July 2024 Afghanistan, Australia, Ukraine, UK
AFGHANISTAN Pleased to tell you that the truth of the Lord Jesus continues to spread amongst the people in this spiritually dark place. We were able to online baptize TAHERA this week, a young woman with a great passion for the Lord Jesus who is a very
appreciative user of the
Bible Companion app.
AUSTRALIA
This week, brother Mark was able to baptize HAZEL and her son DANIEL in Perth. Video of the service and brother Mark's thoughts at https://youtu.be/VSANwESdcqI . In Hazel's case this was a re-baptism, at her special request which we were happy to go along with as a personal conscience matter.
UKRAINE
The public health service has pretty much broken down in Ukraine, with hospitals overrun with military casualties and a large percentage of the staff [who are mainly female before the war] now having joined the 10 million people who have fled Ukraine since the war started. So there's a chronic staff shortage as well as lack of resources, including actual health care buildings. As of 10 July 2024 Physicians for Human Rights "Attacks on Health Care in Ukraine" website counted 1442 attacks on health care facilities, out of which 742 destroyed hospitals and clinics, killing 210 health workers.
So if you are elderly or need a heart bypass, or like brother Sergej, come down with cancer... there are only a few very expensive private facilities to assist. Sergej was baptized by us many years ago and is a lovely brother. We've sent financial assistance to him for his struggle with cancer, and ask for your prayers for many like him. As soon as he got the funds he was able to book in for his operation which is scheduled for next week Lord willing.
UNITED KINGDOM
Lunchtime church continued well this week, and sister Jeanette's contact DAVID was baptized. On the video at https://youtu.be/6L9zkDy2JO4 Jeanette describes how she was struggling with her supermarket shop and asked a young man selling "The Big Issue" newspaper outside the supermarket if he'd push the trolley back to her home for £10 and help unstack it. On the way she preached to David and kept in touch with him, and invited him to our meetings. So it was a special moment for Jeanette to see David baptized. David is originally from Romania and very much looking for the Lord, he wept at his baptism. Truly the Angels rejoiced with us all. We have several others on the verge of baptism, all held back by a sense of unworthiness, which we keep encouraging them to overcome through just surrendering to the Lord's grace. And Cistine singing "Just as I am" at the start of our Bible study sessions.
Some time ago we went to northern Ireland to baptize Alison, one of our online followers in Londonderry. And what a dynamic witness to the Lord she has been, to her friends, family and others in the council estate where she lives. Such a fighter despite a lot of stuff against her, and showing the world how you can rise above and be more than a conqueror, through Him that so loves us. Londonderry is on many indicators the most depressed and socially challenged city in the UK. With a long history of sectarian violence, isolated on the borders of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Derry is full of large council estates awash with drugs, extremely high unemployment, smuggling gangs exploiting the porous border between the UK and the EU [Ireland is in the EU, the UK isn't]... and a very high depression and suicide rate. Into that has come the true Gospel in the transformation of sister Alison. Like all of us, she falls far short of the Lord's perfection; but the deep transformation in her life has lead her immediate family and friends on that council estate coming to the Lord Jesus. She invited us to come and baptize her family and close friends, and so Duncan & Evia spent a wonderful time with them this weekend, baptizing her brother GLEN, her mum ANNE, her niece TANYA and more distant relative LETITIA and family friend ROISIN [pronounced Rosheen, ROSE in English]. This is an extraordinary triumph of the Gospel in the lives of standard folks living on the council estates of Londonderry. You can see them here with their NEV Bibles and looking at the Bible Companion app. It is such an honour to work with the Lord who works so constantly and insistently in the lives of so many, nudging them ever closer to Him. And such a joy when the response is made to all His work:
PRAYER POINTS
- For those recently baptized
- For those in Ukraine with no or limited access to health care
- For all struggling with cancer especially those with limited resources
- For those delaying baptism because they feel unworthy
With love from your brothers and sisters of Carelinks