Adventures in India!

Ian and John Oliver have recently returned from their trip to the Regions Beyond Church in Pune, India.  

The church is called Word Of Grace Church and is led by Colin and Navaz D’Cruz. During their time in Pune they preached on two Sunday mornings, led a Saturday In depth discipleship class, a mid-week life group as well as a men's meeting.  

Pune is a city of five million with a huge number of universities and colleges, deserving its epithet of "Oxford of the East". This results in a huge number of students in the city, both from India and from overseas, especially the Middle East. The church has many people that are in Pune for a limited amount of time.

Ian said: “The warmth and hospitality from the church were superb. We were so thrilled to hear of people healed following the first Sunday morning, and also hearing that 90 per cent of the church had prayed for someone else to be healed during the week.  

We went across to the church with a number of prophetic words from Emmanuel's recent prayer breakfast.  These words really spoke to the church and encouraged them in their mission, and I believe that they will have an impact in shaping the church in its future plans.

I feel that we have begun to make good connections with the church and look forward to seeing how God will develop that in future years."

Celebrating the Nations

Around 20 years ago, God gave us a prophetic word that if we went to the nations, He would give us Durham.

This significantly changed our focus - and since then God has blessed us with connections with many nations across the world.

On Sunday, we took the opportunity to celebrate those links and pray for other nations. It was a wonderfully colourful occasion. Thanks to Peter Lawrence for the photos.

It was also John Parker and Chris Done's last Sunday with us before they leave for a year in Japan. Hear their sermon here.