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Family and Friends Newsletter

Look    Up   

Family and Friends Newsletter

🏹From John

Hi everyone,

One of my inspirations for mission work is a guy called Loren Cunningham who

founded the YWAM  missionary organisation. YWAM stands for Youth With A Mission. He is my inspiration because of a number of reasons. I want to highlight  three of them here.

💫He uses real life, first hand experience. My heart cry when it comes to Christian testimony, is to be able to relate it to practical everyday living. In his book 'Is that really you,God?', Loren shares real life actual experiences.

💫He highlights both successes and failures within his Christian journey. It has been my  experience that along with successes also come failures. Loren does not omit to include in his book, accounts detailing  personal failure(even self inflicted) and the lessons he has learnt when gradually pulling himself back after a setback or even setbacks.

💫He includes inspiring accounts of answered prayer that give Glory to God! Those    accounts which unashamedly, point to the goodness and faithfulness of God, have become 
my favourite portion of Loren's account of his missionary journey. They have inspired in me, faith in the greatness of God and His ability.

This is my very first newsletter since relocating to Southbourne near Bournemouth, Dorset County, a South Western coastal town of the U.K. I will seek to follow a similar trend as highlighted above, sharing  from a) Real life experiences that I hope dear reader, you can relate to, b)Secondly be transparent in sharing about my successes and experiences of failure!😂 c)Thirdly , I really look forward to inspiring with accounts of answers to prayer. 

🏹🏹🏹There are three main Sections to this letter. The first is Destiny Signpost part 1, which is below  and is basically personal reflections of mine garnered from attempts to process what is going on in fulfilling a call to missionary vocation. This one is called :

🏹The place of Geographical Locations in the Process of Divine Guidance.

🏹The background to this particular study is based on everyday experience. Have you wondered why the same person could vary in levels of productivity and a manifestation of personal potential from one physical environment to the other? I have wondered about this characteristic of individuals as well as sociological groups of people. Why we are influenced by variations within different physical environments for example. Because I really don't want to distract from what I set out to examine in this sign post which is ' Geographical Location and Divine Guidance' I am going to redirect my post to scriptural illustration. 

🏹In reflecting on the incidences of Divine Guidance and Geographical Location, my first illustration is of a man by the name 'Abram

🏹The place of Geographical Locations in the Process of Divine Guidance.

🏹The background to this particular study is based on everyday experience. Have you wondered why the same person could vary in levels of productivity and a manifestation of personal potential from one physical environment to the other? I have wondered about this characteristic of individuals as well as sociological groups of people. Why we are influenced by variations within different physical environments for example. Because I really don't want to distract from what I set out to examine in this sign post which is ' Geographical Location and Divine Guidance' I am going to redirect my post to scriptural illustration. 

🏹In reflecting on the incidences of Divine Guidance and Geographical Location, my first illustration is of a man by the name 'Abram': 

Genesis 12:1 Now in Haran the Lord had said to Abram,“Go away from your country,And from your relativesAnd from your father’s house,To the land which I will show you; 

🏹So in the first evidence of Divine Guidance which Abraham, the Jewish and Arab 'Great grand' patriarch received, we have a very clear example of Divine Instruction to make some changes in Geographical location, from 'Haran' to a yet to be revealed location:' a land that I will show you'.

🏹What was Abram's response to the Divine Instruction he had received? He complied.

Genesis 12:4 So Abram departed in faithful obedience as the Lord had directed him; and Lot his nephew left with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. 

🏹 Sometimes whilst reading such an account, it is possible we could assume that in the case of Abram, obedience to Divine Instruction, was second nature 'easy pizzy' 😀but certainly not in our case! 

🏹We are easy to recall our modern day concerns and our very complex lifestyle, certainly our commitments to our jobs, family, denomination, extracurricular social engagements that we have, and in so doing are prone to thinking that whereas it would  have been relatively easier in Abram's case to migrate, we certainly couldn't! Even when there is the clear evidence of Divine Guidance involved!(part 2 in the next issue of Look Up)

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🏹 Successess and Failures😩😩😅
If you have been following my what's app text messages, then you probably recall the text I sent on the 26th of February attempting to reverse a lot of what I'd previously identified to be a Divine Calling, to relocate from Gillingham, Kent to Bournemouth. I have included the following excerpts from some of those whatsapp text messages:

' Dear family and friends,

Thank you all so much for praying for me all these months since November 2015. I have finally come to the painful acknowledgement that all the doors have closed to my continuous stay in Bournemouth. From April 2016, I shall move back to my Gillingham Flat and begin afresh....'

😩😨😨

They were indeed very seemingly dark days for me with no clear breaking of dawn from the endless 'midnight days🌌🌌🌌🌌🌌 whilst I attempted to find a lodger/lodgers to my flat in Gillingham,Kent.

Have you ever come across that really inspiring Scripture in Malachi 4:2 which reads in the New Living Translation:

"But for you who fear my name, the sun of Righteousness will arise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture".

🏹Initially when I  responded to what I had identified to be a Divine calling to relocate to Bournemouth for two years from 2015 to 2017, to launch a ministry of healing and then return to London,Westminster to pioneer a church plant, with the support of a team which will have been put together in Bournemouth within the two year period, it appeared to be clearly identifiable at least from my conviction perspective🎆🎆🎆🎇🎇🎇🌠🌠 that I was on track.  There were times when I felt like literally 'leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture' as expressed in Malachi 4:2.

🏹But to my dismay and discouragement as the setbacks began, first from my employment perspective where I'd clearly identified that I could not effectively combine a 36 hour working week with what I understood to be the much needed organisational or even contemplative activities that we're going to enhance the ministry calling.

🏹Three months into my job, here in Bournemouth I had made the decision to work a 24 hour working week in order to devote at least 16 hours a week to focus on the mission, which was my main objective for relocating. It yielded dividends in the short term, however that was when it really dawned on me, that a significant aspect of my expenditure was actually spent on subsidising my existing student flat lodgers at the time. This was due to the fact that their utility bills was including of their rent payment.

🏹It became especially distressing as it became obvious to me, that the trust, care and concern I had invested was not being reciprocated in terms of their attitude, as I tried to point out my concerns to them. Without going into further details, I had to request one of them, end stay a month earlier than schedule, which in a way precipitated the other lodger(a first cousin of the one being asked to leave) to terminate his lodger's agreement to. 

🏹They opted to leave a month earlier, and I had not anticipated it was going to happen in the acrimonious way it nearly did! But this was very distracting to what I was attempting to achieve, in Bournemouth and set me back quite significantly in terms of my personal finances. Till date I am still only gradually resolving the situation.

🏹But it was in the context of this situation, that I sent the text messages expressing a willingness to quit. So that sums up the failures! I NEARLY QUIT!😨😨😅😅

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🏹🏹🏹In Section 3 I'd like to highlight to God's glory some wonderful answers to prayer.

🏹Till date the most remarkable answer to prayer I have had, has come about through the faithful , loving, caring counsel I have received from friends and family who have encouraged me not to quit. You know I received encouragement from the two Sarahs😀👍🏾sarah@Sussex,U.K. and Sarah@Canterbury, Clare@bournemouth, UK, Marion@Walthamstow,UK, Vivian@Geneva and now Ghana, Seli@Lome,Togo, my nephews and nieces@Lome,Togo, nephew Pierre@Australia, my sister-in-law Happy,Ghana, my aunts sis Joycelyn, Accra,Ghana, my niece Selorm,Ghana, my good friend Jo@bournemouth, my pastor@Gillingham,Kent, my good friends, Bill and Susannah Smith,Dorset,U.K., my pastor friends John Dompre,UK, Samuel Lartey,Ghana, My friend Sharon@Oxford, My friends Chris@barking,UK, Sis Shade and husband Arthur@barking,U.K., my very dear friends Louise and Richard friends@Surrey,England, my very wise Psychologist and Therapist friend Sandra(London), My cousin Vivian and especially her daughter my niece Barbara and her husband Adam, and Baby Isaiah, my three older sibling brothers(Felix, Emmanuel and Senyo) in Ghana, my nephew David Quafui and wife Edinam, my niece in law Kathy and husband Eli, my cousin/uncle Arnold Mensah, daughter Trudi, my nephew Oku Tetteh, my good friend Ameque@Accra, My pastor friends Susan and Godwin Quarshie and Ivy(mother to my children) for her behind the scene support, my children Jacques and Sapphire for their unconditional reciprocal love to daddy, to Dean my landlord in Bournemouth, Andy Watkins who has remained a very encouraging friend, his friend Andy Bradshaw and I think there is most likely twice as much as I have already mentioned in the network of caring supportive prayer warriors, Mrs Akos Awuku Akuffo and husband Pastor Joshua, my friend Olabomi Tutu, others giving input through seasoned counsel include my sister in law Belinda(Ivy's sister) and all the aunts and uncle figures that have been a blessing to my children through their interaction with them. Especially acknowledging anyone that I may have overlooked.

My sincere apologies, as I do not mean to discount your input and I certainly do not underestimate it in anyway.

🏹My special gratitude to Vivienne my Matron and manager, work colleagues Wendy, Kate, especially to Anna(from Poland) who I work so closely with and has been such a morale booster often after returning from London and then almost immediately to work on a night shift.

🏹Vivienne Fiamavle and Usha Cross, such special supportive friends, to Denise who has been a blessing and to  Debbie, the Nurse from Hampshire,UK.

🏹Not forgetting Ziggy and Courine and the friends at New Milton, UK

🙏🏽I want to reassure everyone, that by the grace of God I am staying the course and continue to value everyone's prayer too🙏🏽 

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