Category Archives: Uncategorized

Kingdom School

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How would you like to start back to school after this glorious summer and get to meet new people who are as in love with God as you are?  About 20 people, young and not so young , from the Hudson Valley are going to be doing just that when our “Kingdom School”, Global Satellite Ministry School starts up September 13th.

We have been praying (and working :)) all summer that God would speak to the hearts of those He has chosen to take this course together and change the spiritual atmosphere of the Albany region.  We are all very excited now that it will be starting at St. Michael’s Church, Colonie, NY.  It will run Thursday evenings and all day Saturdays for nine months.  We chose this schedule to be able to accommodate many who have jobs and family responsibilities during the week.  We know it will be a thorough curriculum and training that will stretch us all, but we will all grow closer to God and one another as we find more ways to reach out and help the lost and forgotten ones in our area.

We have spent a lot of time and energy getting the word out about the school and Christine has developed wonderful communicating skills. We are now looking forward to spending time developing an interesting schedule of events and visiting speakers to add to the experience the students receive.

I, Christine, have been chosen to be one of the artists painting at Olana (Frederick Church’s mansion overlooking the Hudson River) at the end of September.  We are to go out and paint for three days,then bring the canvasses in for a silent auction Sept. 29.  I love to paint landscapes so this will be fun.  I also have been blessed with several really nice commissions so continue to earn my keep with teaching the two iconography classes each week.  That and the amazing amount of administrative work require to start a non profit and a school are keeping me pretty stretched already!

God has blessed Michael with some wonderful photography assignments, too, and his clients continue to be interesting and faithful.  His “extra” work this summer has been painting our huge house.  It’s now throughly scraped and primed.  All we need now is enough good weather to get the last coat on and we’re good for the rest of our life time!!!

We hear on the news the flooding in Louisiana affecting New Orleans again and also turn our thoughts to this country’s election in November. Our prayer group is praying for God’s hand to be on the election and for our country to be governed by God’s man  .We recognize the need for prayer in this nation that God’s will would be done for the leadership of this country. There is a call out for 40 days of prayer before the elections, not siding with any particular party but to really call on the will of God for the good of this country. ‘America for Jesus’ a solemn assembly in Philadelphia on the 29th of September is the same day as the National Day of  Prayer gathering in Wembley stadium in England. We believe that the season coming up is a time for intercession for our nations to turn back to Christ.  United we stand!!  Love to you from us!

Christine & Michael

The Kingdom School Builds Momentum!

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Hello Family and Friends!

We are grateful for such great weather and the beauty and fullness of a Hudson Valley summer.        At the same time, we are excited about the Opening of the Olympics in London. The opening ceremonies were inspiring and the bell ringing across the nation as “a prophetic act, a turning point, which will shape the future of the nation”  sponsored by the More than Gold Agency which helped churches make the most of the games asked everyone to join in and pray at 8:12AM on July 27 for God’s Kingdom to come and for there to be a turning point in the nation.

We are very excited too about our “Kingdom School” opening in September here in the Hudson Valley.  

Here’s a quote from a book my friend Carol leant me by Jerry Trousdale, “Miraculous Movements” that explains the ethos around the type of evangelism we feel the school will encourage:

“But Jesus’ example takes a different approach: in fact, it works almost in the reverse. Jesus chose some ordinary men to walk with Him as He revealed the truths of God and asked them to live their lives according to those values.  Eventually they began to do what He did and they also began to experience God’s power and blessings in their own lives.”

We are so excited about presenting this school to the Hudson Valley where we already see the beginnings of Revival in many of our friends who are quietly, tirelessly investing in planting God seeds in their communities.  We believe the school will strengthen these folks as well as produce a crop of new, young people to continue reaching our communities with faith and works of the Gospel.

I, Christine have been taking online classes in growing an art community through exhibitions, talks and teaching classes.  I know that many artists have been alienated from their faith through constant contact with todays art world.  I know we can grow together in art and faith, and that is what I am investing in, in addition to the Kingdom School.  That, and completing some commissions and helping Michael with admin ( 🙂 ) is how God is blessing me with a beautiful summer.  You are all in our prayers every day. May God continue to pour out His blessings and healing on you and your families.

I Michael, have been trying to get the word out about the Kingdom School looking for people in the area who are hungry for more of Jesus. It is a great opportunity for people to get to receive teaching from over 45 people who have poured their lives out for the Lord and learn from their personal experience in many different areas. So I am meeting with pastors and people to see who wants to pick up the commitment of learning to walk naturally in the supernatural. The classes will be online, broadcast from GSSM in Mechanicsburg, PA to one of our locations: Gospel Community Church, Coxsackie, or St. Michael’s Church, Colonie, NY.  We are getting some great people who want to do it and I am very excited that it will create a pool of people in the Albany region who are ready to push into what God is doing here.

This month I have traveled for my photography work and flew across this enormous country. When you travel you get snap shots of what the country is up to: like advertising trying out machine guns in Nevada, having Buddha in a phone booth in New York or looking at beautiful wildflowers overtaking pastureland of a dairy farm in its first year closed down.

Thank God we have a powerful God who can save a nation in a day. We are praying for revival in our area and please join us in prayer that God would bring the people and resources for the Kingdom School to thrive.

Lots of love and prayers,

Christine and Michael

PS: Thanks to  all of you who are  partnering with Kingdom Arts Ministry by praying for us, and for contributing financially. We can’t do this without you!! Please send  checks made out  to: “Unto Life”, care of Michael Hales, PO Box 927, Philmont, NY  12565  

PPS: There’s a seat waiting for you at The Kingdom School!  The Kingdom School is a Satellite School of Randy Clark’s Global Awakening Ministry.

June-the Beautiful and the Busy Month!

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Hello Family, Friends, and Intercessors:

We want to thank all of you for your love, support, and prayers as we have made our transition from USA to UK and back to USA again.  We know we will continue to build missionary bridges with England over the next few years, and our home base is here in New York.  You may remember how so many times last year we asked for your prayers for discernment on God’s plans for us, and now we are feeling confident and excited about the upcoming months.

We are planning the GSSM Satellite School which we will be starting in September as an intensive two day a week program for those who want to go deeper in their relationship with God.  The GSSM School will have guest speakers from across the nations telecast weekly by satellite to our upstate New York location.

This will be a school for the spiritually hungry, ages 18 through 98 where people of different Christian backgrounds can come together for devotion, Bible study, and putting into  practice the insights and gifts awakened through the year long course.

The parent school of GSSM, Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry  Redding, CA, which was stated almost ten years ago by Pastor Bill Johnson, now has over 1400 students from around the world coming to be equipped to impact their world and fulfill the work of the Great Commission right where they live and work.

Four years ago we moved house to live in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania for two years in order to receive this training and we are very excited to be able to bring it back here to the Hudson Valley, believing that through the transformation of Christian leadership here, the impact on our communities will be great and we will begin to see Christianity once ago a powerful loving force in ours everyday lives.

We are very excited about the school because of own transformational experience we had when we went through it. We strongly believe it will touch the hearts of those who are really hungry to go further in the Lord. Romans 12:2, ‘Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.’ We have a vision of Christians who are part of the world but have been transformed walking fully in the active power and love of the Holy Spirit. We believe it will touch the lives of people in this area for generations to come. God is waiting for those who want to go further with Him, young and old,  what matters is the desire to be transformed by the Holy Spirit. That is why we are so excited to have a group of people from different churches  jump on board, dedicate the time and resources  to be transformed and be active for God in this area. It is a big commitment but I can not think of a better thing to do except, that is, move to Redding, CA or Mechanicsburg, PA.

We are making up information packets and sending information by email to interested people so email us if you’d like to hear more!  I plan to continue teaching two iconography classes- one is in Woodstock where I hope artists who are seeking for spirituality will come and be blessed by God’s presence in the icons.  And we are moving the Albany icon class to St. Michael’s Church in Colonie as of July 9.  I’m very excited to be able to teach about prayer and iconography and feel this will be an exciting chance to develop even more in the direction God has laid out for me.

You are all in our Daily Prayers.  We pray for God’s blessings to overtake you and surprise you with His goodness at every turn.  Please let us know how we can pray specifically for you.

Love and Prayers,

Christine and Michael

Hello England!

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Dear Friends and Family:

We have just – last night- returned from our UK mission and have lots of good news to share.  In Bristol, there were prophetic declarations at the river gate, the exchange of the prayer baton to coincide with the passing of the Olympic torch through Bristol, a Praise bus on College Green playing praise music all afternoon preceding the Olympic Torch, and of course the Arise conference on Pentecost.  

It was really great to see some of our old friends and spend time praying together over the week.  When the Olympic torch came through Bristol we did a lot of prayer, particularly on Hanham Mount – John Wesley’s place of preaching to people of  Bristol.  You could look down across Bristol from there and several of us prayed for breakthrough in Bristol and for re-opening the gates as Wesley had done before us.  This photo is of the New Room- Wesley’s first chapel where the prayer baton was passed and we had worship to commemorate the event.

Over 6000 people and 75 church leaders across the denominations assembled at Ashton Gate Stadium for an afternoon of prayer and declaration over Bristol.  I was asked to give a prophetic workshop for the children to listen to hear God’s word for Bristol.  Some beautiful responses from the children but one in particular showed an arrow pointing forward said,”… the ministers in Bristol have done enough.  Now God is going to do a new thing, and for them to keep going, onward to the “new thing” God has for Bristol”.

Sheena Tranter who was our partner in the House of prayer we had in Bristol was the carrier of the vision for Arise Bristol.  She and her teams of intercessors organized all these events which we know will have lasting effect in the Kingdom for Bristol.

England is preparing for the Queen’s 60th year jubilee this coming Sunday and everywhere there are flags and bunting. Especially in the shops and streets of London where a floatilla will be on the Thames Sunday afternoon. Through the last 60 years there has been incredible change in England. In terms of Christianity there has certainly been a shift to a secular society in that time. There has also been a large influx of ethnic groups bringing in their own forms of religion. At the moment one can see them co existing with toleration on all sides but it does not mean that it will always be the case, especially if Northern Nigeria and the Sudan are examples of what can happen after a tipping point has occurred. So the work for the Kingdom of God that is going on now in England is particularly important and there are many signs that revival is imminent. Certainly what has just happened in Bristol probably could not have happened a year ago. This is being repeated all over the country to some degree or another as the prayer baton precedes the Olympic torch. People are gathering in the streets and gates of cities interceding and declaring. We just pray for more of the presence of God in that nation as the cry to ‘Awake, Awake, Awake’ is beaten into the soil by praying intercessors.

We also heard from our London friends that 16,000 people filled Earl’s Court Stadium to worship God the Friday before Pentecost in London.   

We left Bristol on Monday morning to head up to London to visit with our friend Keong who has a heart for hosting missionaries.

We were so blessed by our visit and particularly want to thank all those who have been praying for us and also have been directly supporting us in this mission.  We remarked every day how blessed we felt and how grateful we were.  We could feel your prayers!

Love you guys!

Here is a link to the Arise Bristol video from Bristolnetworks  :  Arise Bristol and Beyond

Spring Prayers

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We have had such a dry winter and spring that the landscape was looking really dried out gasping for rain. Finally we had two days of soft rain and spring is really here and the trees are filling out with fresh green leaves. Sometimes it takes a long time for a breakthrough to come but when you have faith that it is going to happen you keep pushing and pushing for it.

We just had a wonderful weekend with Tom and Maryln Litteer at Living Waters fellowship in Newton, NJ, and we were praying for healing for people. On the Friday evening while praying for someone I got a word from the Lord, ‘Egypt’ so I asked the person we were praying for if that meant anything to her. She said ‘No’.  The next day we were praying for a man who had slight one hearing in one ear only and limited peripheral vision from birth. We were praying with him on and off through the day and at one point I asked him where he was from and he said ‘Egypt’. At that point I knew God meant to heal him and told him, ‘I believe God wants to heal you today,’ and related to him the word I had received the day before. So we kept on praying and praying and I would have given up but for that word we kept on pushing until God showed us how to pray for him and his breakthrough came. His non functioning ear opened up and he could hear with that ear and was not using a hearing aid in his other ear. We are still believing his eyes will open to a full vision as well. To watch someone receive a gift from the Lord like that is so beautiful as they truly understand how much God is a powerful God and loves them in a tangible way. It is as though they receive their own personal springtime with the Lord and all is made new for them.

We are so excited about what the Lord is doing in our area as we start to get feedback on the GSSM satellite school we will be starting in September with our friends Susan and Ralph Baker Borgeson. We are still getting the word out and gathering information as to who would be interested in joining the student body. It is such a great opportunity for people both young and old to be transformed into walking in the supernatural ways of the Kingdom of God naturally every day. We believe it is it a part of our calling in this season to get this underway.

One of the discernments which has come out of our Thursday evening gatherings for prayer and worship is the need to AWAKEN this area, that there is a spirit of slumber over it. The area has taken on the mantle of Rip Van Winkel, the fictitious character who slept through his responsibilities after taking a drink. We have the Rip Van Winkel bridge which joins Columbia and Greene counties, over the Hudson river. Today in our village we had an announcement that there is to be a large Rip Van Winkel puppet show on our village green this Saturday. So we are just praying for that spirit to be lifted off this area that there would be an awakening in the community of the presence of the living and active Lord.

In all these areas that we are involved with we really need to have your prayers. God asked us ‘To build an ark in Philmont.’ and sometimes we call out to Him for more direction. We do ask for your prayers in all we are doing here.

We are excited about re-connecting with our friends in England and joining in with the prayer movement at Penetecost. Prior to the ARISE Pentecost meeting in Bristol, the Olympic torch will pass through and along with it, a prayer baton.  Thousands of UK Churches are organizing to make the most of the media attention on their cities and creating prayer activities to engage people in God’s Kingdom!

From Charisma Christian News,  More than Goldorganizer, Peter Meadows said:”Our conviction is that prayer and mission go hand in hand as churches respond to the Games. So, we are inviting every church, group and organization to explore creative ways to pray for all that will happen before during and after the Games,”Visit www.morethangold.org.uk for more information, and for Bristol related prayer events visit: www.bristolnetworks.org.uk

 We are so grateful to those of you who contributed to make the UK trip possible. Thank you!

Christine is planning a summer icon class on Tuesday afternoons in Woodstock, NY, God willing, and she’s been blessed with sales of some of her prophetic paintings this month.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers, as you are in ours.  We need each other! Love and blessings,  Michael and Christine

Is Revival Starting in Britain????

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Dear Friends and Family:

We are excited to be  going on a mission trip to London and Bristol May 21 through May   30th to support our friends who are praying for Revival in England this spring!

Our House of Prayer partner, Sheena Tranter, and friends have organized “Arise Bristol”, an intercessory prayer event calling for people through out Bristol to gather, repent before God, experience reconciliation between each other, to gather as One Body, with One Vision for the Future of the City, Region and Nation on May 27 .

There will be prayer events throughout April leading up to Pentecost.  For more details and to see what other Christian events are happening now in Bristol, visit: www.Bristolnetworks.org  There will also be a meeting for the upcoming Global Day of Prayer in London which we will attend.

Thank you to all of you who have contributed to make this trip possible.   We believe God will more than cover our costs, and ask that you would pray about this being a possible opportunity for you to invest in missions at this time.  We believe that our spiritual heritage here in the United States is linked to the UK.  We want to ensure that Christians in both countries can worship freely.  Please help if you can by sending your tax deductible donations made out to “Unto Life” and sent to us at PO Box 927, Philmont, NY  12565.

Blessings to you all!

Here is a link to Michael’s ‘Revival England’ video he made just before leaving England on utube:

Love, Michael and Christine

Marching On

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Dear Friends and Family:

What a month – temperatures in the high 60’s and 70′ for two weeks- the trees are starting to flower everywhere.  Is it possible that Spring is really here to stay?

I (Christine) am nearly finished with the winter discipline I set myself of drawing in black and white only and completing two drawing and portrait classes. Also have several new icons I am working on: The Entry into Jerusalem, Pentecost, a Madonna, and a Tetramorph icon.  I will be changing my website soon and updating my “Fine Art America” page soon.  I don’t know if you’ve seen that, but you can order a card, a print, or a printed canvas of any of my works on the site. They make it easy to buy my art on line and apparently people from all over the world see it.   One of my art goals is to teach two more iconography classes – one in Woodstock, NY and one in Great Barrington, MA.   The Woodstock class will start May 1 and run on Tuesday afternoons through the summer, God willing.

We are excited hearing about the intercessory prayer activities of our friends in Bristol.  There have been several gatherings for prayer for the City and the nation, prayerwalking, prophetic healing of the land actions and finally, a City wide day of Prayer at the Bristol Arena on Pentecost.  We feel called to go over for that to pray and stand with our friends for Revival in Bristol and Britain.  We are very grateful for all of you who have been contributing to our mission all along, and we believe enough money will come in by March 31 for us to go, if it’s God’s will for us to go.   We’ll keep you posted! (If you go to the Kingdom Arts Ministry tab at the top of the page, you will see where to send donations. Thank you!!)

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Here’s Michael: Here in Philmont we are beginning to realize how much pain there is in our neighborhood. There is a lot of illness, loss of families and real poverty. We are assigning more time to being just out on the streets and talking with people and praying when we can. We have the goal of bringing more people to the Bible study at the library.

On the wider front we are working to see the GSSM satellite school get set up and are having meetings and starting to put out PR for that. We feel called to bring people into a supernatural walk with the Lord and GSSM is designed to do for that purpose. Looking through the schedule starting in September it is really exciting to see what is lined up in the first six weeks, with Mark Virkler, Randy Clark, a Living Jesus Conference, 10 days in Brazil and then the Voice of the Prophets in Lancaster, PA. So that is getting exciting and we are still working on the nuts and bolts of that.

We have also been doing some teaching to a youth group on Words of Knowledge with wonderful time of activation and look forward to more ministry in that area.

The vision is to build a team of active Christians in this area, a triangle between Columbia  / Greene County and Albany. The area has had Holy Spirit visitations in the past and really needs a revival now. There are movements going on all around, also in England and the Far East which show that there is a real wave of the Holy Spirit moving in the world, a swelling of activity and as it grows and grows there will be much for Christians to do. Now is the time to really push forward in what each one of us hears God is calling us to.

So we continue to ask for your prayers and also to let us know how we can pray for you. God is so good and He is on the move.

Withour love,

Michael and Christine

February’s Almost Over and there’s No Snow!

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Hello Friends and Family:

Oops! February 29 and it is snowing!

Wow! What a mild winter!  No complaints here, and the fact that daylight savings is right around the corner is a light unto my feet!

We have been really blessed this last month with having some good friends come to our prayer gatherings.  God has been moving, people have been healed, and we are excited as we continue to seek God’s Presence here in our home in Philmont.We are regrouping, growing stronger in our faith and love while the winter passes. We see so many similarities to the Spiritual problems in Bristol and Philmont.

 We believe that more of God’s presence in both places would work absolute wonders! But how, Lord? Be believe in God’s promises of blessing over the UK and the USA.  We pray for the faith of Abraham, “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised.” Romans 4:20-21

Recently there have been two house fires in Philmont which totally devastated the buildings, leaving a black charred mess of previously wonderful homes. How fast and  completely devastating fire can be! Historically, in another fire in 1977, High Rock Millsone, the last of 6 textile mills still in operation in Philmont, burned to the ground taking with it from the heart of the village all the buildings across the road, in fact if there had not been about four inches of snow laying on the roofs of surrounding buildings that January night a lot more of the village would have burned in that traumatic blaze. Many people lost their jobs and the mills were never rebuilt. Along with the economic loss and social changes there was a  spiritual trauma that still endures in a poverty spirit set deep in the heart of the village.  There are a lot of people doing good things here but there is a spiritual brokenness which only God can heal and that is what we as Christians in the community are called to. The call to build an ‘ark’ in Philmont is what we are praying for God’s guidance to answer. A place of prayer and furnace of God’s presence,

We also recognize that the picture I described for Philmont is appropriate for many small towns in our area and indeed in England. There is such a need for spiritual revival in so many communities and this not something which social programs can fix. It has to be a work of God. Unfortunately in our brokenness the tendency is to look everywhere, except towards God.  So the call is even more important that as Christians we do represent a living and powerful God in our walk in the community. That we do pray for healing whenever we see some one who is not well. That we do talk about Jesus Christ and who He is in our lives.

There can be no doubt the church is in a period of shaking. Thank goodness, it has to change to do God’s work.  So we are calling out to God daily, what are you doing today and what am I to do with you, Lord?

Right now we are praying for God’s direction about our next mission trip to the UK, particularly in terms of the timing, what God is doing there and what he has for us to do there. Please keep us in prayer that we may hear clearly God’s plan for us in the UK.

Looking forward to the autumn and as part of our call to build up active Christians in this area we are committed to running a Global Awakening Satellite School of Supernatural Ministry. We are in the process of exploration with different churches for interest and  where God wants it to be located. Along with the satellite GSSM school we are encouraging people from our area to join one of the Randy Clark mission trips to Brazil, a life changing and equipping experience. The GSSM school, which we are both graduates from,  takes all the students to Brazil early in the first semester so they can see how God works in a nation in revival. To see God healing as you pray for people changes not only the life of the people getting healed but also your own understanding of how powerful God is.

In the mean time we are praying for God to bless this ministry with financial partners who want to share in the spiritual blessings of those who send God’s ministers to do His work.  We recognize that the missions will be more fruitful when they represent a large body of committed Christians who are praying for and sending us to bring the Gospel to spiritually troubled areas. We truly thank those of you who have already partnered with this ministry and for all your prayers.

          

January Thaw

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Galatians 2:20

“And it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Hello Family and Friends!

Do you ever have times when it’s been hard to understand what God has been doing in your life?  I’ve certainly been challenged to understand why God asked us to give up our house and go to England, then come back again to the same house we gave up!But everything is completely different now.  It’s the same house, but completely different!  Same friends, but completely different!  And the difference is made crystal clear by Galatians 2:20, which is a gateway to a whole new life!  Now it doesn’t matter where I live, as long as Jesus is in me, and I in Him.

So, now we are praying with old friends in a new way.  We are different and they are different.  They have been traveling along the same path while we were away and we have so much more to share and plan about now.  We are so grateful for partnerships – people who are committed to what God is doing in us, sharing the rewards and the difficulties together.  You are part of what we are doing, and we want to partner with you in prayer for what God is doing in your lives too!

I’ve been practicing my portrait drawing every day.  We visited the Met in NYC last week and saw the Renaissance Portrait exhibition with our son in law Tore.

Really inspiring! Some of my recent drawings are above.

This week we are calling a gathering of people for healing prayer and worship which we expect will become a regular bi weekly event. It is the first tangible step in God calling us to ‘build an ark in Philmont’, but there have been many God appointments and developing relationships building up to  it. God is doing a work here. He is gathering people into this region, there is a shaking happening in the churches and people are looking for a well of the Holy Spirit. Many ministers are needing a place to be restored themselves. There are pockets of fires burning for Christ which are isolated and need to come together to create a critical mass. The distance between these house churches, prayer groups and bible studies is a critical factor, people have to drive an hour or more at least when gathering. But God! But God is doing a work here.

When Heidi Baker prayed over us at our ordination she was declaring, ‘Go low and Go slow’. We have been under so many attacks that we know God is working here. The very fact we have the same house except it has a new purpose and mission could only be orchestrated by God. This last month I have gone over in my heart all that we have gone through to move to England and then back here again and calling out to God about it, so God gave me a word; ‘Its not your job to worry about what you achieved in England, Michael, but it is your job to SEED IN FAITH.’  As we hear now what is happening in Bristol, it is so exciting to see how God is working there now. I am sure as the churches start to work together in Bristol there will finally be a critical flow of the Holy Spirit for revival in England. We hope to be going back to England at the end of April to help with what God is doing there with a call for action before Pentecost.

Meanwhile God is working here and we are excited to see how people are coming together. We know we are called to seed in faith and let God do the watering. Please keep all this in your prayers as we continue to walk with God and see His presence here in Philmont.