Long time no blog. Not through the lack of anything happening I might say. I suppose it would be difficult for me to think of a time when there were so many imponderables, so many unresolved situations and so many ways in which a slight nudge in one of several directions could end up in…chaos…yet in it all I know do much peace and calm.

Things that once threw me are barely causing a stir. That’s grace!

I hesitate to say it’s also growth, though it probably is. When I first walked around the Hall we’re in, I heard God quote distinctly. He said: you’ve been faithful in small things and I’m putting you in charge of bigger things. I thought that meant bigger responsibilities not bigger challenges! Of course the two go hand in hand, it just didn’t occur to me. I saw the ‘reward’ rather than the ‘tests’ that inevitably precede new things and new growth. Often that growth comes through a pruning or fresh experience of the cross. No, it’s not like the world!

It’s always worth it.

Praise God.

I missed a trick at the weekend.

My son was mending his very stiff scooter wheel. This is his new hobby, scooting (scootering?) and he’s very keen. Part of the whole thing is customising your own scooter in the colour, design that makes it personal and uniquely yours. Anyway, there I was holding the scooter and looking fairly helplessly on as replaced the wheel after lubricating it. It wouldn’t budge. We tried various ways and he was getting disappointed.

A voice whispered ‘pray for it’. I debated whether to pray out loud, and – frankly – bottled it. I decided it was not worth fuelling an already slightly uneasy faith sharing element in our relationship, so instead prayed quietly under my breath.

You guessed it. Seconds later, for no apparent reason, the wheel stared spinning. My sons face was a picture.

Oh if only I’d shared the whispered voice at the time I’d heard it. It wasn’t quite the same thing trying to tell him about it after the event.

What a joy it is to serve the Lord! I’ve just been speaking to some of those leading The Way of the Spirit works abroad and am in awe of what God is doing.

In India those that came to the recent conference are flourishing. They’re sending Bal Krishan reports, from the Himalayan foothills, Kashmir and beyond, of the fruits of our recent time in Chandigarh. Bal’s vision, carried for two decades, is working out before his eyes. Even at the hotel where we held the conference there are miraculous things happening: Bal has been asked by the ‘colonel’ (the Hindu hotel manager who showed us great favour and who was affected by what God was doing) to run some meetings for him and his staff! Bal goes today to preach to them.

Charles in Rwanda described how The Way of the Spirit team across the country is living in a sense of revival today as a result of what God has done there. Many churches have been planted and others are now living in I think of the seeds sown during many trips there over the past five  years or so: all the conferences, schools and meetings. Every time we believed God was planting something and today we can see fruit. Much more is to come.

Agnes in Uganda, Paul in Kenya, also have their stories of what God is doing. Next year we shall continue to go in obedience wherever God sends us –  missions to East Africa and India are on the cards and we can’t wait to get out there. Nigel will be taking a team to Rwanda in February, including Tony from the college here. More the one person will go on medium term trips soon (maybe 3 months at a time).

Thank you Lord!