Ali in Dubai and South Africa

Ali Scott yesterday headed out to Dubai, from where he will be going on to Clarens, South Africa.

His first stop in Dubai is to spend a few days with Fusi Mokoena who leads Gateway Creek church. Ali is preaching at the church this morning so please pray for God to use his words.

Ali and Fusi then fly onto Clarens overnight on Sunday 6th March for two conferences. The first (7th-12th March) is conference for 20 or so younger leaders from around the world, led by Ray Lowe, entitled 'If Only I'd Known'.

Some 'more mature' leaders will be discussing things they wish they had known when they started out in ministry. There will be leaders from the UK, South Africa, Pakistan, the Phillipines, USA and Dubai. Please pray for fruitful discussions and significant relationships to be built.

The second conference is the annual Regions Beyond Master Builders conference, hosted by the church in Clarens. This will run from 15th-20th March. Please pray for Ali as he gives a seminar on Saturday 19th, entitled 'Lengthened through responding to God's call'.

Hub weekend away

Last weekend many of our students and 20s enjoyed a Hub weekend away, with teaching from David Campbell. Here are some of the things God did...

“I’ve had a lot of trouble sleeping over the past few weeks, and I struggled especially during the weekend away. Thankfully, a lot happened over that weekend that really helped to pull me out of the resulting exhaustion, and after my testimony David and a few guys came and prayed for me. (cheers guys!)
Despite still having a lot on my mind coming away from the weekend, I managed to get nearly 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night, probably the most I’ve had since the end of last term! Even something as simple as a good night’s sleep can be such a powerful and exciting reminder of God’s care for us...
Thanks so much for such a wonderful weekend and for being an even more wonderful church family! God is awesome!!!”

— Tom Whitehead

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“First of all I just want to thank all of you for being so GREAT!! You all made this weekend truly amazing for me. God was certainly working through you all and last night is a testament to that, was such a crazy emotional night where everyone just let everything go, let it all go to God (me included) and seeing people afterwards on such highs was just incredible. God is amazing and I pray He continues working in you all.
Secondly, in my testimony earlier I forgot to say a lot of things so I’m going to say it on here and I hope you find some encouragement from it.
So like I said, at the start of the weekend I was feeling pretty low and when God answered my prayers to hear His voice, I knew there and then that He had a firm grasp of me and that I had not been recognising that before hand, which is one of the reasons I was feeling so low. But those words that Dave said over me, fit my situation perfectly and it shocked me and I was speechless at how direct and quick God responded. After that I then prophesied on the spot for someone for the first time and I just felt the Holy Spirit completely overcoming me unlike I’ve ever felt it before.
It has honestly been one of the most amazing and life changing weekends of my life and again I just want to thank you all for being part of that. I am truly blessed to be part of your family and hope to continue building new and stronger friendships with you all.”

— Dan Baker

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“Hello wonderful Emmanuel family! Just want to share a little testimony from this weekend, so I come on the weekend away feeling worried, unloved, lost and anxious and not knowing what to expect!
On the Friday night during the meeting I was pretty upset about a lot of things! Then on the Saturday morning I just felt like God was telling me to let it all out which means I was crying again and feeling very anxious and worried about what people may think about me sat at the back crying! I just felt very lost and empty!
Then it is the evening meeting and I was very anxious about what was going to happen! Then David Campbell preaches about anxiety and it was all totally relevant to me and this how I feel most of the time! And by the end of the meeting and after many prayers I was just a blubbering wreck! But I felt totally at peace by the end of the evening! Anxiety is something I’ve been dealing with for a while but Dave’s preach was totally relevant and brought me some peace and I wasn’t worrying about people judging me for been the girl sat at the back crying it’s ok to have emotions right? God has just been so amazing this weekend and will continue to be amazing now and always I’m just so thankful to have all you wonderful friends and family and community and I love you all very much and I’m super blessed to know you all! God is amazing 😊”

— Sarah Cooper

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“Hi friends, I had an absolutely amazing time hanging out with you all this past week and it was an absolute honour to be able to serve in so many ways over the weekend and see how much God is doing with you - excited for many stories of what He does next when I return in June!”

— Tom Amos

Children and Youth growth

God is blessing us greatly with growth among our children and young people.

On Sunday 31st January, we heard from our fantastic deacon Pete Gray and youth worker Helen Edwards on what God has been doing, what He's doing now and where we are in faith He will take us in future.

“We are really blessed to be part of a growing family here at Emmanuel. Over the past few years we’ve had more and more children and young people join our Sunday morning groups - we now average 90-100 individuals every week!
We already have an amazing, dedicated children’s and youth work team who give their time to engage and teach the younger half of our congregation. The problem is is that whilst our church as a whole has grown, unfortunately our serving teams have not. In some cases they’ve actually shrunk in numbers.
In order for us to keep investing in our children and young people we really need people to step forward to help with the work we do.
In particular, I’m looking for people to help with our 11-14s on a Sunday morning and our 11-18s Wildfire group on Fridays. These teams currently only have four leaders in total each - and when we need two leaders per session, I’m sure you can see why we’re a little stretched at the moment.
In a time of growth we really want to be pushing forward and expanding rather than thinking that we may have to start cutting back. So I would ask that you would spend some time praying and see if this is something you could spend serving in.
Pete, Ali and I are here to equip and train you to share the Gospel across the age groups and we would be happy to answer any questions that you have about the work the church is doing.”

— Helen Edwards, youth worker