Thursday, August 19, 2021

World Events Indicate Christ's Imminent Return

 Although the events that have been happening for the last year, and the most recent events in Afghanistan are terrible, they are also exciting. The Bible is unfolding right before our eyes. God is letting man set up the world for the return of Christ. Wars and rumors of wars are becoming a prominent happening: Myanmar, Afghanistan, Haiti, Nigeria... Pestilence like covid and other diseases which are now being talked about are turning the world upside down. Natural disasters like earthquakes, flooding, droughts, wildfires are increasing. China and Bill Gates are talking about darkening the sun and creating weather. It has been said a Russian hacker found a database that uploads real time info of anyone who has received the covid vaccine. Although it may not be true, the world is being conditioned to accept the Mark of the Beast. NYC is demanding you be vaccinated in order to participate in society.  Even so come Lord Jesus.

With all that is happening, the urgency of the Gospel being preached should be very strong, yet we see so many Christians sitting on the sidelines. Church is either nonexistent for most, or is a one time a week ordeal of performing a duty. If the preacher goes over by 10 minutes, the people start looking at their watches. While American Christians perform their duty, the Afghani Christians and missionaries are facing death just for naming the name of Christ. Reasonable service is presenting your body a living sacrifice. The Afghani's and many other Christians around the world are not only doing this, but are physically dying for Christ as well.

Over the last year, our church has seen many set backs, yet my dad, the pastor, continues to try to push the church to grow not only in numbers but in faith. We are finally getting ready to kick off our kids program. It seems that every time we were ready to get it started, something hindered it. Please pray that our three day kickoff event will bring in children and their families. 

My mom's health is improving, but she does still need prayer. She has two torn muscles in her hip, and the way she has been walking is now effecting her back. She has had a few spells with her blood pressure as well.

Since mom has been ill, I have been teaching the ladies' class. We began a secret sister program to try to encourage each other. Please pray for our ladies, and pray that mom can get back to full time with them.

I am still waiting to see if things will change in England and Europe as far as travel is concerned. Right now, I know that I am where God wants me, but it is hard to not be able to fulfill what I had promised. I have heard from two of the missionaries I helped. One is in Canada, and their ministry is growing. They have a ministry which reaches many nationalities including Arabic people. The other missionary is in China. Although he is meeting on a regular basis, two national pastors were raided by the police on several occasions. One has been told to cease and desist from services, and the other signed on with the government church in order to stop the police harassment. The missionary in China also requests prayer for his wife and son's health, and for his other son who is in medical school.

Please continue to pray for the state of Maine. The governor is trying to mandate that healthcare workers be vaccinated. Please pray that the attorneys, who are working to protect our freedoms, will be able to keep this mandate from being upheld.

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Millennial Summit and Mom's Health Update

 What a great time we had at the Millennial Summit! There were about 35 people including our guest speaker and Q&A representatives. I missed getting pictures of the Q&A sessions because I was so interested in the questions being asked and the answers being given. One couple was passing the church and saw the sign for the Summit. They came in, joined in the games and activities, and the husband trusted Christ at the end. During the week, my dad, a young preacher from N. Carolina, and a few other people went out soulwinning. In total for the week, 8 people trusted Christ, including the son of one of our members. I truly believe God knew who needed to be at the summit. Pastor Nick white preached a very good message for Christian Millennials. We had some technical difficulties and did not get that sermon recorded. Preston Taylor preached our Wednesday night sermon, and it is on our church Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtlcXTbBrwVQVpBSOKbOOgA?app=desktop&view_as=subscriber&fbclid=IwAR0zPAnBBJaol-dNb3yVk2KR4rZOpJ0q8vYqkI44D0U-2L2DefK4uD2t6Oc

Mom's health has been crazy since January, and she finally seemed to be on the mend. However,  a month ago, she tore the top and second muscle of her hip. She starts therapy tomorrow (gotta love socialized medicine.) Please pray that the muscle heals quickly, and that she can gain full function of her hip. 

We have had so many things planned for our church ministries, and then they fell through for various reasons. Please pray as I work to get an English language class started. The two ladies who were supposed to come changed their minds. Pray also as we begin our Saturday kids program again. We are in desperate need of workers who will be faithful. 

Please pray for our church. We are in need of  helpers for our youth, music ministry, and a different building. Many of our members are elderly, and our current building has an extreme number of steps to climb to the auditorium. My mom has not been able to climb the stairs for more than a year due to her health, and she is the pastor's wife. 

Please pray for the state of Maine. I don't usually post a political spiel, but I believe what is being proposed in our state and other states is something that we need to be praying about. Our governor is talking about shutdowns, masking, and mandatory masks and vaccines for school kids, health workers... Please pray that Mainers will take a stand. Our CDC has a chart which shows the covid cases in a bar graph from January last year through this year. The highest number of cases were between December and May. These were the months that the governor mandated masks and threatened fines and jail if businesses and individuals did not comply. According to the CDC of Maine, over 800,000 people have received both doses of vaccine leaving only a little over 300,000 across the whole state who are unvaccinated, yet the case numbers quadrupled in the last month, and Boston, Israel, Gibraltar, Singapore have all shown the highest rates of infections in their areas are in vaccinated people. Our governor, is basing her decisions on lies and not the science. Please pray as there are lawyers and freedom groups who are working to bring our state together to fight these harmful decisions our governor is trying to force.

Please continue to pray that the airlines will end all the craziness with masking, testing... My parents and I have money tied up in airlines which we cannot use. Not only is the effecting our family travels, but it is also effecting my ability to travel to help missionaries. The countries I had promised to be in are still closed, so please pray that they will open soon.

Please pray that either the people in power, who are making evil decisions, will be saved, or that God will simply remove them.