Testimony From Night Shelter

We had a good evening yesterday with 27 men and 4 ladies staying the night at the church. We also allowed 7 people to have a meal and then leave. As they were not registered with night shelter we kept them separate in the foyer area. There was a small incident when one of the guests had his tobacco taken but it was sorted out and returned to him.

We had one new volunteer last evening who had contacted us through the website and three turned up unexpectedly to help as a result of Barbara (former coordinator) inviting them.All 4 of them were a great asset on the evening and I think we will see them again.

Three people came in to the spiritual time in the church as well as three volunteers and it was a real blessing. We looked at Psalm 23, their choice. There were many questions but from all three an acknowledgement that there is a God who loves them. At the end I prayed to finish and one of the three prayed and then another of them said “What now?” I felt that he wanted to pray so said that if he wanted to he could. He said that he did not know how. I explained that all he needed to do was share with God what was on his heart. He prayed and brought tears to his and the other leaders’ eyes. Afterwards he shared with other volunteers what he had done.

God is at work!   Keep on praying!

SUBMITTED BY JOHN STACEY

Security Guard Moved To Tears With A Word

On Saturday morning, a few of us met up to go treasure hunting. Treasure hunting is a form of outreach using words of knowledge in the hope that these words will connect people with Father God. We started by spending time in the Lord's presence getting filled afresh with his Spirit. We then asked him to give us words of knowledge (clues) about the locations, names of people, appearance of people, and issues concerning the people that He wanted us to connect with. We wrote all these clues on a sheet which we call a treasure map.

We then headed over to Westfield, one of the location clues, to start finding treasure (a person that God's wants to bless). We connected with a number of people during our time their. One of those that stood out was a security guard. On one of the maps we had the clues - Westfield, Starbucks, Eat, and security guard. We noticed a security guard standing just outside Eat, opposite Starbucks, at the entrance of Westfield shopping centre. "Bingo!"

So we approached him, introduced ourselves, and noticed he seemed to be of heavy heart. We showed him the 'map' with the clues on which caught his attention and then asked if we could pray for him. He asked if it had to be him or whether we would be willing to pray for someone else he knew. We said we would pray for whatever he wanted. He asked us to pray for his nation; Sierra Leone, the epicentre of the Ebola crisis. So we prayed. He was really grateful and we asked if he needed prayer for anything else. He said, 'no' and so we said our goodbyes and moved on.

However, we felt God wanted to do a little more. So, having moved a little distance away we asked the Lord what he wanted to say to this man. One of the ladies heard something and so we approached him again and explained that we felt God wanted to tell him something. Gina then shared with him that God had shown her a picture. In the picture, Father God had tattooed Steve's name on His hand because he was so precious and important to Him. His face lightened and he smiled and said, 'Thanks.' We said our goodbyes again and left. 

Two minutes later we saw Steve with tears running down his face with his hands at his side facing up and he was giving thanks to God. It was so simple yet so beautiful. A big burly and muscle clad guy, portraying a stand offish atmosphere was brought to tears and then praise with a simple word from his Father in heaven.