December 2019 UK, Israel, Namibia
We strongly recommend you download the "
Bible Companion" app, from where you can access Carelinks messages, daily Bible readings,
Bible Basics, commentary on every verse of the Bible and audio exhortations on every chapter of the Bible.
For Android / Google Play at
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.carelinks.bc and on the App Store for Apple / iOS at
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bible-companion/id1475914490 You can see the list of exhortations at
http://christadelphia.net/audio.htm Helps for the
Bible Companion readings this week:
Job https://n-e-v.info/NEVJob.pdf Zechariah https://n-e-v.info/zechnevcom.pdf Revelation https://n-e-v.info/NEVRevelationCommentary.pdf UK It was three years ago that we first had a coffee in a Tesco's cafe with a Portuguese-Jewish white Mozambican who now in older age had turned to God and studied Bible Basics . We're now delighted to report the baptism of MANUEL. He describes his incredible life in his testimony at
https://youtu.be/wTa257pQvWg Born in Mozambique, he entered the army and served as a paratrooper, rising to senior rank. That of course in the war years in Mozambique was a life of continual exposure to danger and death. Manuel describes how he turned to alcohol, night clubs and heavy smoking. But then one day stopped, and realized there must be more to life than this way of being.
And he turned to God. By the time he was living in the UK, this meant going through many religions until he found the Truth. By this time he was married for some time to a very fine woman, Paula, an African woman from Namibia, who has an amazing love of the Bible.
They are both now retired and receiving UK pensions; so it is their intention to very soon now return to Namibia and, as they put it, reflect the grace God has shown them to others. It is Manuel's dream to turn their property there into a study center where people can study
Bible Basics and be baptized.
We spent a wonderful evening together, ending with Manuel's baptism in his bath tub; having had so many brushes with death, he now died with Christ and rose again. He has already been distributing
NEV Bibles and
Bible Basics to people in Namibia and elsewhere. Here you can see him with his
Bible Basics in English and also the Portuguese version.
Manuel's wife Paula has an amazing story. She was a true refugee, and her story is at
https://youtu.be/U8dk_WQ40mY . She was a young woman living on the Namibian side of the Angola-Namibia border [then called Ovamboland] at the time of the bloody Namibian War of Independence, which claimed thousands of lives. She describes how she was walking home from college carrying her 1 year old baby, along with a white Portuguese girl. The shelling and bombing started, and they ran for their lives. She never returned to her home, but they ran over the border into Angola. She lived in the same clothes she was wearing for many weeks, being shifted around camps for displaced persons. She was finally taken by ship to Luanda, and thence airlifted to Portugal. She lived there many years before moving to the UK, where she worked as a nurse with the NHS, and has just retired at 68 after 30 years service. She describes how the Bible is, as she puts it, her baby. She carries it everywhere and sleeps with a Bible. Just as she did in her refugee years. Both she and her family had assumed each other were dead, but more recently she has been able to reconnect with some of them who have survived. She has a passionate love of God and faith in His word, and loves the
NEV Bible.
She and her husband Manuel are both totally committed to returning to Namibia and doing what they can to give back God's grace to others. She is so very aware of His grace. Her video testimony is really worth listening to. What a wonderful person. So lovely that Duncan gave the large print Bible of his late mother to her, as she now appreciates large print. Do pray for their plans for Namibia.
Meanwhile in Croydon, we had wonderful sessions on the streets on Christmas Eve and then on Boxing Day. Hundreds of New Testaments were given out and we had some long chats with folks. The High Street was packed with shoppers on both days- Christmas Eve shoppers, and then Boxing Day Sales attracting others. There was an unusually enthusiastic takeup of God's word. People were coming up asking for them, and at least two offered to donate or pay for them.
When we finished, we had to take our "
Free Bibles" jackets off pretty quickly as people were just coming up to us asking for them. All we had left were Steve's business cards advertising the
Bible Companion app, and we gave those out when the NTs were finished.
Video at
https://youtu.be/pAC3cOsk90Q 
ISRAEL The repentance of at least some of Israel is surely a precondition for the Lord's return; the generation which sees such spiritual fruit on the fig tree will not pass away until all is fulfilled. We'd like to step up our efforts to witness in Israel. It seems that advertising the
Bible Companion app on Google ads is an effective way to get in there. It'd be great if we could raise say UK Pound 200 / month so that we could get say 10-20 Israelis / day downloading the app onto their phones. They have "the truth" there and so much more. Initial advertising shows that there is interest and take up of the app there, and advertising on Google is a legitimate way to go- as well as also getting the true Gospel into areas like the Gaza Strip where our preaching would not otherwise penetrate.
PRAYER POINTS - For those recently baptized
- For our plans to work in Israel and Namibia
- For all those who've received Bibles recently
- For our further preaching work in the UK at this time
With love from your brothers and sisters of Carelinks