Dear Friends and Family:

We hope you are all well and surviving the winter storms.  We’ve had really cold weather here, and have heard about the snowstorms in New York and Boston.  Yes, another winter is upon us!  But we know Spring is coming!!!

We’ve had quite the stormy last few months – some major progress and some heavy costs and wanted to share some of our process with you.  We believe God’s Glory will be revealed and established by sharing our struggles and victories.  We hope what God does in and through us will give you inspiration and hope!

Our second meeting of the House of Prayer was on January 21, the same night Woodlands Church had their half night of prayer.   We had a blessed meeting with the Presence of God moving so beautifully with us as we read and prayed into John Mulinde’s Prophetic Word for the UK.  We prayed for Bristol, for marriages, and children to be blessed, and for Revival in the UK.  Then we went on to pray at Woodlands until about 1am, then back early Sat am to pray for healing, then Sat night we had our prayer slot in the 24-7 Prayer room at Woodlands which had been set up for the week of prayer.  I had lent my icon of Jesus and a prophetic painting to the prayer room.  So many people expressed that they helped to bring the Presence of God into the room and we felt that too.  So, I was encouraged :).

We are still praying for God to bring another couple to share leadership with us of the House of Prayer and we are praying for a larger place to hold it.  Our next meeting will be Feb 8 which will coincide with a visit from our friend Chad from Randy Clark’s ministry. We are excited for that!

We have been blessed to be taking some free courses on entrepreneurship which are helping us understand how to earn a living over here.  So far, Michael has been working very hard to make our income with little results.  I have been blessed with a friend from Woodie’s who has helped me find a job teaching watercolor, and now both Michael and I will be teaching in that program starting in Feb.  It is only a small part of the picture but we see it as a breakthrough and we thank God for it.  I have also been blessed by Elim Church with the opportunity to teach a class in Prophetic art this month.  So we see signs of God moving in our lives and we thank Him and thank all of you for your prayers.

Elim Church is committed to Revival, and was originally started by the Jeffrey brothers from the Welsh Revival.  Pastor Simon is shown in this picture.  We are members of Woodlands Church where we feel very blessed, too.  The one thing we did not have in Philmont, NY was a good place to worship and we feel abundantly blessed with that here in Bristol.  Thank you Lord!!

My studio at Paintworks is a wonderful place for me to be in God’s Presence while I paint.  I will be moving into a slightly larger studio next month so that I can teach iconography classes there.  There’s no heat in the building (!) but I have a couple of small heaters to warm up the room.  Will be glad for warmer weather though :).

Financially we’ve had some setbacks- our investment we had set up three years ago to fund our mission went bad. Our inexperience with investing allowed us to put our trust in something which was not viable so we lost a large amount of money.  We are asking God to restore it somehow!! Nothing is impossible for God!  On a more positive note, we received two significant donations to our ministry for December and January.  One was from St. Michael’s Church in Colonie, NY, and one was from my son, Mark and his wife Kristi.  We felt so encouraged and supported and they have made a big difference to our hope and confidence and finances!   

That’s me at the Tate Modern in London.   Very happy with all the art I get to enjoy here!  Regarding our house in Philmont – we waited three months for some buyers who were interested, but  now need to move on and see if we can find a good renter.

As always, we appreciate your prayers very much.  You are all in our prayers, too.  I love praying for people!!

Here’s Michael:   Over Christmas I was able to spend some time editing some of the video work that I have recorded and sent out one on the Healing Love of God to You Tube. I am sure that as we see God healing people it encourages us to push further in our own prayers. Also as we see people testify of their healing and how God worked in them we realize what an important part testimony is in keeping the healing and also passing the vision on that God heals even in diseases which a person may have lived with for twenty years. This is very important especially in cultures which have become comfortable with a concept of a passive God. A God that is doing wonderful works in far off places but not healing my neighbors next door. We know God is very powerful and able to do far more than we can possibly imagine and it is vital that we hold that in our hearts as we pray for healing. Here is the site for the video if you have not seen it yet, please pass it on to anyone who it might encourage.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIrUh-Qw1eo

To that end I have been given a larger vision to use videography to communicate what God is doing in this city through as many different expressions of Christianity there are. I am also praying for another person who has this on their hearts to work with me in this arena. This year is going to see big steps forward as we start to build momentum to pooling the different resources across Bristol to pray for a revival here.  Here are links to my Memorial Photography site and website:  www.memorialphotography.com   http://www.mickhales.net

We are blessed to be part of Bob & Marge Morrison’s Charity called “Unto Life”.  Your donation to our ministry will be tax deductible if you make the check out to “Unto Life”, put our names in the memo line, and send it to:  Bob & Marge Morrison, 411 Gettysburg Pike , Mechanicsburg, PA,   17055.  

We love you all and couldn’t do this without knowing you love and support us in your prayers.  Thank YOU!!