Sunday 3 January 2010

Hello and Happy New Year to you all! I trust that you have entered 2010 with great expectations of what the Lord will do this year. I also trust that you have had the traditional round of new year's resolutions to keep you busy?

All of us from the GFA office gathered at the Thrasher house to pray-in our new year.


We started off by a having a meal and then watching a film together, before going into a time of worship and seeking the Lord. Brian gave a teaching on love, and a lot of it really hit home with me. I see my tendency to put "love" on a shelf, to anaylse it and work out how it works, but then to fail to put it into action. I also see that I find it much easier for me to pray for the salvation of an entire nation, rather for just one person in that nation. It is so much easier to pray for the generic, faceless "multitudes" rather than the personal and human individual. It's funny how I can I hear a teaching and realise something about myself, and then say "wow... all this time I had been missing something... how did I not see it, it's so clear... how on earth did I get here?" I would have carried on blind had the Lord not revealed it to me, and I pray that he continues to show me such blindspots and that he would give me the courage to overcome them!


As the clock swayed from one year into the next we prayed for the Lord to help us re-surrender ourselves as we commenced the new year.



As I saw things within me which I was uncomfortable letting go of I felt that I was better understanding the meaning of surrender; in that true surrender is inevitably costly, and requires faith.


Finally we spent some time writing on a board the things we wanted to give thanks to the Lord for - we needed a big board! We brought up personal things and things pertaining to the ministry. It really is encouraging to look back at just bask in the sunlight of the Lord's goodness, and it really is fitting to give Him praise and thanks for all that He has done. Some of the funds donated through our office in 2009 helped to provide:-

491 fully supported missionaries
880 places in Bridge of Hope centres
65,000 New Testaments supplied
408 missionaries with a bicycle
20 church buildings in Asia
137 missionaries with winter clothing
637 pairs of chickens
344 pairs of rabbits
20 cows
6 water buffalos
740 blankets
48 sewing machines
27 rickshaws

We pray that the giving of these gifts would enable lost people in Asia to learn about Christ's love for them. We give thanks for how the Lord has allowed to serve Him this past year, and look forward to seeing what He will do this coming year.