Our Family of Grace

We have a very special young man who is part of our fellowship in Porthcawl. His name is Kritchen …… No, you will not have met him. He doesn’t live in Porthcawl, - not even in UK. He is Nepalese; yes, living in the remote and mountainous land of Nepal, but our RE-vive group have decided to adopt him. Not to come and live with us, but as part of our family we are sponsoring him, so that not only do we take responsibility for him to be clothed and fed, but to have an upbringing that is predominantly Christian.

So how did this come about? It began with a  Nepalese young man meeting with Jesus Christ, and stepping out of darkness into light. Jesus gave him a dream and he knew God was calling him to set up a Christian school. Well, guess what? Yes, he ended up in prison. But Christian Solidarity, of which Baroness Caroline Cox is a pioneer, heard of his plight and as advocates interceded on his behalf and now, with strong Christian support the school he had dreamed of has become a reality.

 

‘David, would you be interested in joining us? We are going to Nepal to give some training to the teachers in this Christian school?’

David Spurdle, a head master in the Romford area, didn’t need asking twice. He was always up for an adventure. Besides his home commitments he was already involved with the work of Tear Fund, and had gone on to take over responsibility for an American charity, Kids Alive.

This had begun through his involvement with an orphanage in Lebanon, but the work escalated, until he clearly heard God’s voice calling him to resign from his headship and  go into this work full time. Many of the Apostolic churches UK are already supporting him in the amazing work they are doing in Burma.

Today we hear of them sending out work parties to Ethiopia, and other places in Africa, and even South America, but in our small way we are involved by clubbing together in our house group to pay for the support of one small boy in Nepal.

His name is Krichan Kalakheti, born on 2006. Here he is, looking very smart, standing outside his school. He writes:

          You can call me Krichan. I’m in Nepal, staying in my grandmother’s house. (Sadly he and his little sister were abandoned by his parents when he was two years old.) My sister is studying in same school, in sponsorship.

          I’m happy to study here.’ And he goes on to say, ‘I love to play very much’

(Perhaps too much , for we’ve just had his school report to say he has failed in some subjects, but we trust with the security of our love, prayers and support that we will soon here of much better results.)

It is easy to pray for the whole wide world, but God sees each of us as individuals, and it is wonderful that in this practical way we are able to home in on one little boy and know we are making a difference in his life.

And yes, there are other charities through whom we could sponsor children, but I have a special link with David, who has birthed ‘Stand by Me.’

Garfield Spurdle came to take over as pastor of our Apostolic Church in Ilford, but with him and Sonia came three strapping lads, of whom David was the oldest. I think he broke a few hearts but has remained single through the years, maybe because God wanted him to be a father figure to so many children.     

I’ve been writing his story, ‘I only went to Dig a Ditch,’ but sadly it is not yet published, because David has been unable to spend time with me to check it over. He is either in Ethiopia, Haiti, Burma, - or at home forbidden to work for a few days because of health issues. Do you wonder? I am still praying the book will get published – Have you faith to pray with me? Meanwhile, we at Horizons have become a very small part of this wonderful story.

If you are interested in following our example, contact ‘Stand by Me’ at

www.standby.me

Catch the wave

We were booked in for a week at Nicholaston House, we were so disappointed when we heard that Adrian & Bridget  Plass, taking the theme ‘Catch the wave,’ was unable to come. We could have cancelled, but Nicholaston is a very special place, and we were confident God would still meet with us in his own way. In the heart of the Gower peninsular, described as one of Britain’s best kept secrets, this very special place is a secret which needs to be shared.

Overlooking the wide sweep of Oxwich Bay, its headlands curving around the quiet waters of the bay, picture for me the sense of peace and security I always experience when I come here. The old house, once a hotel, has become a haven of healing and hope for many. ‘In this house you will find peace,’ are the prophetic words written large in the porch, and I have always found them true.

Claimed by faith by workers with the Swansea City Mission, and trusting the God of abundance, it has been turned from a run-down hotel to a house of beauty and excellence. Each time I visit there is some further outreach, from the extensive conservatory, to the craft room and self-catering flats, the quiet garden and bird-watching facilities among others, and now the Celtic chapel, so conducive to prayer and worship.

No wonder almost all of us who had booked decided to go. After all, God is not dependant on special speakers to meet with us, though he so often delights to use them. Young and old, we gathered. I was grateful I was not the only one glad of some gentler walks along the Pennard cliffs, or over Worms Head, but others were game to walk up the Bryn to the highest point on the Gower and make the challenging clamber down from the house to the bay. We began and ended each day with devotions led by staff members when God was speaking into our lives, and he was also using times when we prayed or just gelled with one another.   

I think I felt like you surfers must feel sometimes when you quietly tread water. Though some of us had come out of turbulent waters and had great challenges ahead, I too am quietly waiting, watching and trusting I will be ready to ride the next wave that undoubtedly will arise.

Adrian’s challenge was to have been, ‘Catch the wave – Do we dare?’ Well – do I? Do

you?

N.B. Do look up Nicholaston House. It was opened as a Christian centre specifically to help those who came to them for counselling, but Joel & I first went just for a holiday break. (B& B is an option, but their food is mouth wateringly good.) Then  I was able to join in a prayer week the first time I went alone, and now it is home from home for me, being just over an hour’s drive away.

Dreams

I have always dreamed a lot. My husband said I lived a double life, but usually my dreams fade away as morning mist and I struggle in vain to hold on to them.

But occasionally I have a dream which seems to have some significance. Many years ago, I had been having night mares. I asked God to give me a happy dream. That night I dreamed I was dancing before the Lord. I awoke full of joy, and I believed from then on that one day I would do it in reality. Wonderfully this came true when I was in Ghana, but that is another story. 

This week I had a dream which did not fade away and somehow seemed to be very real. It concerned one of our precious ‘Bubbles’ as we call our toddlers group. Each of our children is loved and special, but this little lad won my heart when his mother suggested he gave Auntie Pauline a kiss. Willingly he trotted over, solemnly took my hand and kissed it.

In my dream he was appealing to me, his little eyes full of tears. ‘They say I am too little, but I really do love her. I am not too little.’

I assured him that he was not too little. I suggested he drew a picture to express his love and give it to the fortunate person. But I couldn’t get it out of my mind, the grief of this child at being told that he was too little.

Can you imagine my great joy when his mother told me that this little one had come to her with his great desire, not for some unknown person, but for the one worthy of all our love and devotion. Thank God, this wise mother knew he was not too little, and with great joy she helped him to express his love, and to welcome our Lord Jesus into his heart and life.

I had thought my dream might have been inspiration to write a romantic story, but it was to point me to the greatest love story of all time. What a privilege we have to teach the children that they are never too young. If they are not too young to sin, then they are not too young to need a Saviour. They can give as much as they understand of themselves to as much as they understand of the Lord.

A few weeks ago I was invited attend a service where a very special young man was to be ordained as an elder. Related to my husband, he was in his mother’s arms when we first moved to Porthcawl. A few years later he had gone out, with his older sister, to receive Jesus as his Saviour. We had no doubts about his older sister, but had he really understood? His consistent walk with his Saviour through these long years has proved that he had. What a very special invitation this was for me, to see his faithful life of Christian service acknowledged.    

It was because they had heard the children praising that the lame and the blind had come to Jesus in the temple and had been healed, and Jesus had had to remind the disapproving priests that ‘From the lips of children and infants God has ordained praise.’

No, they are not too little, and we older ones need to remember that unless we humble ourselves and have the faith of a little child that we will have no place in God’s kingdom.

Let's Face It

Faces are important. That is how we recognise each other. Many of us have difficulty in remembering names, but if, like me, you don’t always remember faces then you have a problem.

As each snow flake is different, so is each face. If we all looked alike, how difficult life would be – and yet, I wonder how many of us are satisfied with the face we have been given?

I don’t know if it is only the women who are always trying to improve their appearance. Often it seems the more beautiful they are the more money they spend on trying to add to it with various cosmetics or even on having a face lift.

I know of two, to me, very lovely ladies, who, as children were teased and bullied into thinking they were ugly. And yet beauty, at best, is fleeting.

Have you ever heard, ‘Pretty in cradle, plain at table,’ and the opposite? Those who appear plain as children often grow into the greatest beauties, and vice versa.

Horrified at seeing the ‘mug-shot’ I had taken for my passport, I wondered whether some make-up would help. I began to laugh. In my eighties, was I still hoping to be pretty? In the end I decided it was best not to draw attention to my visage.

I think God wants us to think more about the beauty of our inner man. If we are Christians then we should want to be like Jesus. It says of him, that his face was so marred that there was no beauty about him at all, and we know this prophecy was fulfilled when he underwent the agony of scourging and crucifixion.

And yet now he is lighting up the courts of heaven with his radiant beauty.

I once met a woman who was so vivacious, full of fun, she lit up the room, and yet her face had been terribly disfigured by a fire.

I’m sure we all have deep respect for Simon Weston, survivor of the Falklands War,  his face beyond recognition because of the terrible burns he sustained. He could so easily have stayed in a corner, unable to meet people, grieving for the handsome athlete he once was, but instead he is listed as an inspirational speaker, often appearing on television.

A pleasing adornment is the natural glow of good health, but even when health is gone we can still have that inward adornment that Peter speaks of, of a meek and quiet spirit.

David Spurdle, director of the charity ‘Stand by Me,’ received a letter from a little girl rescued from a terrible life of poverty and abuse. She wrote, ‘God is good looking.’ She knew what God was like from the faces of those who cared for her, in Jesus’s name. She saw the beauty of the Lord in their faces.

Her letter continues, ‘God loves the children, because they are beautiful  like him.’ 

So yes, let’s make the best of the face God has given us, but let’s enjoy the wonderful relationship that Moses had, in being able to talk face to face with God. After all, Jesus experienced the terrible pain of having his Father turn his face away from him, that we might be able to enter in and live day by day in God’s presence. David prayed, May the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.

May we all have the confidence of that little girl, that we are beautiful to our heavenly Father.

Bullying

Asked to write a review for Helena’s book, with a view to getting it published, I thought I would begin with you, who not only read but encourage me in the writing of my blog. Maybe there is someone you know who would be interested in reading this book?

Why not ask for it at your local library? They would order it for you and then it is on their shelves for others to borrow.

So, here is my review of Helena’s book.

‘Insight into Child and Adult Bullying', by Helena Wilkinson. Published by CWR. This book is one of the Waverley Abbey Insight Series, and should be made available as a resource for anyone with a heart for hurting people.

Bullying is a painful subject, but I was delighted to be asked to review this book. I had been horrified, as I read of Helena’s own experience of physical and emotional bullying when, as a small girl, she was sent to boarding school; bullying which left her struggling with eating disorders and which could well have caused her death.  But God has delivered her and raised her up so that for many years she has had a ministry to others who have been suffering in similar ways.

‘Couldn’t something be done to prevent a recurrence of such terrible bullying?’ I had asked Helena. Surely she was equipped to take up such a crusade? It was then she told me she was working on this book. She has put years of study, research, and prayer too into its writing, and I pray it will become recognised and widely used as a helpful resource for those who may be coming alongside those suffering from bullying, or even those still struggling with this painful situation or who need healing from past memories.’

This is a book every one of us would do well to read, though it is necessarily a painful subject. Helena looks at bullying in school, work, church and relationships and addresses why people are targeted and why bullies bully. Not many of us have to face Goliaths, as David did, but the enemy is always out to undermine our confidence and in our own battles and those of others, especially our children, we need to know who we are in Christ, and that the Lord of Hosts is with us.      

Thanks, my Blog-reader. Please do let me know if you can help me to spread this word abroad.

Why didn’t I ask?

I had been into the school to take an assembly. I love the story of Joseph, how his brothers had planned evil against him and God turned it all to good. So now I had a free hour to do my shopping.

I had parked on the side of the drive in, as all the parking spaces were full. Yes, there was room to pass me. So now I drove around, only to find the way out was blocked. My free hour was being eroded as I tried to turn in a confined space.

I knew I could have run back in and asked for help. The obliging head has got me out of a predicament before. All I had to do was ask. So, why didn’t I?

Someone had complimented me the other day on my humility. That is a dangerous thing to do. After all, it would be awful if I took pride in being humble, wouldn’t it?

And maybe what appears as humility is just lack of confidence.

So now, why didn’t I go and ask for help? I confess. Yes, it was pride, pure and simple. They were already laughing that Mrs Lewis has lost the Mediterranean. (all I’d lost was a blue flash card for when we made the classroom into a map, not the entire sea.) So now they would be laughing at these hopeless women drivers. So no, I didn’t go and ask for help. Somehow I could do this.

I would bump the car up over the verge and squeeze past by driving on the grass.

Oh! You should have seen me! The curb was steeper that I thought and the grass it protected soggy from so much rain that I found I had landed in a bog. I thought I was back in New Guinea. My wheels were spinning, mud being splattered all over my lovely shiny car.

So in the end I had to ask. It took the head master and every man jack on the staff to get me back on the road.

I hope I will learn this lesson, to ask before I get deeper into trouble. We all need help, and especially from God. Maybe the trouble hasn’t come yet? But if or when it does, let’s take David’s advice, who said, ‘This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and delivered him from all his fears.’

A Tree Felled

I think there are few sights sadder than a forest decimated by the woodcutter’s axe.  Each tree is beautiful, and sometimes the time comes when it has to be cut down, but it is rarely without some sadness.

In our beautiful land of Wales, many chapels have had to be closed, and this too has not happened without much sadness, and as in any bereavement we have to grieve, but also open our hearts to God to allow Him to bring  healing.

I have a dear friend, a farmer’s wife, who for years struggled to keep her chapel open, but eventually the axe fell and she is grieving and hurt. In praying for her I have been recalling my own experience and felt that I should share it, not just with her, but with you, my faithful blog-readers.

A tree had been planted in Porthcawl. Joel’s father had helped in the planting, and so Joel, retired, felt  called to help to build up the work.

The tree was struggling. ‘Pot bound’, Joel said, to mix my metaphors, but there was growth, and fruit. However, the great Gardener allowed the woodcutter not just to prune, but to cut it right down.

We were heart broken, but thank God were able to bring our hurt to the one who binds  up broken hearts. The Lord showed us a picture of a tree but right down to the stump, but out of that stump came a strong bough.

Comforted in measure, we attended Cornelly Apostolic Church, but had many opportunities to minister in other struggling churches; then, shortly before my husband’s sudden and unexpected death, God spoke to us that now was the time to build again in Porthcawl. Joel was full of faith. Almost his last words were, ‘I believe God is going to do great things.’

Soon after his death I heard that Brackla were planning a church plant in Porthcawl. I am privileged to have been involved in Grace Community Church and believe that this is the strong bough God had shown us.

We have just had our third ‘Church Away Weekend.’ From tiny babies, through to every age, I was the oldest, and was thoroughly spoiled.

But the wonderful thing for me was that the one who had the painful duty of wielding the axe was now with us as minister for the weekend, gently nurturing new growth, and strengthening God’s planting.

How happy I am that Tom & Lorraine have been able to see all that God is doing, but also that there had been healing of hearts and relationship in the long years in between; those years when we had not understood why God had allowed this to happen but had been able to trust Him in it all, and had allowed him to keep us sweet.

Thank God for Wild Goose Lodge, by the canal in Slimbridge; for Tom & Lorraine Stables who ministered to us in so many ways, and that God Himself came among us to bless and speak to each one of us.