HEART OPERATION HEALTH UPDATE
May I say a sincere thank you to so many of
you who have been praying for me during and following my open-heart surgery in
November 2009.
For those who are not aware, it consisted
of both a heart valve replacement and a bypass.
Following the surgery, during the night, my
blood pressure dropped so dramatically, that to save my life, they had to rush
me back to theatre for a further operation because of serious internal blood
loss. But obviously the Lord wanted me around to annoy the devil for a while
longer!
Some time later when I was recovering and unaware of these events, I
opened my Bible and my eyes fell on Psalm 30 verses 2 & 3,
“O LORD my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. O LORD, thou
hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should
not go down to the pit.”
The improvement has truly been wonderful,
and Elizabeth and I have been able to be out taking quite a number of meetings
around the country.
I give praise and thanks to God for His
healing touch, and literally bringing me back from what could well have been
for me, the grave.
When you have been so near to stepping over
the brink into the new dimension of eternity, believe me, it makes you view
your present life in a enhanced and different way. It makes you realise in a
new sense what Paul meant when he spoke about going “To be with Christ
which is far better.” (Philippians 1:23)
It also reminds you that as we are
literally only a breath away from eternity, then our time on this earth is very
precious, and must be used wisely for the Lord with an endeavour to win as many
souls to Him as possible.
PERSONAL
My wife and I were
ordained (commissioned)
in 1971. We've had appointments in England, Northern Ireland, (where we
both originally come from) and Scotland where we've ministered since
1976.
It is a challenge and blessing to have the opportunity of expanding the
ministry through modern technology like the 'Net'.
Your prayers are
requested
for our continuing
ministry - now, of course, in retirement. We have moved to our new home
in Greenock, which is only a few miles from where we were living in
Port
Glasgow. We are often out ministering at weekends in different corps
and
churches, many presently without leadership. It is challenging, and
sometimes
involves many hours travelling. Please pray that the Lord will continue
to bless our ministry in this way.
NEW
DIRECTIONS
When the Salvation
Army
offered
early retirement, we felt that it would open new opportunities, and
give
freedom to accept invitations for ministry. The release from the
necessary
restraints of 'a pastorate' has indeed made this possible. It has given
freedom, not only to minister at weekends, but to undertake midweek
ministry
in churches, missions and corps. This has included such things as
series of
Bible
Studies in local Missions, along with many ladies fellowships and
guilds etc.
BIBLE SEARCH LINK
We also now make
clocks
from CDs ( mainly
with a Salvation Army flavour) CLICK
HERE
FOR
FURTHER DETAILS.
We print our own range of sympathy cards,
get-well
cards,
thinking
of you cards etc. (with our own verses) bookmarks, Christmas and
birthday
cards. Further details will be posted soon on the site.
SOME
SAMPLE
SONGS FROM OUR "A HINT OF COUNTRY GOSPEL" CD
A number of
years ago, my
wife and I
made a couple of recordings. Recently, these have been re-released on
CD,
and many are telling us of the blessing they are experiencing through
them. again, so we've put five (out of 19) onto the site in MP3 fromat.
Just click on the title to listen or download. Each one could take a
minute or two depending on your connection speed. Oh by the way, you
may need to turn off the page tune at the top.
Springs of
Living Water
Jesus
My Saviour
The Sign By The Side Of The Road
Take Up Thy Cross
Get All Excited
It is
our
prayer that you
will continue
to find the material on the site useful and helpful. I only ask that if
the sermons etc.
are distributed, it is done so in their complete form without
alteration.
(They may of course be 'zipped' etc.) There was a prolonged delay
in updating
the site. There were some software incompatibility problems due to an
upgrade
of operating system. Hopefully, more time will now be available in
retirement,
to prepare and update material. (It
has not proved to be the case so far!) If
you find problems with your browser on parts of the site, please let us
know, and we will do our best to rectify them.
We have
found
it most
exciting to know
how God is using these pages. So many have sent e-mails from different
parts of the world to say that they are praying for this ministry, and
the material has been a useful resource to them. In fact the
discipleship classes were made into a very well designed book for local
use in one Salvation Army corps in Norhtern Ireland. Thank you all for your
continued encouragement
and prayers. I am told of the sermons etc. being used in many different
ways, and bringing blessing to congregations large and small. Many
thanks
to all who take the time to respond in this way - it is a great
encouragement
to us.It's
interesting to note
that some of
the material is being used in other languages too. I often wonder what
it must sound like! Yet others tell me, they have been utilizing the
site
for daily readings, and have been blessed through it.<Thank
God for
His goodness.
We
have
software which
can translate requested material into Spanish, German, French and
Italian.
Obviously the translation will not be perfect - but it should be
reasonably understandable. Some of the Spanish translation, I am told,
"only
needed a little touch."
