In 1998, me, my husband, John and our two kids, Chris and Beth, left the UK for the adventure of a lifetime! We moved to Tanzania in East Africa!
We had to begin life again really because we didn’t know anything of Africa’s people or its land – questions were a massive part of our first few months – 12 to be precise! Where do we shop, where’s the doctors, can we drink from taps, what’s the kids school like and on and on it went! It was hard to settle into a new culture, but eventually we did! And we still love Africa! In fact, today (22nd October 2012) our family (except our lovely daughter-in-law) along with 19 others are going! We are taking this large group on their adventure of a life time!

When we lived there, John’s job was to look after three hundred churches that covered an area 10 times bigger than Britain! We would sometimes travel together in our amazing landrover and see sights that most can only dream of. In 2000 our world was shattered when we had to return to the UK because of an illness that got hold of John. He is perfectly well now, and hasn’t suffered with anything like it since that time but that is a whole other story! We could not understand why we had to come back, we had just got used to it! We went through some dark times and it took us a while to come through. We were told our African adventure was over for good- God had another plan…. We have been back most years since we left and at least 60 of our church have been with us. We continue to influence the lovely people of Tanzania and to influence people of the UK for Tanzania! Even to the point of taking school kids from the Rhondda valley! What a privilege!

The reason for this blog? You may sometimes go through darkness and wonder what on earth is happening. You may ask questions such as ‘where is God?’ (He never goes anywhere by the way, it can just feel like it sometimes) IF you keep your heart right and keep connected to Him, he is always working behind the scenes. He is working on stuff you can’t even dream about….. If we’d have not been compliant in His plan and let Him lead us, we would never have been in such an amazing position to be doing what we’re doing today… God says, ‘ALL things work together for the good for those who love him’

As with all of God’s promises, this is conditional too, my job is to love him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and then confidently believe that ALL things means ALL things!

If you’re going through a dark patch, don’t let go of God’s hand, He won’t leave you, love him more and believe that it will work out for good! How long do you fight? until you win!!

My blog next week will be written in Tanzania!! How exciting!!

Leap of Faith/Fake

John and I watched the film, ‘Leap of Faith’ recently. If you haven’t seen it, it stars Steve Martin as a fake TV evangelist, Jonas Nightingale, who rolls into various towns along with his huge entourage and they basically scam people into believing he can heal, deliver etc…. He takes up offerings and he dances about the stage in his snazzy suits and he even slays people in the spirit in a fashion which is extremely close to what we see on God TV at times. The producers researched this movie in some detail and, although at the end it says none of the characters are based on real people, we had to beg to differ! It was too close to the truth. The team would talk to people on their way into the tent and find out information about them, then they would relay that to Jonas via mouth and ear piece and he would then in turn have a ‘word of knowledge’ for the said people! Sadly, this is based on fact too. This has happened for real!   The film has a poignant ending which I won’t say – I don’t want to spoil it if you’re going to watch it!  suffice to say. God does do a couple of real miracles which makes Jonas think hard and his last line is ‘Thank you Jesus!’ but this time, he really means it!

I’ve seen the film many times! It was made in 1992 over 20 years ago. I watched it then, I watched it recently. I am left wanting the church to stand up and be real. I am left longing for miracles – genuine miracles that can pass the trades’ description act, that make it into our daily newspapers and that cannot be refuted! I have seen many family, church and financial miracles in my time and a few real healing miracles. Jesus said that ‘we would do greater things than him!’ I don’t see much of that in the UK. I see meetings where people queue up for their healing and for the touch from the man/woman of God. I have seen claims that bad backs, knees, bi-polar has been healed yet, in the same meeting, a person is left in their wheelchair….. Now, you could be reading this and have seen many genuine miracles but you have to admit that much of what we see is less than what the Bible promises… We seem to be satisfied with convincing ourselves that something has happened when, in reality, it hasn’t. There is, generally speaking, no accountability on the person’s life who is in the prayer line. They may not have prayed for 3 years, not been to church for 6 months, hold bitterness and un-forgiveness in their heart yet they are lead to believe that if they just stand in the prayer line, God will give them a miracle! I don’t believe the Bible teaches that that’s the norm. John 15:7 says, ‘If you remain in me and my word remains in you, ask whatever you want and it will be given you!’ What an incredible verse! I don’t know many people who are getting whatever they ask for in prayer and I know that that’s not God’s fault so it must be ours. We’re not ‘remaining’ to the degree that we should. We’re not obeying his commands, we’re not fulfilling all of the great commission in Matthew 28:19-20 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

I know that God does miracles – I want the world to know that God does miracles and not just the church.

The church gets challenged much by the secular media when we say we see miracles. I remember reading one person asking why doesn’t God heal the guys who come back from war with their limbs blown off? Now, that kind of miracle would get God noticed wouldn’t it?

It’s time to make sure that EVERYTHING we do is by faith and not by fake!! God doesn’t need representing by stuff that isn’t real. He needs to be represented by a body who are genuinely performing miracles!! Don’t settle for less than real!!