(Does that ever REALLY work for you, or are you up at the 'normal' time anyway for at least a week afterwards?!)
Well, with the DIY Sunday Service Kit it doesn't matter at all whether you are 'early' or 'late' ... it comes 'on demand', as they say. So whenever you open this up ... you are welcome!
Have you found the news getting you down this year, with too much that seems to be anti - good and anti - God going on? Quite a few people have said to me that they're finding the news just too depressing and they can't imagine what the world's coming to.
Well if that sounds like you, the first chapter of Esther is made for you!
Here's a one minute sneak preview of where we're going with this today ...
But first let's pray as we sing and get our minds fixed on the Lord ...
Let's pray
... for France
This week we had news from Alan Davey and his wife Pat in Bordeaux in south west France where they have been leading and supporting a French-speaking and a Chinese-speaking church in their building for the last seventeen years.
Alan and Pat are now working alongside Sylvain and Océane Coquerel who are young French believers who are likely to move into increasing responsibility for the work and who Alan and Pat hope will benefit from the Daveys' financial support as soon as Alan and Pat can draw their pensions. Let's pray for these French believers and for them to raise their support.
The church has an I-outreach worker who runs Internet outreach for the church there, but she is having visa problems so is currently having to work from her family's home back in the UK. Let's pray that her permission to live and work in France comes through quickly.
Recently the Church in Bordeaux has rented premises and opened a café (sound familiar?)
They host the university Christian Union's meetings in the café and have a team of ten people who run it with them. Having just started in September, they are encouraged that the café is taking its place in the life of the area around the church ... which has a strong café culture. Some folk call in for take away coffee while others settle down to work using the wifi.
Groups and Workshops have started up there, including a craft group, a book group, a women’s study group, Tots and co., and they plan to start an English Conversation group soon.
Let's pray the Lord blesses these efforts with souls saved and people discipled to Christ.
... for Uganda
We prayed a while back about the small outbreak of Ebola in a rural part of Uganda. But it has sadly grown.
This was the week in which that outbreak, having travelled to the very crowded capital city of Kampala, became the 10th biggest on record, with the latest numbers being:
That's a really high fatality rate for this Sudan variant of the disease.
In a possible breakthrough that may help Uganda combat its outbreak of Ebola, the pharmaceutical giant Merck has acknowledged that it has up to 100,000 doses of an experimental vaccine for the deadly viral disease in its freezers in Pennsylvania and will donate them.
This vaccine targets Sudan ebolavirus, the pathogen now circulating in Uganda. Merck quietly made the product in 2015 and 2016. Soon afterwards the company had a landmark success with a similar vaccine against the Zaire ebolavirus, a different virus that caused a big epidemic in West Africa between 2014 and 2016.
The company froze the Sudan Ebola vaccine in bulk form and never tested it on people. But it has been shown to protect monkeys intentionally injected with Sudan ebolavirus, and given the efficacy of Merck’s Zaire Ebola vaccine, scientists have high hopes that the Sudan Ebola shots will be safe and effective as well.
Let's pray that this trial on humans goes incredibly well, and that the Lord continues to bless faithful believers in Uganda?
... for Iran
This month has seen outbreaks of protest, rioting and violent crack-downs from the authorities and 'morality police' in Iran.
Christians are not allowed to convert from Islam and converts are not allowed to join churches in the country, forcing them to meet in house churches which can be raided with implications for believers and their families.
But the recent spate of unrest has been due to the refusal of women to wear the hijab head covering and to accept the restrictions put on them as women in Iran. There have been violent outbreaks in an infamous Tehran prison where political prisoners are held, a young woman has been famously assaulted and killed by the religious police and there are frequent reports of sexual assaults by the servants of the state on the arrested women.
We must assume that Iran is by now a nuclear power, and it is apparently supplying Russia with weapons for the war in Ukraine so this instability in Iran is not helping either Iranian citizens, Iranian believers or the cause of world peace.
Let's pray for the peace of Iran and the protection of its citizens, as well as the security and peace of the people of God?
Lord we thank you for the measure of peace and stability that seems to have broken out at the core of our Government in Westminster this week.
We pray for the security, stability and peace of the church in Bordeaux, the people of Uganda and the believers and citizens of Iran.
Please bless our nation and the nations of the world with stability and peace that your people may be freed and empowered to live as servants of God in this life, rest in peace when their work here is concluded and rise to rejoice and to reign with you in Glory.
We ask for Jesus' sake.
AMEN.
And hit this graphic for the Studiocam
"for in my need, His power is displayed"
As we have sung, Lord, may this truth permeate and colour our lives in a world hostile to God, until for us and for all your people who claim "Jesus is my only plea" "we stand with joy before the Throne".
Help us to hold to our confession that "all my hope is only Jesus" ... "yet not I but through Christ in me."
For Jesus's sake and glory.
AMEN.
If you'd like to reach out to us you can do that ... call or WhatsApp Simon on 07748 644958 or fire off an email to HoWChaplain@gmail.com
We'd love to share prayer and fellowship with you, whether face-to-face or on the phone ... and we still have ZOOM! (Remember that?)
God bless you.
Have a great week!
As ever, the giving link is here:
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