Tag Archives: Prayer

Pray for All Nations Community Church in Sudan

Posted by Bill on January 28, 2012

Just over a week ago (or maybe two weeks by the time this is posted), CCI had the privilege of forwarding a sizeable cash gift to All Nations Community Church in Sudan for the purpose of strengthening their efforts in outreaching their community. Shortly after I received the following email from Papiti, the pastor of ANCC …

All Nations Community Church, SudanHi Pastor Bill,

Thank you and the CCI Team for this Divine Provision. I call it a Divine provision, because since last month we have been praying for our second evangelistic outreach to take place and we have been praying for money that can cover the cost. With the gift you sent we are going to start the outreach on 26th Jan, up to 29th.. This four days outreach will make a great change in the life of many people. So please join us in prayer for this day and for the part of cost that is not covered. God bless you more.

Papiti.

 

Friends, I am so amazed at the perfect timing of this gift. I had no idea that ANCC had planned a 4-days outreach and needed financial support. I give credit to the Holy Spirit for inspiring a number of CCI partners to collaborate together for His will and purposes with ANCC. I’ve attached several photos to help you in your prayers for Papiti and ANCC. Let’s pray for a great movement of the Holy Spirit during the 4 days of their outreach event.

Pastor Papiti and his family - All Nations Community Church, Sudan

Pastor Papiti and family

“Lord, what an amazing work You have done in ANCC. And how glad we are to know You will continue this work until it has been completed. We want to support Your efforts through Papiti and ANCC. May Your love, grace and mercy flow freely through their community in South Sudan during the time of their outreach, commencing on the 26th of this month. Draw many hungry and thirsty souls to Your throne of grace, through Your Son, Jesus, by the power of Your Holy Spirit. Strengthen Your church, Lord. Receive the glory they desire for You. Amen.”

 

Just Imagine

Posted by Bill on December 17, 2011

IMAGINATION_by_archanN

IMAGINATION_by_archanN

I joined the ministry team at Maadi Community Church (MCC) in May, 2000, hoping the Lord might build His church through me and my wife, Beryl (Matthew 16:18a).  Even though I knew I was a weak vessel, I willingly gave myself to the Lord, expecting Him to do great and mighty things.  I expected the Lord to establish networks of small groups that would care for God’s people, grow many lay-leaders, and engage in bold Kingdom expansion activities.  Throughout my time at MCC, I exercised an “extra mile” commitment in everything I did.  I poured my mind, heart, body and soul into this work.  Not only did the Lord fulfil my expectations, He went one amazing step further by birthing five churches from our expanding number of small groups. What a surprise!

Why didn’t I expect the Lord to birth churches from our efforts? In my case, there are two reasons: Firstly, birthing churches was outside of my ministry experience, and secondly, I never imagined this possibility.  My Egypt experience took me from being willing to dream dreams that “I/we” can make happen to the spiritual realm of imagination … dreaming dreams that only the Lord can achieve. I now know that the ability to imagine such things is a gift, offered by God to His children to help them “see” in advance His grand purpose for their lives!  Through the exercise of this amazing gift the Lord performs His plans … “plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11b).

In my small “Collins Gem” Australian English Dictionary, “imagination” is defined as, “faculty of making mental images of things not present”.  I like this definition, but from a Christian perspective  the following definition is better: “faculty of receiving from God mental images of things not present.” 

In the Old Testament we learn of Joseph’s amazing gift of imagination.  His brothers made fun of him and dismissed him as a “dreamer” (Genesis 37:5-11). The exercise of one’s imagination is something that is not usually encouraged in most families, work places, and churches.  Living within the safe parameters of “do only that which is humanly possible” seems to be the norm for most people in the world.  It’s the norm, alright, but it’s not all right with me!  This near-sighted view robs us of the amazing hope that Scripture teaches we have in our relationship with the Lord – to open our spiritual eyes and see … and to reach out and take hold of everything the Lord has determined for us. 

In July, 2006, I had the privilege of dedicating to the Lord the second of our five daughter churches at Ain Shams (an hour’s drive from Maadi) – the Interdenominational Revival Bible Church was born and dedicated to God’s great glory.  I knew this young church had an exciting future ahead.  Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I could see this church growing and maturing into a fine adult church, and then multiplying many daughter churches that would grow and multiply many daughter churches.

Friends, my imagination has been sparked by the Holy Spirit and has taken me to many exciting new places in life.  I can now see further, and I can now see more!  My imagination runs hot with amazing possibilities.  Do you know what I’m talking about? Do you have the gift of imagination?  Are you exercising that gift? Just imagine! There’s a whole new world out there waiting to be seen and seized. 

Exercise this divine gift – see  and experience the amazing things the Lord has in store for you. 

South Sudan – The harvest is underway!

Posted by Bill on November 26, 2011

“And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it, and then, finally, the end will come” (Matthew 24:14)

Friends, I am always encouraged by the nice words of the apostle Paul, who says we don’t have to be sophisticated and highly educated to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Although, I was feeling alone in my great challenge in South Sudan, I was encouraged by the Spirit of God who reminded me that I was not alone, and that He was near to help me. The Spirit of God kept reminding me that He was with me.

Tom Ali, Fredrick Omoh-John, and I planned to team-up for South Sudan for the purpose taking  the youth of the Africa Inland Church (AIC) through CCI’s Small Group Development training in Juba and Torit, and to baptise new believers in Torit Central Prison. Unfortunately, due to several challenges (financial and travel documents) Tom and Fredrick were not able to travel with me. I modified our original plan to what I could handle. I decided to focus my time on Small Groups Development training with the youth of AIC. Twenty seven were trained in Torit State. For one week I also taught new believers about salvation and baptism, and nineteen of them were baptised on the 1st of October! We had a great celebration that day that lasted 7 hours. Many prisoners gave their lives to Christ and then fellowshipped from ward to ward. We managed to provide them with 40 English and Arabic Bibles which we had brought with us from Egypt.

The Bible reminds us in Matthew 28:19-20, that “evangelism” is a worldwide responsibility for all Christians. And, in other places in Scripture, concerning this task, that there’s no time to be wasted! Wonders and miracles happened in both Juba Prison and Torit Prison – hundreds of prisoners were released immediately after their baptism in July 2011!

In Torit Central Prison, almost three quarters of the inmates were released, including eighteen who had been sentenced to death! All of them were baptized on July 13.

In Juba Central Prison, nine out of fifty seven new believers (who were baptised on the July 6) were left in prison.  Three of them, who had committed murder, were invited to pay 23 thousand Sudanese Pounds in order to be released. By the grace of God they too will be released, in the name of Jesus Christ.

Friends and partners, we value your prayers and financial support. In partnership with Cells-church Consultants International, Africa Inland Church in Egypt is committed to continuing in the work of sewing, nurturing and harvesting in the “ripe” fields of South Sudan. We have only scratched the surface there. The harvest is ready, and the workers are few.

I invite you to partner with us through making a small financial investment of any size … even one dollar! This can be channelled to us through CCI. Your investment will help us to go further in this great opportunity to harvest many more souls in South Sudan.  Will you please consider this invitation? Truly, the harvest is great.

Saturnino

 

 

Vision of Visions – Debrief

Posted by Bill on November 16, 2011

Dear Friends,

It has taken seven days for Beryl and me to feel revived and refreshed from our wonder-filled assignments in Europe. Our seven-weeks stint in the harvest fields of Poland and Lithuania is by far the greatest investment we have made so far in empowering the Lord’s people in the work of expanding His Kingdom.

Although this 7-weeks assignment demanded more from us than any other previous assignment, it bore more fruit than we could imagine. In true fashion, the Lord lead us along new paths, transformed the darkness into light before us, and made the rough places smooth … He did not forsake us! (Isaiah 42:16.)

We returned to Australia “looking” the same, but we’ve been stretched a lot more! We are more excited, and more willing, than ever to say “yes” up-front to the Lord, long before He reveals to us the next assignment He has in store for us. Without hesitation, we are willing to sacrifice and invest everything within our control to go out further on the limb of faith with Him.

Our Vision of Visions is expanding into new frontiers. The churches we visited in Gdynia in Poland, and Mazeikiai in Lithuania, have asked us/me to return in the Spring of 2012 to help in strengthening their efforts to establish networks of healthy small groups in their churches. Pastor Adam of the Gdynia church also informed me that the leadership of the local Catholic church has expressed interest to learn more of our small groups church plan. The Lord has also placed Helsinki (Finland) in my mind. Monica, a former teammate of our Cairo years has been promoting small groups there with encouraging results. I believe it would be a great opportunity to cross the Baltic Sea, from Lithuania, to connect the small groups work at Helsinki with the network in Poland and Lithuania.

One important matter that needs our attention at this time is to express our heartfelt “thanks” to the Lord, and to you. What took place in the past seven-weeks was made possible through our partnership with you and the Lord. With partners like you, our Vision of Visions can continue to expand throughout the many countries of Europe.

Bill and Beryl

Finding Mazeikiai’s “Timothy”

Posted by Nick on November 6, 2011

Beryl and I had hoped for an easier time with our last assignment at Mazeikiai. But that wasn’t to be. As we landed at Riga Airport, I sensed pain in my left foot. When we arrived at the home of our host family I removed my shoe to discover that the reason for this pain was gout. My foot was swollen and it was painful to walk. The gout attack was not new to this old veteran – I’ve learnt much from the numerous gout attacks I’ve experienced over the past 10 years.

Vaclovas and Marija, and Beryl and I, worked our tails off to prepare well for the commencement of the small groups conference on Friday night, and we were careful in bathe our efforts with prayer. Let me set the stage for you for what happened: Beryl came down with a head cold and her constant sneezing forced her to stay at the apartment. The outside temperature was 5 degrees. The heating system in the church had not been repaired in time (repair men were still on the job). Power disruptions left us in the dark on four occasions . A hammer drill was used several times on the outside of the conference room wall. Three times, mobile phones rang. A constant flow of people streamed in and out of the room during the three hours of the Friday sessions (the entry door was one metre, adjacent to my shoulder). Several young children were allowed to free-range within the room, and a water pipe burst open in the upstairs room where we were enjoying a snack break.

Unusual for me, I remained calm … I battened down the hatches and hung-in until the storm was over. Even though the disruptions continued throughout Saturday, the conference was a huge success. I thanked the Lord for saving me from losing the plot. Throughout the nine hours we were together, everyone remained riveted to what they were hearing. For twenty years, the church had waited to hear truth that would “set them free” to go and grow. They had the heart, but not the know-how.

The “reading between the lines” comment I made in my previous news update did not come from an unsound mind. Are you ready for some amazing news?  It became increasingly evident to Beryl and me that Vaclovas would make a great “Mazeikiai-Timothy” that the church so desperately needed. The church is led by only one person, Marija’s father. Her “motor mechanic” dad became the pastor of the church by default when the former pastor of the church decided suddenly to return to Germany (20 yrs ago). Marija’s dad is an amazing man – he has done his best. But he has done it alone! Vaclovas has a humble and tender pastor’s heart … an ideal “Timothy” candidate who is ready to rise up  to the challenge.

It is now 6:30, Sunday night. Beryl and I have just returned from a last meeting with Marija’s dad, Antonas, and her mother, Dana. We thanked this wonderful “man and woman of God” and shared with Antonas our thoughts and observations concerning his church, including our recommendation that Vaslovas be considered to direct the development of small groups in his church. We thanked Antonas and prayed for him.

Beryl has just finished packing our bags. We leave for Riga Airport at 9:30 am tomorrow (Monday), bound for Frankfurt – Singapore – Brisbane (arriving 7am, Wednesday). My foot has almost recovered, Beryl’s health has improved, and we have completed our assignment at Lithuania … “Mazeikiai-Timothy” has been found!

“Thank You, Jesus” … thank you, dear friends for your kind support.

Bill and Beryl J

Apologies for the delay in posting this update – due to technical difficulties.  Nick

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