Dear Friends and Prayer Partners
I want us to have a confidence and a hope for this new year. I want to share this word with you from Hebrews 10.35, “Cast not away your confidence which has great recompense of reward.” Confidence is trust. Confidence is the knowledge that God will do what He said. I want you to move into 2022 with confidence that God is in control.
As we visit Russian Holocaust survivors and former prisoners of the Ghettos in their homes, we remind them that they are not alone; that Jesus loves them. We pray with them. Read the Scriptures together. And do their home chores. During December, whilst Israel prepared for the rise of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, our staff there assisted and encouraged many of these elderly veterans! Zhanna Goffman, an 84-year-old survivor we assist, is now unable to go to church for health reasons. On our visits to her home, our staff pray with her. When they are not able to see her in-person, the phone conversations with her last at least one hour. She is very grateful for the help we provide her, and she always looks forward to our next meetings so that she can pray with us! Through your support, we are able to share the hope and salvation of Jesus with so many survivors.
As you read this I will be in Poland again, fulfilling our strategic plan for evangelism which should culminate in tens of thousands coming to Christ. This visit is just part of ongoing ministry, having been invited to take part in the international ecumenical Week of Prayer for Christian Unity to establish the breakthrough of bringing denominations together as we have done with such success in Ukraine. I shall also be evangelising both in the home church of my friend Archbishop Rys in Lodz and in the Catholic University Church in Krakow.
God willing, I shall also be in Asia in February. This will be an interesting and exciting fulfilment of the prophetic vision which God gave me more than 50 years ago and which God has commissioned me to fulfil personally. He gave me this in the early days when He called me to leave pastoral ministry in 1964, (confirmed by my miracle healing from throat cancer). When, some time much later, I found the prophesies both of Smith Wigglesworth and Hudson Taylor, I realised that I was not alone in my vision, but that my vision was not for a distant future to be fulfilled in general; rather specifically, a plan for which I must take personal responsibility to make happen. And I am glad to say that part of this plan, subsequently confirmed by my second miraculous healing from lung cancer in 2003, does include God continuing to give me both health and strength to complete the task I have been given. I cannot stop now, I cannot yet say like Paul, ‘I have finished my course.’
But can I remind you that the past 60 years have been extremely difficult; a battle not just against demonic powers, but against rejection, health and financial problems. We must recognise also the sacrifices made by many of my staff, some of whom started working for me to enable the mission to ‘get off the ground’, even like me, without salary! Can you imagine that from the earliest days until the historic expedition to take 400 volunteers to Siberia to evangelise for 3 months in 1993/4, we were not established as a mission – I financed everything myself! Only the daunting task of raising the €2 million required to pay for the breakthrough campaign in Siberia forced me to set up a charity and ask for help!
The vision for this year is clear: we evangelise in those areas which are very ‘open’ now, but where the Gospel has been hindered for many years or never openly preached, where the very people are calling us and welcoming us. It is like a modern ‘Macedonian Call’. Though costs are rising, I do not have time for small scale mission work. Even governments are welcoming us, as the Gospel is the only answer to a national problem. But governments cannot finance mission. That’s why God has given us you – who have supported us so faithfully since our first desperate appeal for help for Siberia in 1993. But look back! The revival which swept Russia and Ukraine – and still is – all began with that incredible expedition in desperate faith in 1994, following my preliminary visit to Siberia in 1993 when God gave me the vision and the call.
The faith for revival which God gave me in 1992 in Ukraine followed by 1994 in Siberia was in some ways even greater than the faith God gave me for my own healing from cancer in 1964 – but which gave me the faith to get out of the Russian prison in 1973 – or greater than the faith which started everything, my whole ministry, when I set out on that expedition in 1961 to be the first person to go by road to Jerusalem, all the way from Dewsbury in the North of England! This is why I have written the latest book, ‘A Faith… Beyond’, which you must read! It’s more important than anything else I have written because I have lived by faith for 72 years.
Now I need your support both in prayer and finance because, looking at the political and spiritual situation today – the need is greater than ever. Right now, as I am in Poland bringing Jesus to the Highest Place in Catholic hearts and minds – and yes, God has given me a vision and a message – I need your support. If the advisor to President Putin could tell me publicly in Moscow that only the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus saved atheistic Russia from total collapse in the 1990s when revival swept the nation – then look what that same Gospel is going to do now in 2022? I could never have succeeded in Russia in the 1990s without the Holy Spirit, prayer and your financial help. I am in Poland as the beginning of my next expedition of faith – join me in faith and support!
David
Recently, we had the opportunity of feeding the homeless in Kiev, Ukraine. Our staff set up a tent next to the central bus station, and provided food and Christmas presents. In addition, they shared the love of God with these needy people and distributed Bibles. Our ministry in Israel, is delighted to continue supporting the vulnerable and elderly. Despite hardships from restrictions and sickness, God is our Rock, and our Salvation – and this is the faith we share with Russian Holocaust survivors, and former prisoners of the ghettos.