Post by JEM on Mar 31, 2022 20:42:26 GMT
THE LIGHTHOUSE PRAYER MINISTRY NEWS EASTER 2022
HAS GOD CALLED YOU TO DO SOMETHING FOR HIM AND YOU DIDN’T HEAR HIM
YOU WERE UNAWARE? SO YOU TURNED AWAY. I came across this verse recently
Jesus said to someone "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."[ Luke 9 verse 62 ].
When I was aged 22 and had been at BMS Summer School at Seaford where I managed the Book Sales Room for a week, , our minister at the time who had also been there with his wife and son asked me when we were back home, “ Did you feel at Summer School that God was calling you to the Baptist Ministry?” and I could honestly say “No I felt no such call, but if you think so maybe we should test it out.” Subsequently I went to Bristol Baptist College to sit the examination and be interviewed with a view to training for the Baptist Ministry I was backed by a unanimous Diaconate, a unanimous Church Meeting, the unanimity of the County Association Ministerial Recognition Committee and a lot of local pastors.
I used to suffer a lot then from migraine In the college study I was occupying out side the window was a chiming clock which chimed every 15 minutes day and night. I thought “ Oh dear I’ll not be able to cope with that for 3 years. It’s bad enough just being here a couple of days” I was hopeless at languages and Hebrew, Greek and Latin in the exam I failed miserably and before the committee I felt terrified. That day this verse came to me and I felt it applied to me "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." Clearly I was not exercising much faith as to how God could cope with my future but then personally I never actually thought that He had called me to this path.
I WAS TURNED DOWN. Returning to Walden a lot of people did not know what to say. How could we have made so big a mistake? Some said there are 3 other Colleges you could apply to, but I never felt drawn to do so. The College principal had advised me “to return to Walden, continue your lay preaching ministry and your studies for the Baptist Union Diploma in Religious Knowledge and continue your literature ministry and see where God leads you. We have no courses here that could help you”. [ they have now ] .
I was preaching at Ashdon one evening later that year and afterwards an elderly saint remarked “Thank you for what you said this evening , it cleared up for me something that has been worrying me for a long time”. He went on to say, “and just consider had you gone to Bristol you would not be here tonight and I would have gone on worrying.”
Even when we take a wrong path God is still able to use us and since then He certainly has. But my prayer through all that and all since was “Help me to Seek first the Kingdom of God and your righteousness, as what ever else I need You will supply. And He has.
We are grateful to Kenny of Global Recordings Network UK for transferring the money to Patras. We have also supplied GRN UK with 3 CD Player Recorders for use in remote places making 23 we have so far provided.
GHANA We started our outreach to Ghana in 1992 and the latest step has been to help Robert Amuzu at Breman Asikuma at the School where his wife Martha teaches which needed to supply Bibles to each child, 185 and we have funded 100 of them to be in time for Easter. They have also supplied to children in their Sunday School so Mission Accomplished. We asked him as to any news from the village of Mangoase to which he led a mission some years ago when he was a student at University We were enabled to supply them copies of a new Song book, an oil fired generator to provide light at night and a bore hole for fresh water. He tells me that most of the converts there have moved on to other places but that a prayer meeting continues to operate. Thanking me for money for Bibles he wrote “At the current exchange rate, the money bought 1 extra Bible which I gave to a naval officer who is about to leave for a mission in Congo DR. I prayed with him this morning as I gave him the Bible before he left for Accra on his way to Congo. May the Lord protect him in this mission. Times are tough in Ghana these days, so when my former classmate who is a CID officer at the airport police station reached out to me last week, I prayed for him and the circumstance he was in for the Lord to revive and to comfort him. He had been married for nine years without a child, and finally his wife filed for divorce that was granted last year leaving him devastated. He stopped going to church and was drinking his evenings out. I am glad he made a decision to contact me, something I realize is paying off. I sent him some publications of OUR DAILY BREAD MINISTRIES, other bible commentaries and referred him also to checkout finalglobalmovement.org and worldwideministries.org during his free time. These are Bible based teachings which will go a long way to help anyone. He has stopped drinking and his chronic headache is easing too, Hallelujah. I am keeping him on my prayer list and another friend of mine who is on oxygen with acute asthma. He recently joined Hillside Baptist Church, in a small community along the road to Obuasi. He too is on my prayer list.
With the Bible project, we received a request for 57 bibles for final year students of a community day school. I have not promised this in my reply to the school chaplain, but we want to see what the Lord will do. My wife and I will be giving out the 28 same KJV pocket sized bibles to some of our Sunday school children during our Easter convention in April as a parting gift, that`s what we have on the table now. She has been the in charge of the children`s ministry for five years and is now due to be given a new role in the women`s ministry of our church, Grace Baptist. Well if the Lord enables us, we will buy the 57 more Bibles”. We at LHPM used our last funds to supply 30 of them.
ZAMBIA we have sent grants to 5 former prisoners we used to write to Monde Mubiana, Chishala Asihont, Martin Phiri. Peter Chengo and Andrew Chishala at the Maximum Security Prison at Kabwe who wrote last October seeking help for an agricultural project they are trying to set up for growing bananas, and rearing chickens.
NIGERIA In March we finally cleared requests for Bibles from last autumn, supplying 350 for distribution by 3 pastor evangelists and now funding is being transferred to provide 100 more to Pastor Terry Bon who wrote in March. We much appreciate Malcolm transferring our money through his banking system to Ambrose’s bookshop at Ibadan..
MALAWI We pray for Enock and Clara Dimba and their team as they plan to resume visiting villages, preaching, teaching, caring, sharing and projecting the JESUS film at outside evening meetings to large crowds. We will send Maoni orphanage another EASTER Message to be translated into the local language and for copies to be prepared for the students and staff. We have sent packages of Our Daily Bread, and other booklets and magazines which are given out to new converts who are encouraged to read them and swap them around.
ETHIOPIA Ayele writes “Here we have only disease, drought and war .we are also sick too. No one is able to take us to hospital, or any health center. Let us pray and remember one another .may God bless you. Ayele. We seek to send him a grant several times a year but it buys very little these days due to inflation, ineffective government, and widespread shortages. His faith, and God’s Grace keeps him and his siblings alive.
We have also sent funding to Afghanistan and Ukraine for emergency supplies and now we are skint again
UKRAINE Zaporizhzhia is a city in south-eastern Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper. It is the administrative centre of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Zaporizhzhia had a population of 722,713 as of 2021. Russian President Vladimir Putin informed his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron about taking control of the Zaporozhye and Chernobyl nuclear power plants, about the provocation staged by Ukrainian radicals in the area of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and stressed that attempts to shift responsibility for the incident to Russian military personnel were part of a propaganda campaign,. "Russian troops, in cooperation with the Ukrainian security unit and personnel, continue to ensure the operation of the nuclear power plant in the normal mode," the Kremlin said.
The Lighthouse Prayer Ministry for a long time had a link in this city with Sergie Ivanuik
who had trained as an architect but was working as a roofer but wished to persuade the city council to building semi-detached houses. He had an allotment then which I had a 25% share in. John Holmes the builder then of New Road provided him a book for building semi-detached houses. We supplied Bibles. He produced a couple of Christian images we have used in the past and a mural in his local Lutheran Church that then had South Korean pastors. .He and his 2 college mates used to camp in the Crimea and help with the harvest .
I have not heard from him for 7 years. Pray for protection of the Church, building & people.
LOCALLY Because of Covid restrictions we have done little outreach locally since 2019 apart from some tract distribution , distributed 70 Gospel Gem Calenders, placed St John’s Gospel and Text Slates linked to our website in unusual places.
We have in stock about 1200 copies of VIA gospel magazine earmarked for new homes in Saffron Walden Planning permission exist for about 1000 new homes, and planning applications for maybe another 600 and on the perimeter of town surveyors have been surveying what may be a road or another housing development site. The existing approved sites will add about 2500 to the population. We put Olive Branch Messages on FACEBOOK from Olive Denyer at Newport. I continue to answer questions on and add posts to various FACEBOOK sites, and our www.lhpm.proboards.com site continues to attract visitors.
We appreciate prayer support from anyone, and if anyone feels moved to assist with money it can be sent to me by cheque made out to The Lighthouse Prayer Ministry 35 Four Acres, Saffron Walden CB11 3JD or if you contact me I can supply the Account Number for transferring direct. If you would like to add Gift Aid to your gift then contact me for the account details of the Saffron Walden Baptist Church and send it to them and advise me to advise them to pay it into our account when they have been enabled to add Gift Aid to it. We are not a charity but they are. Thank you for your prayers and support To our GOD be all the credit and the glory
Have as happy an Easter and beyond as you can, and keep on with the LORD’s work throughout in 2022. We are all gifted in some way to serve the LORD in serving other people right where we are at any given time and as we lovingly obey He will through His Holy Spirit help us to extend His love Kind regards and Christian love to you all. JOHN [ John E Maddams ]
HAS GOD CALLED YOU TO DO SOMETHING FOR HIM AND YOU DIDN’T HEAR HIM
YOU WERE UNAWARE? SO YOU TURNED AWAY. I came across this verse recently
Jesus said to someone "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."[ Luke 9 verse 62 ].
When I was aged 22 and had been at BMS Summer School at Seaford where I managed the Book Sales Room for a week, , our minister at the time who had also been there with his wife and son asked me when we were back home, “ Did you feel at Summer School that God was calling you to the Baptist Ministry?” and I could honestly say “No I felt no such call, but if you think so maybe we should test it out.” Subsequently I went to Bristol Baptist College to sit the examination and be interviewed with a view to training for the Baptist Ministry I was backed by a unanimous Diaconate, a unanimous Church Meeting, the unanimity of the County Association Ministerial Recognition Committee and a lot of local pastors.
I used to suffer a lot then from migraine In the college study I was occupying out side the window was a chiming clock which chimed every 15 minutes day and night. I thought “ Oh dear I’ll not be able to cope with that for 3 years. It’s bad enough just being here a couple of days” I was hopeless at languages and Hebrew, Greek and Latin in the exam I failed miserably and before the committee I felt terrified. That day this verse came to me and I felt it applied to me "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." Clearly I was not exercising much faith as to how God could cope with my future but then personally I never actually thought that He had called me to this path.
I WAS TURNED DOWN. Returning to Walden a lot of people did not know what to say. How could we have made so big a mistake? Some said there are 3 other Colleges you could apply to, but I never felt drawn to do so. The College principal had advised me “to return to Walden, continue your lay preaching ministry and your studies for the Baptist Union Diploma in Religious Knowledge and continue your literature ministry and see where God leads you. We have no courses here that could help you”. [ they have now ] .
I was preaching at Ashdon one evening later that year and afterwards an elderly saint remarked “Thank you for what you said this evening , it cleared up for me something that has been worrying me for a long time”. He went on to say, “and just consider had you gone to Bristol you would not be here tonight and I would have gone on worrying.”
Even when we take a wrong path God is still able to use us and since then He certainly has. But my prayer through all that and all since was “Help me to Seek first the Kingdom of God and your righteousness, as what ever else I need You will supply. And He has.
We are invited to intercede for the following ministries
PAKISTAN We have been praying since 2014 for Patras and his family and the independent Baptist Church he pastors and his mission. His most recent request was for 200 Audio Urdu Bibles at £6 a set, £1200, and 5000 printed Urdu Bibles at £6 each, a mere £30,000. He believes that the LORD will provide. If God wants it done it will be done but through whom or by whom is another matter. Our income averages £5000 - £6000 a year and is widely spread We have supplied so far 70 of the Audio Bibles. The first 9 were supplied to blind people and the next 21 to brick makers in a Brick Making Factory . people who are illiterate and they are rejoicing, This now becomes our Main Project. We are grateful to Kenny of Global Recordings Network UK for transferring the money to Patras. We have also supplied GRN UK with 3 CD Player Recorders for use in remote places making 23 we have so far provided.
GHANA We started our outreach to Ghana in 1992 and the latest step has been to help Robert Amuzu at Breman Asikuma at the School where his wife Martha teaches which needed to supply Bibles to each child, 185 and we have funded 100 of them to be in time for Easter. They have also supplied to children in their Sunday School so Mission Accomplished. We asked him as to any news from the village of Mangoase to which he led a mission some years ago when he was a student at University We were enabled to supply them copies of a new Song book, an oil fired generator to provide light at night and a bore hole for fresh water. He tells me that most of the converts there have moved on to other places but that a prayer meeting continues to operate. Thanking me for money for Bibles he wrote “At the current exchange rate, the money bought 1 extra Bible which I gave to a naval officer who is about to leave for a mission in Congo DR. I prayed with him this morning as I gave him the Bible before he left for Accra on his way to Congo. May the Lord protect him in this mission. Times are tough in Ghana these days, so when my former classmate who is a CID officer at the airport police station reached out to me last week, I prayed for him and the circumstance he was in for the Lord to revive and to comfort him. He had been married for nine years without a child, and finally his wife filed for divorce that was granted last year leaving him devastated. He stopped going to church and was drinking his evenings out. I am glad he made a decision to contact me, something I realize is paying off. I sent him some publications of OUR DAILY BREAD MINISTRIES, other bible commentaries and referred him also to checkout finalglobalmovement.org and worldwideministries.org during his free time. These are Bible based teachings which will go a long way to help anyone. He has stopped drinking and his chronic headache is easing too, Hallelujah. I am keeping him on my prayer list and another friend of mine who is on oxygen with acute asthma. He recently joined Hillside Baptist Church, in a small community along the road to Obuasi. He too is on my prayer list.
With the Bible project, we received a request for 57 bibles for final year students of a community day school. I have not promised this in my reply to the school chaplain, but we want to see what the Lord will do. My wife and I will be giving out the 28 same KJV pocket sized bibles to some of our Sunday school children during our Easter convention in April as a parting gift, that`s what we have on the table now. She has been the in charge of the children`s ministry for five years and is now due to be given a new role in the women`s ministry of our church, Grace Baptist. Well if the Lord enables us, we will buy the 57 more Bibles”. We at LHPM used our last funds to supply 30 of them.
ZAMBIA we have sent grants to 5 former prisoners we used to write to Monde Mubiana, Chishala Asihont, Martin Phiri. Peter Chengo and Andrew Chishala at the Maximum Security Prison at Kabwe who wrote last October seeking help for an agricultural project they are trying to set up for growing bananas, and rearing chickens.
NIGERIA In March we finally cleared requests for Bibles from last autumn, supplying 350 for distribution by 3 pastor evangelists and now funding is being transferred to provide 100 more to Pastor Terry Bon who wrote in March. We much appreciate Malcolm transferring our money through his banking system to Ambrose’s bookshop at Ibadan..
MALAWI We pray for Enock and Clara Dimba and their team as they plan to resume visiting villages, preaching, teaching, caring, sharing and projecting the JESUS film at outside evening meetings to large crowds. We will send Maoni orphanage another EASTER Message to be translated into the local language and for copies to be prepared for the students and staff. We have sent packages of Our Daily Bread, and other booklets and magazines which are given out to new converts who are encouraged to read them and swap them around.
ETHIOPIA Ayele writes “Here we have only disease, drought and war .we are also sick too. No one is able to take us to hospital, or any health center. Let us pray and remember one another .may God bless you. Ayele. We seek to send him a grant several times a year but it buys very little these days due to inflation, ineffective government, and widespread shortages. His faith, and God’s Grace keeps him and his siblings alive.
We have also sent funding to Afghanistan and Ukraine for emergency supplies and now we are skint again
UKRAINE Zaporizhzhia is a city in south-eastern Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper. It is the administrative centre of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Zaporizhzhia had a population of 722,713 as of 2021. Russian President Vladimir Putin informed his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron about taking control of the Zaporozhye and Chernobyl nuclear power plants, about the provocation staged by Ukrainian radicals in the area of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and stressed that attempts to shift responsibility for the incident to Russian military personnel were part of a propaganda campaign,. "Russian troops, in cooperation with the Ukrainian security unit and personnel, continue to ensure the operation of the nuclear power plant in the normal mode," the Kremlin said.
The Lighthouse Prayer Ministry for a long time had a link in this city with Sergie Ivanuik
who had trained as an architect but was working as a roofer but wished to persuade the city council to building semi-detached houses. He had an allotment then which I had a 25% share in. John Holmes the builder then of New Road provided him a book for building semi-detached houses. We supplied Bibles. He produced a couple of Christian images we have used in the past and a mural in his local Lutheran Church that then had South Korean pastors. .He and his 2 college mates used to camp in the Crimea and help with the harvest .
I have not heard from him for 7 years. Pray for protection of the Church, building & people.
LOCALLY Because of Covid restrictions we have done little outreach locally since 2019 apart from some tract distribution , distributed 70 Gospel Gem Calenders, placed St John’s Gospel and Text Slates linked to our website in unusual places.
We have in stock about 1200 copies of VIA gospel magazine earmarked for new homes in Saffron Walden Planning permission exist for about 1000 new homes, and planning applications for maybe another 600 and on the perimeter of town surveyors have been surveying what may be a road or another housing development site. The existing approved sites will add about 2500 to the population. We put Olive Branch Messages on FACEBOOK from Olive Denyer at Newport. I continue to answer questions on and add posts to various FACEBOOK sites, and our www.lhpm.proboards.com site continues to attract visitors.
We appreciate prayer support from anyone, and if anyone feels moved to assist with money it can be sent to me by cheque made out to The Lighthouse Prayer Ministry 35 Four Acres, Saffron Walden CB11 3JD or if you contact me I can supply the Account Number for transferring direct. If you would like to add Gift Aid to your gift then contact me for the account details of the Saffron Walden Baptist Church and send it to them and advise me to advise them to pay it into our account when they have been enabled to add Gift Aid to it. We are not a charity but they are. Thank you for your prayers and support To our GOD be all the credit and the glory
Have as happy an Easter and beyond as you can, and keep on with the LORD’s work throughout in 2022. We are all gifted in some way to serve the LORD in serving other people right where we are at any given time and as we lovingly obey He will through His Holy Spirit help us to extend His love Kind regards and Christian love to you all. JOHN [ John E Maddams ]