October 2019 Australia, UK, Bible Companion app, USA, Greenland, Marshall Islands
The
Bible Companion readings for this Sunday include John 14 and there is an MP3 file about this at
http://www.n-e-v.info/en/messages/jn14.mp3 You can see the archives of our MP3 files at
http://christadelphia.net/audio.htm and download the "
Bible Companion" app for Android at
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.carelinks.bc and for Apple / iOS at
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bible-companion/id1475914490 Helps for the
Bible Companion readings this week:
2 Chronicles http://n-e-v.info/2chroncomm.pdf Daniel
http://n-e-v.info/DanielNEVCommentary.pdf John http://n-e-v.info/NEVJohnCommentary.pdf Bible Companion App The "
Bible Companion" app has been released, for Android at
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.carelinks.bc and for Apple / iOS at
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bible-companion/id1475914490 Take up has been amazing over the last 2 weeks or so. Nearly 10,000 downloads in total- and from all over the world. We informed all our contacts about it, and already two who had been in contact for years have been baptized, as reported later in this Carelink. Clearly an app is the way to go in this world, where most people under 50 are spending hours every day looking at their phone. We're so grateful to all who donated and helped with recordings, photos and technical help, especially, not sparing his blushes, Brother Brian Armour in Queensland,
Australia.
We are advertising the app online- your donations will help us boost the app in areas we would never otherwise be able to go and preach in. We can get downloads with good retention [i.e. the app remains on the phone of the interested person rather than being deleted] for about 5 cents / download. That's advertising on Google, whereby when people search for "Bible app" or something similar, they see our ad. Do send over what you can. It's an amazing experience to look at the statistics. People in war torn parts of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are downloading the app and using it. And in the uttermost parts of the earth others are doing likewise. Here are a few examples. From
Greenland- someone has the app and is using it. Someone, amongst the brightly painted wooden houses which characterize the few settlements on the coast of Greenland:
And two users on the
Marshall Islands, a thin strip of land jutting out of the Pacific Ocean, threatened with extinction by climate change- rising sea levels, erosion, stronger winds, waves and cyclones. The Marshall Islands are not at all a tropical paradise. They only look like that from a distance. Much of the population has left. They suffered huge nuclear radiation fallout after the Americans tested nuclear fission there, and the fall out dosage was double what had been predicted. No wonder some of the very few people living there are searching Google for an online Bible:
And
Tuvalu is similar; another island with a tiny population, with room only for an airstrip on it:
And the app was only launched 2 weeks ago. Do donate so we can get it up on Google searches.
Do tap the "Share" button to share it around with your contacts. And do go back to the App Store or Google Play Store, and give it a 5 star rating and nice comment. This helps us to become more visible to people who are searching. Please also let us know any bugs you encounter when using it.
AUSTRALIA Good news from Australia. STEVEN was baptized by John Thatcher and Steve Robin Jones in Sydney. He'd been in touch online for a while, but getting the Bible app encouraged him to get into contact and so John reports as follows: "We had a wonderful night tonight, baptising our new brother Steven. Steven first of all came across some website which put him in contact with Duncan (he can't quite remember how that happened), but as he lives in Sydney, Duncan connected him to us. He was delighted to know that we would be so happy to baptise him - so we arranged to meet him at an indoor heated pool centre. John, Robin and Steve came to rejoice with him. He was baptised and greeted as our new brother as he stepped from the pool. We all traveled back to John's house for a small communion service - which he loved. He felt so liberated - born again. Robin had prepared a lovely meal, so we all stayed on and had a meal together. Our new brother greatly surprised us with his knowledge of not only the Bible, but middle east politics and religion. He was raised in an area of Sydney which was predominately Lebanese Muslim and learned the Lebanese language from his school mates. It was a wonderful night". Robin adds: "It really was a great night ! He really knows his Bible ... what a pleasant surprise".
Brother Steve wrote on Facebook after his baptism: "Thanks dear God and greetings to my new brethren in Christ I am so very happy to be baptised with the hope of eternity in the kingdom with you all and our beautiful Saviour Jesus". He hopes to attend the
Hurstville ecclesia this weekend Lord willing.
UK Great to baptize TINA in the UK, despite MS and spinal disorder she has such a heart for the Lord. She first got a Bible from us after seeing an advert we put in "The People's Friend" in 2012. She did all the answers to "
Bible Basics" with Marcus by snail mail. Then she got the Bible app last week and this helped her decide for baptism. Great testimony, to hear an ordinary British woman talk openly and frankly about her definite hope of the Kingdom and longing for the return of Jesus, describing baptism as the best thing she ever did.
See the video:
https://youtu.be/-4MK3tZMccY Another housebound woman in
Canada, who got
Bible Basics and
NEV Bible from us [i.e. Jim Barton] a while back, watched the video and was encouraged to be baptized. So hopefully Jim Anne will do the honours.
CALENDARS The
2020 Creation Calendars are going out to thousands of prisoners in
Canada, UK and
Australia. We are open to donations towards this. It's amazing what brother Marcus is achieving by having written, printed and mailed out all these calendars, do pray for him in his continued service. You can see him wearing his waist support to relieve the pain as he works in his garage.
Please pray for Colin, a prisoner in South East
UK. From getting the calendar he got an
NEV Bible and now "
Bible Basics". With all your prayers behind him, hopefully he can achieve his desire for baptism which he here writes about repeatedly. Do have a read through his latest letter, because it's always thrilling to see "the lights go on" when someone grasps the Truth.
USA Brother Ben, an Uber driver in
Los Angeles baptized from "
Bible Basics" a few years ago, reports from his taxi:
"So i had an asian couple in my uber ride last night but I think it was meant to be, because I started to talk about miracles in my life, then they talked about their miracles, then I said my dad was a vietnam veteran, then they said they were vietnamese. Then I talked about my daughter and her special needs, then they said their daughter has autism....so then I told them wow, God has really wanted us to meet and share our faith, then the wife said "whenever two or 3 are together there the Lord is with them", and she said that Jesus was probably sitting down in the passenger seat. Then I said, although we can't see Jesus, you know he is around, you feel him. Then the husband said he's catholic and the wife said she's protestant. Then in order to bring unity, I said, what matters is that we believe in Jesus, he unites us all. They gave me a good tip, they were visiting from Dallas Texas. I cried a little after I dropped them off because I knew it was from God"
Ben is great at preaching he's all over Facebook teaching the Truth.
PRAYER POINTS - For the daily feeding scheme in
Riga which is now beginning
- For brother Daniel Aldersley who's arrived in Riga from
New Zealand and is getting going with running our English church
- For those recently baptized
- For Colin in prison in the
UK that we can get to baptize him
- For all the thousands of people worldwide now reading the Bible and considering the Gospel through the Bible app
- Thanksgiving that despite so many difficulties, the
Bible Companion app is finally out there and prospering
With love from your brothers and sisters of Carelinks