the fact that against all the odds Lizzie also leaves University debt free whilst some of her house-mates are starting their working lives with over £24,000 of loans to repay for their tuition fees. Three years ago we left a very vulnerable looking young lady in Leeds and we travelled the MI to Nottingham in almost total silence pained by the separation but also knowing that we had left our daughter with literally pence in her pocket and only the promises of God for both her and us to lean on and hope for, yet God has been so faithful every step of the way that not one payment and not one meal has been missed. Lizzie had a evening job too and yesterday her boss, Pat, a chain-smoking and very Yorkshire lady of colourful speech with a great liking for John Smith's beer, the owner of the famous Brudenell Social Club took more than half an hour to say reluctantly say goodbye to her 'granddaughter.' Lizzie would like us to pass on her thanks to everyone who prayed for her, said kind words and helped to make her degree possible. Right now she is working some 14 hour days at Bishops Stortford University hosting children from overseas who have come for a Summer Language School and she is looking forward, with more than few nerves to discovering those good works that the Bible says that God has prepared in advance for her to do.

2010-07-12T10:47:00.003+01:00

COMINGS AND GOINGS

On Wednesday we had a visit from Philippe from Burkina Faso who leaves for home this Saturday after completing his Ph.D studies in Oxford. He wanted to say 'au revoir' to everyone and leave an invitation for a team to come and see Africa this winter. Philippe lands at 3.30 am and by 7 am he starts a new role watching over some 80,000 poor yet passionate believers, quite a story from infinitely small beginnings in 1984. The next photo shows Andrew Belfield, Ruth and their family who we shall see tomorrow in Manchester. Andrew who has just turned 50, which is unbelievable, was our constant companion in the earliest days of DCI back in 1985, and we last saw each other on December 31st 1992. Since then he has had done well in church planting and leadership. On Tuesday Andy and Val from Thailand, in the third photo, come to tell the Tuesday lunchtime meeting how they are doing with the children's home they are building on the Myanmar border to rescue numbers of children destined for sex trafficking or just abandoned. Back in 1996 they heard us speaking about the call of God, ten years later the Holy Spirit brought the words back into their hearts, showed them Thailand and amazingly they sold their house in Slough and made a start in Chiang Rai. In two weeks Colin and Lynne leave to visit Johnny and his earthquake orphans in the ruins of Haiti and then fly over to Ranledis in Cuba, still a communist state. Ranledis is a young man who watches over a lot of families, wins teenagers and feeds poor elderly people, and has a vision to see people all over this difficult island following Jesus. Meanwhile in Malawi, with £500 Moses has opened another DCI Savings Bank for the Poor this week and the DCI website hit a fantastic 1,075,236 page visits last month. We really must have a party when we get to 50 million and it's only weeks away. You really must come !

2010-07-04T10:27:00.011+01:00

THE ANGEL'S GAME

In the darkly brooding, highly acclaimed novel, The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón set in 1940's Barcelona, the main character David Martín enters a house to find that within it's walls time and life has stood still for many a year, yet later on he finds the very same building to have been abandoned for decades with only remnants of faded wallpaper to remind him of his visit the previous month.

This weekend we are in Barcelona to visit Pilar's 88 year old mama who is well but increasingly slipping in her own world of bygone memories. We are looking forward to seeing Pepe who has supported us for half a lifetime, and in recent years has turned a declining traditional church into a busy and popular gathering, while his wife Noemi with the Lord's help has overcome fibromyalgia as much as anyone can. We shall see Virgilio, the on-line pastor of our Spanish pages and the author of 14 books that are downloaded by the hundreds every month, and tomorrow we visit Angel and Abigail the people behind the EMSI medical missions that provide free surgery and treatment with the gospel and prayer for thousands of the very poor in Burkina Faso.

Yet how can it be that with one look through the window of what was Pilar's tiny flat, now her sister's home, that suddenly it is 1982 again? We have just met, just married, just heard the call of God and the future is not yet written. I look again, my eyes narrowed against the bright sun and it is, it's 1982, the buildings, the colours, the noises, the neighbour. Startled I look away and then like David Martín I try to return only to find the past as faded as the wallpaper in Carlos Ruiz's story. In Barcelona there must indeed be a stray angel and when he finds one who is more nostalgic than prophetic then he plays his game.

For those of us who knew Jean-Francois in France, our good friend and brilliant translator, and for all who prayed for him comes the news that after a long fight to the end against serious illness, the Lord passed by yesterday morning and took JF home. On everyone's behalf Catherine and Gisella visited only two weeks ago, today we specially remember Monique.

2010-06-26T13:09:00.000+01:00

THE JOURNEY

Antonio from Zamboanga in the Philippines says "I am the pastor of a new, small church here and it can be lonely but we find DCI and your instructional materials and other resources to be more than gold for us, especially for me. I did not come from a Bible college, what I have is a vision to go and preach the word, to be part of His Kingdom and to hasten His coming. I am deeply happy to find this highly interconnected global community."

DCI is a journey following Jesus to the ends of the earth until the end of the age with lots of people walking alone yet together, talking to each other, praying as they go, helping each other along and leaving a blessing behind them. Nothing could be simpler, and Antonio, you are very welcome to come with us.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage, a journey.
As they pass through the dry valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs.
They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.

2010-06-11T17:49:00.000+01:00

THE STOREHOUSE

This week Colin and Lynne from Nottingham finally found tickets to fly from Cuba to Haiti to visit Johnny and his 23 earthquake orphans on behalf of all of us. In Cuba they will be with Ranledis's open-air church and school of mission and the plan is for them to give the prizes at the 2010 Baseball Final, a tournament that brought several street teens to faith last year. The islands of Cuba and Hispaniola which is home to the ruins of Haiti are side by side but to cross over today's Pirates of the Caribbean make you pay the price of an Atlantic crossing. This weekend Catherine from Rainworth goes by Ryanair to Nimes in France to visit our translator Jean-Francois who remains seriously ill at his home in the foothills of the French Alps. Gisella, the editor of our pages in Italian will meet Catherine, drive her round and take her home later on. We have so many people who do such lovely things, in fact our 'Storehouse' of prayer, pounds and people never seems to be empty even after sending people or substantial gifts of money this last month to India, Japan, Eastern Europe, Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Malawi and Uganda. By working together with extraordinary men like Pastor Daniel in Kerala who has planted 900 new churches in India and opened 80 homes for abandoned children, the gospel will be preached, new believers will become leaders and we will remember the poor. Twenty-five years ago we and other like-minded people looked for a way of doing just that and today it looks like the opportunities are greater than ever.

2010-06-04T17:05:00.000+01:00

THE TENDER SHOOT

We have been gently trying to share our faith with our retired neighbours Mick and Jennifer for all the four and a half years we have lived next-door to them but with only polite few words in return. A couple of years ago Jennifer nearly lost her life and only a serious transplant in a London hospital saved her at the last moment. Jennifer knew that we were praying for her and Mick always said thank you when we asked how things were going but although their hearts were warmed by our concern there was little sign of recognizing God's love. Now it seems that the illness has returned, this time to Jennifer's lungs. We know that because this morning Jennifer stopped Pilar as she was watering the front garden and asked for prayer right there and then in the street. We wait to see what the Lord will do, for sure we have not heard any coughing for the last few hours. We remember that Ecclesiastes says that after casting our bread upon the waters it may be many days before we find it again. Nothing we ever do or say for the Lord is in vain, it may look that way and it may feel that way, but if we give the Lord all the time He needs, we may be surprised to see a tender shoot of faith emerging even it is from a crack in the rocks.

2010-05-28T16:05:00.000+01:00

CONGESTION AHEAD, SLOW DOWN

Working together with African leaders is one of the most demanding things we do. Why is this? Consultant and author Rick James says that African leaders live in three very congested worlds all at the same time. His or her first world is the world of the global donors who he depends upon, the second world is the impoverished hand to mouth existence of his own organization, and the third world is the one of his own extended family upon who come to him for help, in fact he may spend up to 42% of his salary to pay for family funerals, HIV and medical bills, orphan care, school fees and needs. This 'congested life' is why partners often fail to live up to their own values and frequently do not deliver the plans they promised in the time they agreed but knowing why this is helps us all to be more patient and supportive. The photo shows a happy Moses in Malawi, with Rosalyn holding our 'granddaughter' Pilar.

Today we have visitors from Spain, years ago we welcomed Alex's parent's Pepe and Noemi and now we are looking after their son and his fiancé. They have come with four friends to attend a Christian music festival which is taking place tomorrow not far from Nottingham. Right now the sun is shining and the Alex and Sarah are enjoying their first visit to England but tomorrow the forecast is for rain and a cold wind. However if 15,000 believers were to look up to the heavens and pray would the weather change?

2010-05-21T14:30:00.001+01:00

THE DAY TIME STOOD STILL

Neither Salvador Dali's clock nor the 1951 science fiction movie with a similar title can compare with the short story of the day that DCI was born. Well, that is perhaps a slight exaggeration but why not click here anyway and be transported back to Madrid in 1982.

2010-05-14T16:00:00.000+01:00

ST PANCRAS AND OTHER SAINTS

Yesterday courtesy of a £5 Megatrain ticket to London we were talking to Scott Bower, 34, who is a speaker, a writer and very much into missions particularly in Eastern Europe. Scot also runs the 24-7 Prayer website which has helped 70 churches in 21 countries to open 24 hour a day, seven days a week prayer, very reminiscent of Count Zinsendorf's Moravian prayer meeting in 1727 which continued unbroken for over 100 years. That gathering saw more than 300 Moravians leave to follow the call of Jesus in days when the only thing more perilous than sailing was the destination itself. For example some became slaves to reach the African slaves cutting sugar-cane in the West Indies, others said their 'goodbyes' and carried the gospel to lepers knowing they would never return. Lunch at St. Pancras station however, was rather less demanding, more of an exploration of how God might have us work together, Scot, 24-7 Prayer and DCI. The Bowers have unexpectedly returned from living in Macedonia because their son, Evan who is 7, became seriously ill and for now he must be kept close to Guildford Hospital. We thought that you might enjoy Scot's book, Saints published by Lion, which is a beautifully written and exquisitely illustrated story of men and women in the first 1000 years of Christianity, a sort of sequel to the Bible and filled with the whispers of God.