Category: Podcast

My Story  Talk 35 Hope for the Future

Throughout this series I have tried to show how, in the words of another David, God’s goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life (Psalm 23:6). Of course, to give an account of every single day would be completely impossible, not least because my life is not over yet!

So this, the fiinal talk in this series, will not be the end of my story. That’s in the hands of the One who has loved and pardoned me, protected and provided for me, and who will guide my steps until his purpose for my life is finally accomplished. So I’ll conclude my story with:

a reminder of God’s past blessings

a record of my most recent activities, and

my reason for hope for the future.

 

A reminder of God’s past blessings

First, I’m so grateful for Christian parents who prayed for me before I was born, brought me up to believe in Jesus, taught me the way of salvation, encouraged me to believe that God answers prayer and that nothing is impossible with him. They showed me how much they loved me and taught me that God loves me too. So even through the terrible years of World War 2, I always felt loved and protected.

 

I’m thankful, too, for the good teaching I received at Sunday School and Church and that I was educated at a time when the truths of the Christian faith were still widely accepted in our society, so that there was little conflict between what I learnt at school and what I was taught at home and at church. And that, when there was a difference of emphasis, my father was always able to give me an intelligent answer and show me why the Christian message made sense.

 

As I have already mentioned, it was clear from my earliest years that I was academically gifted, and I’m grateful for the good education I received at Brentwood School which led by God’s grace to my gaining admission to Oxford University. A hymn we often used to sing at Elm Pak Baptist was Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee… and I remember feeling strongly about the verse where it says, Take my intellect and use every power as though shalt choose. For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to use whatever abilities God has given me to spread the good news about Jesus.

 

But I was soon to learn that intellectual ability is not enough. Our battle is not primarily intellectual but spiritual, and when I first heard about the baptism in the Holy Spirit I was eager to receive. I’m so grateful for Laurie Dixon who shared his testimony with me, for Harold Young who laid hands on me when I first spoke in tongues, and for Pentecostal pastors like Alfred Webb and Richard Bolt who taught me so much about the things of the Spirit.

 

In those early years I was also greatly influenced by the writings of some of the pioneers of the Pentecostal Movement, notably Harold Horton, Donald Gee, and Willie Burton. Much of my thinking on the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit has been founded on their teaching and I thank God for such men of God who were willing to break free from the cessationist traditions of their forebears to pursue the all the fulness of life in the Spirit.

My experience at Oxford is a source of many happy memories. Coming only four weeks after I was baptised in the Spirit, my studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics were, I confess, of relatively little importance to me. I was more interested in telling others about my Christian experience, witnessing about Christ to unbelievers and about the Holy Spirit to those who were already Christians. Of particular importance were the prayer meetings we held which led to the formation of the Students’ Pentecostal Fellowship and which were, by the grace of God, part of the beginnings of the Charismatic Renewal.

 

The years we spent in pastoral work, both at Colchester and Basingstoke led not only to the considerable growth of both those churches with souls being saved, bodies healed, and believers filled with the Holy Spirit, but also to a deeper understanding of the Word, a wider ministry beyond the local church, and a growing recognition within the Pentecostal Movement of the teaching gift the Lord had given me. For this I am truly thankful.

 

Despite the rocky road to Mattersey which I described in an earlier talk, the 27 years we spent there were possibly the most productive period of my life. Life was not without its problems, but I thank God for every minute of it. The privilege of training hundreds of future church leaders and the joy of seeing the fruits of their ministry more than made up for the difficulties we faced.

 

And the founding of EPTA led to an international ministry of Bible College teaching was an unexpected privilege which I could never have dreamed of when I felt God’s call to ministry at the age of sixteen. The opportunity to share with so many students the importance of the baptism in the Spirit and spiritual gifts, illustrated by personal experience that was firmly rooted in biblical truth, and to present a balanced understanding of God’s promises of healing were and still are sources of great joy and personal satisfaction.

 

I’m even grateful today for the difficulties we faced only some of which I have outlined in this book. Of course, at the time we would have preferred not to have them, but as I look back I have no doubt that the Lord had a purpose in it all. That does not mean that I know precisely what that purpose was, but because I believe in an all-powerful God who loves me and gave himself for me, I have learnt that problems produce patience and ultimately deepen our faith. And it is by faith and patience that we inherit his promises.

 

Which brings me to Eileen, my faithful wife, who devoted her life, first to serving Jesus, and then to serving his purpose for me as we journeyed through life together. The concluding words of the tribute to her that I wrote for her farewell service express well how I still feel:

Although I am missing her already, I am full of joy, knowing that she is now where she wanted to be. Until we meet again in Heaven, I will remember her for her love, her faithfulness, her devotion, her patience, her sense of humour, her impact on our children’s lives, her smile, her perseverance in suffering, her courage in face of adversity, and above all, her childlike trust in Jesus and her total commitment to him. I thank God for the precious gift of Eileen and the privilege of being her husband for sixty-two years. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

 

Eileen went to be with the Lord on 28^th February 2024 and, although I still miss her every day, her departure to Heaven has meant that I am now free to resume some of the activities that were curtailed by the severe stroke she had in 2016. Which brings me to a brief statement of my most recent activities taken from my Christmas newsletter 2025.

 

A record of my most recent activities

 

A year ago, I was brought back onto the Leadership Team of our church and have been preaching and leading regularly every month. I have also been able to accept invitations to minister and attend at churches and conferences further afield. Here’s a quick summary:

o   January – 2 days’ teaching at Light and Life conference

o   March – was privileged to pay a tribute at Keith Monument’s funeral in Nottingham

o   June – a weekend preaching at Walthamstow (when I also took the opportunity to visit Eileen’s sister, Joan, and her husband, David)

o   July – participated in the EPTA conference held in Malvern at Regent’s Theological College

o   September – attended the wedding of Jotham (grandson) and Chesca in Brighton

o   October – a weekend’s preaching in Leyland followed by the Ocean Wings Conference in Llandudno where I was one of the speakers

o   November – attended Sarah’s Graduation (MA in Applied Theology with Distinction) at Moorlands College and Christchurch Priory. So proud of all my wonderful children!

o   December – participated in the Charismatic and Pentecostal Leaders’ Gathering in Northamptonshire

As most of these activities involved long journeys, I was grateful for the comfort of my E-Class Mercedes, acquired earlier this year. I’m also grateful for the health and strength God gives me to do all this, although I confess I do get more tired than I used to! However, I do manage to swim 500 metres about twice a week. This has helped me lose a couple of stones in weight.

Finally, I’m still writing and doing regular podcasts. All this year I’ve been writing my memoirs and am almost finished. Let me know if you’d like a copy.

So, have a wonderful Christmas and may the Lord bless you and use you in the coming year.

So thankful for Jesus – for all he has done and continues to do for us.

With much love

David

 

My reason for hope for the future

At the time of recording  this I will be 87 years old in a few days’ time. When she was in her eighties, referring to some of her aches and pains my mother used to say, Oh David, don’t get old, to which I would reply, Why? You don’t want me to die young, do you?! She knew of course that I was joking, and I, of course, fully understand what she was saying. Humanly speaking there isn’t much to look forward to when you’re old. So, what reasons do we have for hope for the future?

 

As I conclude the story of my life so far, let me give you three reasons:

My past experience of God’s goodness

My present observation of what he is doing

My understanding of what the Bible says about our future.

 

I shall say little about the first of these as all that have written so far has been a record of how God’s goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life. Now it’s enough to summarise all this by saying that God’s goodness to me in the past informs my belief for the future.

The God who has loved me, saved me, protected me, and provided for me throughout my life will not fail me now.

My second reason for hope is my observation of what God is doing right now. I see this particularly in the lives of my children and grandchildren. Debbie, Sarah, and Jonathan are all faithfully serving the Lord and using the many gifts and talents God has given them. And the same is true of most of my grandchildren, four of whom are either recently, or soon about to be, married to wonderful Christian partners. I see in them the same passion to serve the Lord Jesus as Eileen and I have carried down through the years and know that this will continue when I am gone.

 

But of course, what God is doing is far wider than just our family. There is a fresh expectation in the hearts of God’s people as we see an increasing openness to the gospel among those we meet. The tide is beginning to turn. The apathy and antagonism that have for so long been prevalent in our society are being replaced, particularly among young people, by a genuine interest and desire to know more. Yes, we have every reason to hope.

 

And finally, and most important of all, I have hope because of what the Bible says. One of my favourite verses is Romans 15:13, where Paul says:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Paul’s prayer is that we should overflow with hope. Not just have hope, or even be filled with hope, but overflow. God wants us to have so much hope that it overflows to others!

But how can we overflow with hope? The surrounding verses show us four main things. Two of these are found in verse 4:

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

 

The first secret to having hope is endurance. However difficult our situation we must press on. One thing’s for sure – if we give up, there is no hope. As Pastor Stan Hyde used to encourage us, we must keep on keeping on.

 

But God has not left us to ourselves on this. He enables us to keep on hoping through the encouragement of the Scriptures. This happens in two ways. First, the Bible is full of examples of men and women who, like the heroes mentioned in Hebrews 11, endured despite great difficulty. And secondly, it gives us great promises and assurance of God’s love – see the last few verses of Romans 8 for example.

 

But it’s not just the examples and promises in the Bible that give us hope. As we have already seen, we can overflow with the hope through the power of the Holy Spirit (v 13). A few verses later Paul goes on to connect the power of the Spirit with the power of signs and wonders (v19). Miracles give us hope. Nothing is impossible with God. Whatever our situation, God has the answer, and it may well be miraculous. But the power of the Spirit is not limited to miracles. It’s manifested in fruit as well as gifts (Galatians 5:22-23). Sometimes God does not deliver us from our troubles, he delivers us in them.

He fills us with joy and peace as we trust in him (v13 again). And in doing so he gives us hope.

So the final key to overflowing with hope is trusting in the God of hope. We simply have to trust him. That his promises will be fulfilled. That he will bring us through. That he will perfect that which concerns us. And we can do that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures and having confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

But what are we hoping for? Our ultimate hope is found in verse 12 where Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah:

The Root of Jesse will spring up, One who will arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope in him

 

We are waiting for the One who is to rule over the nations! We are waiting for that blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13). Why do I have hope? Because Jesus is coming again! Every eye shall see him. Every knee shall bow before him. Every tongue will confess that he is Lord. He is coming to reign. He is coming to judge. He is coming to make all things new. He is coming to take us to be with him forever. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. We will be like him because we shall see him! Glorious hope! All other hopes pale into insignificance.

 

I’m so grateful that God’s goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life and

            I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

 

Will you?

My Story   Talk 34   Overcoming New Challenges

Welcome to Talk 34 in our series where I’m reflecting on God’s goodness to me throughout my life. Last time I was mentioning some of the health challenges I faced in India and today I will be describing how these continued for some time once we were back in England. I will also be talking about the serious health challenges Eileen faced during the last ten years of her life. I take no pleasure in recording all this, but an honest account of my life must include the hard times as well as the good, and, of course, the Lord has brought me through.

Challenges following India

Fortunately, there was little in my diary for the first few weeks after our return from India and I soon began to feel better. I thought I was back to normal and in April we set off for two weekends of ministry in Essex. We would stay with Eileen’s sister Joan in Billericay and the first weekend I would preach in Witham and a week later in our old church in Colchester.

On the first Saturday we drove from our home in Paignton straight to Witham, a journey of about 250 miles, and I preached in the afternoon and evening meetings. We then made our way to Billericay, returning to Witham for the Sunday morning service. I had felt fine on the Saturday, but on Sunday I suddenly started to feel unwell again shortly before I was due to preach.

The symptoms were like those I had had in India, and I went outside to get some fresh air. However, I managed to get through the preaching but was grateful to get back to Billericay. The next day Joan arranged an appointment for me with her GP who, hearing that I had been bitten by a mosquito in India and suspecting that I might have malaria, sent me for tests at the hospital in Basildon.

Although these tested negative, I was still worried that there was something seriously wrong with me and just wanted to get back home to Paignton. Apologising profusely, I asked our friends at Colchester to release me from my commitment to preach the following weekend and we drove home later that week, unsure of what the future might hold.

The next two years proved to be extremely difficult. I continued to experience similar problems every time I preached. In May 2010 I drove up to Huddersfield for the AoG conference but was so stressed that I returned home without attending a meeting. I immediately arranged an appointment with my GP, Mark Thompson, a good Christian man, and told him my whole story. He reminded me that as Christians we are not immune to such things and recommended some books that might help explain my condition.

It appears that my experience in India, caused by extreme heat, dehydration, and overwork, triggered a rush of adrenalin which produced the symptoms I was struggling with. I learnt that worrying about the symptoms only made matters worse because that causes a further rush of adrenalin. I was caught in a vicious circle, and the only way out was to embrace the symptoms, tell myself that they would not harm me, and gradually I would get better.

And that’s what happened, although it did take a long time. Following my visit to the doctor I cancelled my two-week trip to teach at the Bible College in Finland in May. We did go to Madeira for a three week holiday in June, but this turned out to be disappointing because of my recurring symptoms. However, in September I did manage to teach for two weeks at Mattersey, preach for a weekend in Pocklington, and assisted by Bob Hyde, teach a course at CTS in Brussels for a week. I was still experiencing the symptoms but managing to cope with them – at least most of the time. But there were still occasions when I felt unable to preach. In October I cancelled a weekend in Poynton and in November I was unable to complete a weekend’s ministry in Aston. I began to wonder if the time had come for me to give up.

But less than two weeks later the Lord suddenly intervened. Eileen and I were in Exeter at a meeting for Assemblies of God ministers and their wives. The guest preacher was John Glass, the General Superintendent of the Elim Churches. He was preaching on Jeremiah 1 when he came to verses 11-12:

The word of the LORD came to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” “I see the branch of an almond tree,” I replied. The LORD said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.”

He explained the play on words that we find in these verses – the Hebrew word for almond is very similar to the word for watch. The almond tree is among the first to blossom in spring. It’s something you watch for as a sign that spring has come. Winter will be followed by spring because God watches over his word to see that it is fulfilled.

Now in England most of us don’t see an almond tree too often, so John likened it to crocuses. In his garden they’re the first flowers to bloom in spring. They’re the sign or guarantee that winter won’t be forever. Then John broke away from his notes and said something like this:

There are some of you here who are feeling that your ministry has come to an end. You have been experiencing a bleak winter, but the Lord wants you to know that it will not be forever. You will experience a new springtime.

Eileen and I looked at each other. Was this for us? Surely it must be. But there were a lot of other people in that meeting. Could it be that John’s prophetic word was for them and not for us? We drove home after the meeting hoping, rather than believing, that this really was a word from the Lord for us.

And then, that evening, Jill Cooper, one of our friends from church, arrived on our doorstep and said,

I’ve brought you a little present. To be honest, I had bought it for someone else, but then I felt the Lord tell me to give it to you instead.

 What was the present? A bowl of crocuses! How good God is! He gave us the assurance that I would emerge from this dark period of winter into a new springtime of ministry. We sometimes have to go through a valley of shadow, but he is with us in it all the way.

So in 2011, whenever the symptoms reoccurred, I pressed through them, knowing that this condition wouldn’t last forever. In March I flew to Scotland to speak to the AoG ministers, in May we went back to Finland to teach at Iso Kirja for two weeks, in September I taught for two weeks at Mattersey, and in October I was back at CTS again. None of these occasions was easy. In fact, I often felt really unwell, but everyone always said that, if I hadn’t told them, they would not have known anything was wrong with me!

I’m not quite sure how much longer it took to get back to normal. In fact, I’m not really sure what ‘normal’ is! We all deteriorate physically as we get older and our energy levels are not what they were. When I look back at what I was doing in the years before Mattersey and throughout my time there, I wonder now how I possibly managed it all. What was normal for me then is far beyond my capabilities now, but I have moved into a new springtime in my ministry and people tell me that at 87 I’m not doing badly for my age, for which I am grateful.

Challenges to Eileen’s health

But my health challenges were nothing compared with those faced by Eileen in the last ten years of her life. On Sunday 21st December 2014 quite unexpectedly at about 9am Eileen started to experience severe pain in her stomach as she was getting ready for church. As the pain was unrelenting, causing Eileen to pass out a couple of times, by 3pm I decided I needed to call 999. I accompanied Eileen in the ambulance while Jonathan followed by car. After waiting with her a few hours, Jon and I were advised to go home and await the results of an MRI scan. 

At about 10.30 that evening the surgeon phoned to ask us to go in to discuss options for Eileen. It was clear that the situation was very serious. On arrival at the hospital, we were told that the scan had revealed that the blood supply had been cut off from Eileen’s bowel and that her smaller bowel had died. Without an immediate operation she would die.

There was even the possibility that the condition was already too far advanced for them to be able to save her. Furthermore, even if they were able to save her, there was a strong possibility that she would need to have a permanent colostomy. Eileen agreed with us that we should agree to the operation and trust God for the best possible outcome.

We prayed with her, of course, but as you can imagine, for the next few hours we were on an emotional roller-coaster, experiencing all the ups and downs from fear to faith, but with a determination to trust God, come what may. We simply could not believe that it was God’s time for Eileen to go to Heaven and kept praying that he would spare her.

Imagine our relief when at one o’clock on Monday morning the surgeon phoned to say that she had the best possible news for us. Eileen’s bowel was alive! What had been causing the pain was an internal hernia which they had been able to fix. None of her bowel had needed to be removed and the blood supply had been restored.

 

Now bearing in mind the certainty with which the surgeon told us that Eileen’s bowel had died we were convinced that this was not just a case of faulty diagnosis, but that God had worked an amazing miracle in restoring Eileen’s bowel to life. God had allowed man to do what he could but intervened to do what man could not do – restore a dead bowel to life!

We were so grateful for the prayers of the many people who interceded for Eileen throughout this difficult time and to God for his miraculous intervention. I never cease to be amazed at his wonderful grace and goodness to us. But the operation had been very invasive and left Eileen severely weakened for months. And she never fully regained the strength and energy she had lost, but that, of course, may have been partly caused by the fact that she was not getting any younger.

And neither was I! In April 2015 we had a few days’ break in the Lake District and neither of us felt like walking very far. It was much the same in September when we went to the Isle of Wight, but on both these holidays we contented ourselves with driving around in the car, visiting old haunts, marvelling at the beauty of God’s creation, and, of course, enjoying the food.

We planned two short holidays for 2016, the first in Longtown, a village in Herefordshire close to the Welsh border in May. After preaching in Rugby on the Sunday morning, we drove there in the afternoon and spent a few delightful days in a charming cottage on the banks of the River Monnow, returning to Brixham the following weekend. The second holiday, planned for a week in September at the southern end of Coniston Water, never happened.

In June I flew to Ireland to preach for a weekend in Sligo where Daniel Caldwell, one of our former students, was leading a church. On Sunday morning I preached on Jesus calming the storm in Matthew 8 and I remember saying that sometimes unexpected problems suddenly arise in our lives, but Jesus is well able to see us through them and get us to the other side. Who knows what might happen this week? But whatever happens Jesus is with us. And I flew home that afternoon.

I have preached that message many times, but little did I know what was to happen just two days later. On Tuesday evening, sitting in her armchair Eileen had a severe stroke and was rushed into Torbay Hospital. From head to toe she had no feeling down the right side of her body. The next Sunday, still in hospital, she suffered another stroke and we were told that the outlook was extremely bleak. She was rushed to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth and underwent surgery to relieve the pressure on her brain. Her life had been saved.

After eleven days she was transferred back to Torbay where she remained for eight days until a bed was available at Newton Abbot where she began a course of rehab. Throughout this time we were all looking to the Lord for a complete healing, whether instantaneous or gradual, but her progress was extremely slow, and it was becoming increasingly clear that she needed a miracle if she would ever walk again.

And although the healing miracle we were praying for never happened, we could see the hand of the Lord at work in other ways. Firstly, on July 28^th when we were sitting in the hospital day room and eating cake to celebrate our wedding anniversary, the Torbay doctor who had told us that the outlook was extremely bleak approached us and said, I’m looking for Eileen Petts. And when he saw her he said, I can’t believe it. Which was something he repeated more than once during the fifteen minutes he was with us. He clearly had not expected Eileen to survive, and this encouraged our faith that God was at work in the situation.

On 10^th August, after eight weeks in three different hospitals, Eileen finally came home. And that, in itself, was a miracle. We had been told just a few days earlier that Eileen would have to be discharged as her bed was needed for someone else. To continue her rehab she could either go into a care home if we could find one that would take her, or the NHS would provide rehab workers to come to our home, but we would need to find a home care company to take care of Eileen’s other needs. The problem was that at the time there were over 70 people in Torbay on a waiting list! I needed an answer – quick!

And just in time the answer came. Just a day before Eileen had to be discharged, Trude Hyde came to me and said that she and her twin sister Sylvia would take care of Eileen if we would like them to. How wonderful! I didn’t need to ask Eileen because I knew she would love it, but for the sake of all concerned, I felt I needed to ask the Lord for his guidance. And I did foresee one possible problem. I didn’t know if I would be allowed to choose Eileen’s carers or if they would require certain recognised medical qualifications.

I needed an immediate answer to that question, and I didn’t know where to find it. I was just going off to visit Eileen, and I didn’t want to mention the twins’ kind offer until I knew the answer in case it led to her being disappointed. And then I remembered that Katie, the daughter of our next-door neighbour, Sue, was the lead carer for the whole of Torbay. She would certainly know the answer. I was just about to go and knock on Sue’s door when I changed my mind and said,

Lord, if this is of you, before I get into the car, please let Sue come out without me knocking on her door.

And that’s what happened. No sooner had I prayed that prayer than Sue came out of her house. In less than five minutes Katie was on the phone and told me that I could choose whom I liked. Eileen was overjoyed, and Trude and Sylvia took care of her visiting our home four times a day for the next four years until we moved to a bungalow on the other side of town, when workers from Abide Care, Brixham, took over. 

Eileen finally went to be with the Lord in February 2024 almost eight years after that awful stroke. She was always grateful that her condition was not physically painful, but frustrated at her inability to walk and do all those things we normally take for granted. And we both naturally wondered why the Lord had allowed this to happen. One Bible passage that Eileen found particularly helpful was 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 where Paul says:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

And the comfort and strength our Father gave to Eileen certainly did overflow to others, not least as a testimony to the dozens of carers from Abide who came into our home over the final four years of her life. Throughout this whole very difficult period both Eileen and I had been sustained by our Christian faith and by a particular word received from the Lord through Barrie Taylor, our daughter Sarah’s father-in-law.

Barrie and Sandra live some distance away and we normally only saw them once or twice a year. On one such occasion when Eileen seemed to be making little progress after her stroke we were all having a meal together at Berry Head Hotel, when Barrie said the Lord had given him a word for us:

My Father is at work in your lives and situation which He is using as a platform to display his sustaining grace.

God sometimes uses amazing miracles of healing to display his power and love, but it is often the sustaining grace that he gives his people in times of suffering that brings others to faith. Through Eileen’s suffering the lives of many were touched, people who might never have otherwise heard the good news about Jesus. And since she died there have been many opportunities to share the gospel. The funeral staff at the crematorium were visibly moved and said they had never experienced a service like it and neighbours said the same thing about the church service that followed it.

As Christians we know where we are going, and the knowledge that our loved ones are with the Lord is a source of great comfort and even joy. Although I still miss her every day, I sometimes weep for joy at the thought of how happy Eileen must now be in Heaven! And one day we shall meet again! But until then there is still work for me to do down here. But that’s the subject of our final talk.

My Story   Talk 33  Life after Mattersey (3)

India

Our last trip beyond Europe during the years following our departure from Mattersey was to India in 2010. Like my first trip to Ethiopia in 2005, this came about through Arto Hamalainen, the Overseas Missions Director for the Pentecostal churches in Finland. One of their missionaries had asked him to recommend someone who would come and teach about the Holy Spirit and Arto suggested me. The Finns said that they would cover my airfare and, as Eileen had never visited India, I was happy to pay for her.

Our destination was Machilipatnam on the eastern coast of India, stopping briefly to minister at Mumbai before flying home. However, as several of our former Mattersey students were from India, we decided that we’d like to visit them as well, if at all possible. So I contacted Lawrence Arumanayagam in Coimbatore and Victor Palla in Palakonda and they were keen to have us come.

So an itinerary was arranged for us to arrive at each place on a Monday and then stay for six days before moving on the following Sunday evening or Monday. I made it clear that it was important for me to abide by the Sabbath principle of resting one day in seven. Apart from that, they could arrange as much ministry as they liked during our stay with them.

However, it turned out that they were all so keen to make the most of our visit that they organised ministry for all six days and counted on us travelling on to the next place on the day we were supposed to be resting! So the itinerary turned out as follows:

Friday 19^th February – travel to London Heathrow

Saturday 20^th – depart Heathrow

Sunday 21^st – arrive Mumbai at 1a.m. (local time) – attend church in Mumbai and preach in the evening

Monday 22^nd – fly to Machilipatnam

Tuesday to Sunday – ministry in Machilipatnam

Sunday 28^th – evening, fly to Hyderabad (staying overnight at the airport)

Monday March 1^st – travel  on to Palakonda

Tuesday to Sunday – ministry in Palakonda

Monday 8^th – travel to Coimbatore via Chennai and Bangalore

Tuesday to Sunday – ministry in Coimbatore

Monday 15^th – travel on to Mumbai

Tuesday-Wednesday – ministry in Mumbai

Thursday 18^th March – fly home.

I have taken space to include this itinerary to show how busy our schedule was and to indicate what was probably the reason for the health challenges I subsequently faced and which I will describe later. But first let me briefly mention some of the highlights of the trip.

Machilipatnam

Although we were already tired from our long journey to Mumbai we needed to be up by 4.50 on Monday morning to catch the 6.50 flight to Bangalore where we changed planes and flew on to Vijayawada where we were met by Pauli, our Finnish host. We were so grateful for the comfortable taxi he had hired to take us on to Machilipatnam.

Pauli and his wife accommodated us throughout our stay in a comfortable room in their home and fed us well. From Tuesday to Friday I was teaching every morning and afternoon and developed a sore throat, partly due, I suspect, to the dry heat. However, on the Saturday there was no meeting until the evening, and we were taken to visit some of the local villages and a vast beach where people were in the sea dressed in their everyday clothes. This was a very poor area which had been badly affected by the Tsunami a few years earlier. We were also interested to visit the Hyny Bible College, named after the first missionary from Finland, ‘Mother’ Hyny.

Once again I am grateful to Eileen’s journal which brings back happy memories of the Sunday morning meeting:

For the first half of church children from orphanages sit on the floor. They come for Sunday School and then stay for the meeting. They are so still and well behaved. They have Bibles and some take notes. They gave us garlands again…

After a quick lunch we were back in a taxi again speeding our way to Vijayawada airport. Our stay had been brief and very busy, but despite our tiredness we were grateful for the opportunity the Lord had given us to visit these wonderful people and to share his word with them.

Palakonda

Palakonda is also on the east coast of India, but further north. The quickest way to get there was to fly inland to Hyderabad in central India and then northeast to Visakhapatnam. This would require an overnight stop at Hyderabad airport where fortunately a comfortable bedroom was available at a very reasonable price.

At Visakhapatnam we were greeted by Victor Palla and one of his associate pastors. Victor was one of our former students having taken both our undergraduate and MA courses. He knew Bob Hyde well as they had both been at Mattersey together and our church in Brixham was supporting Victor and the thirty churches he had planted in the Palakonda area after leaving college.

The taxi journey on to Palakonda took a further three hours and we were grateful for the large ensuite airconditioned bedroom Victor and Lydia provided for us throughout our stay. The hospitality was lavish and the food both plentiful and excellent. It’s so difficult not to eat too much when people are so generous.

There was only one problem. Palakonda is famous for its malaria carrying mosquitos and both of us were bitten while we were there despite Victor’s efforts to zap the invaders with an amazing racquet powered by batteries that electrocuted them. However, thanks to prayer and the antimalarial tablets we were taking, neither of us contracted the dreaded disease.

During the course of the week we ministered in numerous meetings in Palakonda and the surrounding villages. In one of them we were told how the church had started with a family becoming Christians. The rest of the villagers worshipped a tree. The Christian family wanted to cut it down but were afraid of the people. Then Christians from another village came and after praying cut the tree down. The villagers expected something bad to happen to these Christians, but when nothing of the kind happened, they all became Christians.

But the highlight of our visit was undoubtedly the day we left at 10am for a meeting with ten churches in the beautiful hills surrounding Palakonda. We travelled by Jeep on extremely bumpy roads at an average speed of 10mph passing through villages that hadn’t changed for centuries. We finally arrived at a village where a large banner with our names on it welcomed us.

Leaving the Jeep there we were led up a rocky, dusty path to the church where some 400 people were sitting outside it on the ground under a leafy shelter. We sat on chairs with our backs to the church building and the girls came and washed Eileen’s feet and we were both given beautiful garlands to wear. The meeting started with lots of singing followed by prayer, after which I preached. This was followed by a meal where the people sat in rows on the ground and were served with a rice dish on disposable plates made from sown leaves. In her journal Eileen commented:

            The whole time was special. Amazing atmosphere.

And the same day, after returning to Palakonda for a short rest, we were driven to a village after dark where 200 had gathered for another meeting where, after a firework display, I was asked to preach again. We returned to Palakonda extremely tired, but very happy. It was very much the same the entire week and by the time we moved on to Coimbatore I was beginning to feel the need of a good rest.

But what a privilege it had been to have fellowship with Victor and Lydia and to share the word of God with so many wonderful people in the Palakonda area whose way of life is very different from ours but with whom we have so much in common.

Coimbatore

After a busy week in Palakonda, the following Monday we flew on to Coimbatore via Chennai (formerly Madras) to be greeted by Lawrence and Getzi Arumanayagam and were made very welcome in their lovely modern apartment. On the Tuesday we were straight into teaching sessions both morning and afternoon in their beautiful church. I was pleased to see that the congregation was much larger than it had been when I had visited them in 1986.

The teaching sessions continued on the Wednesday. They started well until something happened that I had never experienced before. In the middle of preaching I suddenly began to feel unwell. Eileen, who was sitting on the front row, said afterwards that she thought I was going to have a stroke or a heart attack. I asked if I could sit down for a moment and the people, suspecting that I was suffering from dehydration, kindly brought me some fluids and chocolate.

After a few minutes I was feeling a bit better and was able to resume preaching although I remained seated to do so. Looking back on it, I’m sure that it was because of overwork and the extreme heat. I hadn’t had a rest day since we left England and India was even hotter than usual that year. But the experience had seriously affected my confidence.

The next day, realising that I needed a rest, Lawrence and Getzi decided to take us for an overnight stay in Ooty where the temperature is a few degrees lower because of its altitude. Eileen said it felt almost cold at times, but I was so grateful for it. We had a delightful two days there and I began to feel better.

We took the opportunity to visit the Livsey Children’s Home built in memory of Helga Mosey.  Helga had come to our youth camp in the New Forest back in the seventies and was one of the passengers on Pan Am flight 103 destroyed by a bomb while flying over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. Her parents John and Lisa were well known to us, and the home had been built from part of the proceeds of the compensation they had received.

The trip to Ooty did us good and I thought that I had got over whatever it was that had caused the problem on Wednesday. However, on Saturday morning I was feeling so unwell that I was unable to attend a graduation service where I was expected to preach. Instead, Lawrence phoned a Christian doctor at the hospital who arranged an immediate appointment for me. They took my blood pressure and gave me an ECG and some tablets for vertigo, but could find nothing wrong with me.

Encouraged by the news, on Sunday I was feeling somewhat better and managed to preach three times, at 6.30am in Zion Church where Lawrence’s father was the pastor, at 9.30am in Bethel City Cathedral led by Pastor David Prakasam, another of our former students, and again in the afternoon at the students’ graduation where Eileen and I presented their certificates.

Mumbai

On Monday we flew back to Mumbai where the temperature was five degrees hotter than usual. Our hosts were Yukka and Lily, Finnish missionaries who, hearing that I was to visit India, had asked if we could fit in a couple of days of seminars before we returned to England. We were accommodated in a comfortable hotel room, but once again I began to feel unwell and ate very little breakfast. I was beginning to feel I just wanted to get home to England, but the flight wasn’t until Thursday.

However, when Biju Thampi, another of our former Mattersey students, called me and asked if he and his wife, Secu, could take us to lunch, we were keen to see him and we agreed to go. They arrived at 12 and before lunch took us to see a little of what they were doing for some of the many homeless children of the area. There were dozens of children on a piece of wasteland in the shadow of a viaduct where people regularly dumped their rubbish.

Biju’s ministry involved sending buses to these children where they provide them with a meal and give them a basic education. He told us moving stories of how they had been able to help these children and of miracles that had happened among them, and we decided to hand over all our remaining rupees to him as a small contribution to this vital work.

By contrast, immediately afterwards they took us to a high-class hotel not far from the rubbish dump where we were treated to a delightful lunch. After what we had seen we almost felt guilty eating it. Our time with Biju and Secu had been all too brief, but as I was scheduled to teach in the afternoon, we had to say goodbye.

Yukka had hired the Catholic Centre and arranged seminars for us from  3.30 to 5.00, and 5.30-7.00 that day with two further sessions scheduled for the Wednesday starting at 9.30. People had travelled great distances to be there to hear me talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately it was extremely hot and there was no air conditioning in the building and I soon began to feel unwell again.

Realising I had a problem, during the break Yukka arranged for me to sit in his car with its air conditioner on and I was able to continue teaching for the first part of the next session. But sadly I had to finish 30 minutes earlier than planned and they rushed me back to the hotel and sent for a doctor who told me that there was nothing seriously wrong with me and that it was all probably due to the heat.

Although that was reassuringly good to hear, it did not, of course, solve the immediate problem. The first session was at 9.30 and the temperature was no cooler and I was unable to complete the seminars. I apologised profusely and the people were very understanding despite their disappointment. They promised that if we ever came again they would be sure to hire an air-conditioned building.

The next day we flew back to England, disappointed that a wonderful trip had finished as it had but intensely relieved to be going home where, hopefully, I would soon be back to normal. But I was soon to discover that my recovery would take far longer than expected. There would be new challenges to face for both of us. But that will be the subject of our next talk.

My Story   Talk 32   Life after Mattersey (2)

Welcome to Talk 32 in our series where I’m reflecting on God’s goodness to me throughout my life. Last time I was telling you how the Lord opened up a wider ministry for me after we left Mattersey and we concentrated on Countries in Europe. Today it will be Africa and Reunion Island.

 

African Countries

I have already mentioned my first trip to Africa which was to Burkina Faso in the year 2000 while we were still at Mattersey. The next trip was to South Africa in 2004, just after leaving Mattersey, which I have also mentioned already. The African countries I visited after Mattersey were Ethiopia (five times between 05 and 09), and Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa again, making a total of ten trips overall, half of which were to Ethiopia..

 

I visited Ghana in 2007 at the invitation of Paul Frimpong Manso, then the Superintendent of the Ashanti Region and later to become the General Superintendent of Assemblies of God in Ghana. Paul had been a student at Mattersey in the nineties, being one of the first to earn our newly validated BA degree and had later returned to take our MA too.

 

The purpose of my visit was primarily to speak at their pastors’ conference and preach at their ordination service for new ministers. I was treated like royalty despite the fact that they were all smartly dressed in suits and ties – and some even with clerical collars – while I wore a short sleeved open-necked shirt, a special concession granted to me as someone unaccustomed to the temperature which, although it was only January, was far too high for my liking – a problem I was to face later in India in 2010.

 

It was a privilege to see the great work that Paul was doing and to know that he valued highly the teaching he had received at Mattersey. One of the things he had said to his fellow-students about my teaching on the Holy Spirit was that in Ghana they not only believed the things I taught but that they also put them into practice! Miracles seem to happen more often in Africa than they do in Europe, but often there is a lack of sound biblical teaching to go with them. The truth is, we need both. And a major part of my ministry has been to emphasise this.

 

My visit to Nigeria in 08 was unique in that the invitation did not come from any of the usual sources. Barrie Taylor is my daughter Sarah’s father-in-law and has exercised an ongoing ministry for many years visiting Nigeria and by regular visits has developed a strong relationship with some of the churches there. As a result they respectfully refer to him as Uncle Barrie.

 

 

 

Barrie invited me to accompany him on one of these trips and I was delighted to do so. We flew to Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, and were met by pastors John Sarota and Vitalis Yahemba, the CEO of Truth and Life Ministry. We travelled by car to Kaduna a journey of some 200 kilometres to the north of Abuja and stayed at the Catholic Social Centre sleeping in relatively comfortable rooms.

 

But I confess I was disturbed at times by the high-pitched buzz an occasional mosquito flapping its wings at 250 times a second and by the fear that one might find its way under the mosquito net. Another disturbance early each morning was the sound of the muezzin calling from the minaret of a local mosque reminding faithful Muslims to pray. Kaduna lies very close to the northern area of Nigeria which is predominantly Muslim and where so many Christians have lost their lives for their faith.

 

Despite the ever-present Muslim threat, Christians from the area gathered in large numbers, evidenced by the fact that while we were there the total attendance was around 2,500, meetings being held at Talmo College in a hall holding about 800 and the messages relayed to four marquees and translated into four different tribal languages. We both felt that the trip had been well worthwhile and I was particularly grateful for the opportunity to get to know Barrie better and to discover how much we both had in common.

 

I went to South Africa again in November 2009 at the request of Paul Alexander to teach at the Africa School of Missions which he had founded some time previously. I enjoyed teaching the small class of students and the fellowship at mealtimes with staff members too. However, there were long periods each day when I had little to do and, apart from a quick visit to the Kruger National Park, which I had visited with Eileen in 04, I needed to find something to do to occupy my time. So I decided the start writing a new book.

 

For some time I had been feeling that I should write something that would be useful as a tool in evangelism, and this was confirmed by something Brian Niblock said to me when he was preaching in our church in Brixham. And that’s how I came to write my little book, Signs from Heaven – why I believe. To my surprise, the whole thing was finished by the time I left South Africa.

 

But perhaps the most significant moment about the whole trip was what happened on the flight home. I checked in online at the earliest possible moment and was able to get a seat at the front of economy where there was the most legroom. But after boarding the plane I was soon asked by a flight attendant if I would vacate my seat as someone had been taken ill and needed easy access to a seat on that row. So I ended up sitting in a different seat, but on the same row and, as it turned out, right next to the man who was unwell.

 

He was accompanied by his wife who explained to me that only a few days earlier they had flown to South Africa for a holiday but on arrival her husband had been rushed to hospital. His condition, the details of which I forget, was quite rare, totally unexpected, potentially fatal, and required specialist treatment. They were returning to England in a state of shock and understandably very worried.

 

They asked me what I had been doing in South Africa, and I said that among other things I had been writing a book about miracles. I said something like,

 

It sounds like you need a miracle right now.

 

It turned out that they were Catholics and, though they hadn’t been to church for a long time, certainly did believe in miracles. I shared the gospel with them, prayed for them, gave them a copy of my book on healing, and posted them Signs from Heaven as soon as it was published. Years later she told me that her husband, who had made an unexpectedly quick recovery, had now died, but that that encounter on the plane had restored their faith in the Lord Jesus.

 

My first trip to Ethiopia was in January 2005 at the invitation of Heikki Pentinnen, a Finnish missionary who was organising an international charismatic conference in Addis Ababa and looking for a main speaker to take several sessions on the gifts of the Spirit. He had heard about me from Arto Hamalainan who knew me well through our work on the PEF presidium. Hundreds of leaders, including those from Orthodox and Coptic churches, gathered from across Ethiopia for this unique occasion and I was thrilled to see their desire to get a biblical grasp on the work of the Spirit.

 

I made annual visits for the next four years (2006-09) teaching for one or two weeks in a Bible College in Addis at the invitation of Canadian missionaries Jeremy and Teresa Feller with whom I usually stayed. Jeremy and Teresa’s parents, Brian and Valerie Rutten, had all come to Mattersey to take our MA in Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies and were keen to have me come and teach in the college where they were serving with PAOC (Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada).

 

On at least two of these occasions, I was accompanied by Eileen who loved the country and its wonderful people. Apart from the teaching in the college we were taken on lengthy trips to parts of the country which were far hotter than Addis where the climate is more acceptable because of its high altitude. One such trip in February 07 was to Awassa some 290 kilometres to the south. Eileen’s journal captures the memory very well:

Lush vegetation, bananas, sugar cane. Beautiful. Lakes, mountains, animals, people, donkey carts. Small groups of huts. Camels, ostrich, hyena. A dead animal being eaten by a vulture and a dog watching and waiting, Young children herding animals, carrying heavy loads, water, bundles of leaves, sticks.

 

The Pentecostal Church in Awassa where I preached on the Sunday was one of the largest in Ethiopia. 2000 people gather at 6.00 every morning to pray. There were 6000 in the 9am service. They have six branch churches with a total membership of 12,000. God is doing amazing things in Ethiopia and I’m so grateful to have had the privilege of teaching and preaching there over those few years.

 

And I’m grateful, too, that we were able to fund the translation into Amharic of Body Builders, my book on spiritual gifts. Despite the massive growth of the church, Ethiopian church leaders recognise their need of sound biblical teaching and if I have made at least a small contribution to that, the Lord be praised.

 

Ile de la Réunion (Reunion Island)

Located in the Indian Ocean between Africa and India, the Ile de la Réunion is an overseas French territory. I have already mentioned in an earlier chapter how in 2004 I was the main speaker at the French National Pastors’ Conference in Bordeaux. It was there that I met David Cizéron who told me about his father’s work in Réunion and gave me a book about him. Aimé Cizeron was now with the Lord, but I was fascinated with the account of his apostolic ministry as a result of which some 40 churches had been planted all over the island.

 

So I was pleasantly surprised a year later to receive an invitation to be a guest speaker at the 40^th Anniversary Celebration of the founding of ADD in Réunion in 2006. They were happy to pay the airfares for both Eileen and me and, as I learnt later, as a tropical island Réunion is a much sought after holiday destination particularly for the French. But we had accepted the invitation well before we knew all this because I was determined to visit the place where 5000 people were gathering within four weeks of the start of Cizéron’s ministry as a result of the miracles of healing that were taking place.

 

So in April 06 we flew to Réunion via Paris, landing at the Roland Garros airport to be greeted by a TV crew asking how we were expecting the eight days of meeting to go. I was very tired after what had been an extremely long journey, made worse by an eleven hour delay in Paris, and simply replied, I believe the Lord will bless us greatly, which he certainly did.

 

But that did not mean that everything would go smoothly. The very next day, our hosts, Patrick and Joanna, were showing us round a market in Saint Denis when they met a friend and introduced us to her. She then said something very strange: You are not afraid of the Chikungunya? Now there were some live chickens for sale in the market and, not knowing what Chikungunya was, I thought it must be something to do with chickens.

 

 

 

But no. Chikungunya is a highly infectious disease borne by mosquitoes and potentially fatal! The entire island was affected by it and we had not noticed the warnings about it when we arrived at the airport. We found out later that Tom Trask, American AoG General Superintendent and guest speaker at the conference, had been warned about it in advance, but somehow no one had thought to tell us.

 

But despite all that, we had a great eight days of meetings and the Lord not only preserved us from the chikungunya but greatly blessed all the meetings and ministry. So much so that we were invited back the following year for a longer visit where I conducted seminars for the pastors on spiritual gifts, preached in two evangelistic meetings, and took a series of Bible studies from Monday to Friday in the church in Saint Denis.

 

The people were really hungry for the Word of God. In each evangelistic meeting over 200 people came forward in response to the gospel appeal, and there were over 700 each night for each of the Bible studies. My subject, as usual, was spiritual gifts, but I shall never forget the remarkable way some one came to Christ at the close of one of those meetings. But first I need to tell you about Véronique.

 

Véronique was a kind lady who took us to explore various parts of the island during the daytime when there were no meetings until the evening. Réunion is a volcanic island and one such trip involved driving to the top of the volcano and then walking down into its crater. This was apparently quite safe even though the volcano erupted quite frequently and the steam was still rising from the lava months after the last eruption.

 

One of the days we were there was a public holiday and Véronique had taken her children to the beach. While she was there she told a friend about the meetings and persuaded her to come. She came to the meeting and was so overwhelmed by the worship that she felt she had to leave. But when she was about ten minutes away from the church she suddenly heard the music from the church coming through her mobile phone. No one had called her and, unable to think of any natural explanation, she felt compelled to return to the meeting. She sat through it in tears and at the end, although I had not made a gospel appeal, came forward and asked how she could be saved. It was such a joy to be able to lead her to the Lord and to learn later that she was regularly attending her local ADD church.

 

So the Lord was using us and blessing us in so many different ways and I look back on those years with great gratitude to God. Next time I’ll be talking about our trip to India in 2010 when I began to experience very real health challenges for the first time in my life.

My Story   Talk 31   Life after Mattersey (1)

Welcome to Talk 31 in our series where I’m reflecting on God’s goodness to me throughout my life. In this talk I shall begin to talk about our life and ministry after we left Mattersey. I’ll explain why I decided to retire from Mattersey when I did and why we moved to Devon. I’ll describe my continuing involvement with Mattersey for a further 12 years and conclude by outlining our wider ministry in Europe.

 

Why I decided to retire when I did

In 2004 both Eileen and I had reached the age of 65. As was customary for women at that time, Eileen had retired as Matron of the College five years previously and I had told the Lord that, unless he clearly showed me that I was to stay on, I would retire as Principal when I was 65. First and foremost, we both wanted only to do what the Lord wanted and as we prayed about it became convinced that the time was right for our departure.

 

Our decision was based on several facts. The Lord had not given us any indication that I should stay on, and he had clearly shown me that the man who would be appointed as my successor would be the man of his choosing. And, as I mentioned in an earlier talk, I had already discussed the matter with other leaders who had agreed with me that the timing was right.

 

It was not as if my relationship with Mattersey was at an end. I was not retiring from Mattersey. I was retiring as its Principal.  Increasing requests for my ministry overseas had meant that a decision had to be made. I could not do justice to my role as Principal and accept so many invitations to minister elsewhere. But that did not mean that I could not continue to teach in the College as a visiting lecturer, and, at the kind invitation of successive principals, I continued to do so for another 12 years.

 

Why we moved to Devon

Of course we had always known that we would have to move because the house we were living in belonged to the College and would be needed by my successor. And we knew that we would have to move immediately. That’s why we were considering our options two or three years beforehand.

 

Colin Whittaker had written to me encouraging me to move right away from Mattersey and Eileen and I both felt that this would be wise. For one thing, the new principal would almost certainly want to make some changes and it would be easier both for him and us if we were not living close by and being asked by our friends in the local church if we approved! Apart from that, our first consideration, wherever we moved, was to be sure that there was a good local AoG church within easy reach where we could become members. Of course, there were plenty of places like that all over the country, so why did we choose Devon? One option might be to move near to one of our children, but as they were all serving the Lord in different parts of the country and might move on at any time, that might not be the wisest course of action.

 

So we felt it would be better both for them and for us if we were to move to a part of the country where the grandchildren would enjoy coming for their holidays. And we could think of no better place than Devon. I had been there on holiday as a teenager, and it was there that I had felt God calling me to the ministry. We knew that there were three AoG churches in Torbay, one in Torquay, one in Paignton, and one in Brixham, where Bob Hyde, one of our former students, was the full-time pastor and leader of the ministry team.  Bob had invited me down to minister on at least two occasions and we were very happy with the way the church was structured and with the spiritual atmosphere in the meetings.

 

Neither of the other churches had invited us to minister and so we knew very little about them, so we started to seriously consider fellowshipping with the Brixham assembly if we were able to afford to move into the Torbay area. I phoned Bob and asked if he would be happy about this, explaining that I was not looking for any position in the church and that my ministry would be further afield.

 

For two or three years we had been looking at property prices in the area and, as it was not convenient to make regular 600 mile round trips to view properties as they came on the market, decided on a new property that was to be built in Paignton. We were able to view one just like it and choose a plot where another was to be built – a four-bedroom house with spectacular views over open countryside and the sea, the nearest beach being only a ten-minute drive away.

 

We decided very quickly that this would be the house for us and, because of God’s wonderful provision, were able to buy it in 2003 and move in immediately after we retired from Mattersey in July 2004. We spent ten very happy years there until we felt the Lord prompting us to move into Brixham to be nearer to the church in 2013, more of which later. Meanwhile I continued to teach at Mattersey and expand our travelling ministry overseas.

 

Continuing Ministry at Mattersey

It was always a great joy to revisit Mattersey each year to teach various M.Th. courses, specialising on The Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Spiritual Gifts, and Divine Healing. Each time we stayed with our friends, William and Anthea Kay who were still living close to Mattersey and enjoyed renewed fellowship with them.

 

It was on one such occasion, in September 2005, that Eileen was involved in a serious accident. I was teaching a combined class of students in the College chapel when I was surprised to see Dr Dave Allen come in at the back. He walked quietly forward and approached me on the platform. Then he whispered to me,

 

You need to go. Eileen is all right, but she’s been involved in an accident. I’ll take over here. They’ll tell you more in the office.

 

The accident had happened less than a mile outside Mattersey on the Retford Road. Someone, I don’t remember who, drove me there immediately and the first thing I saw was a fire engine and an ambulance. I was so glad that Dave Allen had already told me that Eileen was all right, or I would almost certainly have feared the worst. I later discovered a voice-mail message on my phone, which had been switched onto silent while I was lecturing. It was Eileen saying,

 

David, I’ve been in an accident. You need to come. I can’t breathe…

 

… and her voice petered out. I’m so grateful that I didn’t receive that message until after I knew she was all right. It was the airbag that had saved her, but the pressure of it was causing the difficulty in her breathing.

 

The accident was not Eileen’s fault. She was driving into Retford to do some shopping when another car coming in the opposite direction overtook a cyclist on a blind bend and crashed head-on into Eileen. As both cars were probably travelling at 50 m.p.h., the full force of the impact would have been about 100 m.p.h. Both cars were a write-off and the other driver was told that she would probably never walk again as a result of the injuries she suffered. Eileen escaped with two cracked ribs from which she recovered relatively quickly.

 

Our insurance company provided a courtesy car for us and a few days later we drove home to Devon after I had finished the series of lectures I had been giving. Fortunately, we had enough money to buy a replacement vehicle without waiting for the insurance settlement to come through, as less than a week later I was committed to teach an MA course at the Continental Theological Seminary in Brussels. We were both so grateful for the loving care of Trude and Sylve, twin sisters from our church in Brixham who looked after Eileen during my absence. I have always been amazed at Eileen’s patience and fortitude in situations like this and the courage she displayed in face of adversity. I have already mentioned this when speaking about the accident which prevented her from travelling with me to Burkina Faso. But these qualities became even more evident in later life about which I will say more in a later talk.

 

 A Wider Ministry

Apart from my continuing input at Mattersey in the years that followed our departure to Devon in 2004, much of my ministry involved teaching in Bible Colleges and speaking at National Conferences overseas. Invitations came from former students and because of contacts through EPTA, PEF, and the PWF. Eileen was usually able to accompany me and between 2005 and 2012 I ministered in churches, colleges and conferences in Belgium, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Ireland, Luxembourg, Madeira, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Réunion, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden, and Ukraine. In this talk we’ll just be referring to countries in Europe.

 

Some of these places I visited only once, while others, like Finland and Belgium, were countries where I taught in their Bible colleges annually. The subject was almost invariably connected with the work of the Holy Spirit – his person and work, the baptism in the Spirit, spiritual gifts, and healing. Of particular importance was the time I spent with pastors and national leaders sharing with them on how to encourage spiritual gifts in the local church.

 

Places I visited only once during these years were Sweden (05), Ukraine (06), Poland (07), and Slovakia (08). Eileen accompanied me on the trips to Sweden, for a week’s teaching in Kristinehamn, and Slovakia, for an EPTA conference in the vicinity of Bratislava. I travelled unaccompanied to Poland to teach for a week in the Warsaw Theological Seminary and preach in the local Pentecostal church.

 

But when I visited Ukraine I was part of a three-man team from our church in Brixham.  As it was my first (and only) visit, Bob Hyde and Mark Goodyear, both of whom had been before, let me do most of the teaching. In all the churches we visited the subject they asked me to speak on was spiritual gifts. There, as is sadly the case in so many places elsewhere, there is very little teaching on this important subject, so when the opportunity was given in each church, at the end of the meeting the people flocked forward for prayer.

 

Visits I made to Ireland (06, 07, 08) were mainly in connection with my new role as a member of the Board of Governors of the Irish AoG Bible College in Greystones, a seaside village a few miles south of Dublin, where Daniel Caldwell, a former Mattersey student was now the Principal and where several other Mattersey graduates like Roy Leith and Sandy Tutty were now involved . I also had the privilege of preaching at their graduation service in September 07.

 

Eileen and I had often visited our friends John and Ann Leese in Luxembourg as we were en route for our holidays in France or Germany and were always grateful for their hospitality. And in 2006 I was asked to be the guest speaker at their church’s weekend retreat held in Arlon in nearby Belgium. It was always a joy to renew fellowship with our friends from that wonderful church. I also preached there in September 2012 after teaching at CTS in Brussels and before driving on for a week’s teaching in churches in the Paris area of France.

 

Over a period of about 20 years we regularly went to France for our holidays and I would often end up preaching in one of the ADD (AoG) churches there. I don’t have detailed dates for these occasions, but I remember preaching in Auch, Bordeaux, Clermont Ferrand, Metz, Mourrenx, Toulouse, and Versailles, sometimes with less than 24 hours notice! But perhaps the most interesting part of France we ever visited was the Ile de la Réunion.  To which I will return next time.

 

The countries I visited most frequently were Germany (3x), Portugal (4x), Belgium (8x), and Finland (11x). With the exception of Germany, this was because I was annually teaching in their Bible Colleges. Having said that, in 2009 I did teach for a week at Kniebis in the Black Forest at the European Theological Seminary, a beautiful college belonging to the Church of God, where the EPTA conference was to be held the following week.

 

And in 2007, after attending a PEF related conference in Oslo, Norway, we flew to Germany to conduct seminars at the national pastors’ conference of the BFP (Bund Freikirchlicher Pfingstgemeinden), the nearest equivalent to the AoG in Germany. It was also in Oslo that I bumped into Werner Fraas, the president of the Volksmission group of German churches and was invited to conduct a tour of their churches in southern Germany in 2008. Eileen always remembered this well as we slept in a least ten different beds during the course of two weeks’ ministry there before driving on to the EPTA conference in Slovakia.

 

I first visited Portugal in 1982 for an EPTA conference, but it was many years later that I had the opportunity to teach in their Bible College and preach in their churches. Harry Osland was an American missionary who, at the time, was director of the Portuguese Bible College in Fanhoes near Lisbon. It so happened that in 2006 he was in an MA class I was teaching in Belgium at the Continental Theological Seminary and he asked me if I would be willing to come to teach in Portugal.

 

So for three years (07, 08, and 09) I spent a week or so in Portugal, teaching in their college and preaching in their churches. Harry not only organised the itinerary for me but also arranged for several of my books to be translated into Portuguese. He and his wife Beth became good friends and Eileen and I really appreciated their kindness and hospitality.

 

Another contact I had with Portugal was Reginaldo Azevedo de Melo, a Brazilian brother based in Portugal who came to Mattersey as one of our students. With the cooperation of Pastor Luis Reis, who knew me through PEF, after he graduated Reginaldo arranged an itinerary for me preaching in several churches.

 

Our trips the Portugal gave us a taste for Portuguese cuisine, something we also experienced in Madeira, a Portuguese overseas territory, and popular holiday destination because of its pleasant climate all the year round. We first went there in 2008 courtesy of our friends William and Anthea Kay who let us use their lovely time-share apartment. This inspired us to get our own time-share and we returned for three weeks in 2010 when I was asked to preach in the small AoG church in Funchal, about which I shall say more later.

 

My ministry in Belgium was due first to my work with the International Correspondence Institute, which I referred to in an earlier talk, and secondly, to my contact with CTS, the Continental Theological Seminary, through fellowship with friends in EPTA. Roland and Judy Dudley, American AoG missionaries, had led the Portuguese Bible College back in the eighties and had moved on to Sint-Pieters-Leeuw near Brussels to head up CTS. At Roland’s invitation I taught on the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Spiritual Gifts, and Divine Healing on their MA programme for eight consecutive years (2005-2012). I was often asked to preach in their chapel services when we saw many students receive the baptism in the Spirit. Eileen and I were housed in one of the well-equipped apartments in the college.

 

We always enjoyed our visits to Belgium and took the opportunity to admire the wonderful architecture in cities like Brussels and Ghent as well as preaching in churches there. And every year we were at CTS made sure that we made a visit to the outlet store of a nearby chocolate factory and bring back plenty in time for Christmas!

 

And finally Finland, a country we visited even more often that Belgium. Apart from my contact with Teuvo Valkama that I mentioned in an earlier talk, it was friends I met at PEF and EPTA meetings who were the main instigators of our visits to that beautiful country. I first met Arto Hamalainnen at the ICCOWE conference in Brighton in June 1991 but later got to know him much better as we both served on the PEF Presidium, he as secretary and I as vice-chairman. Arto was the Missions Director for the Finnish Pentecostal Churches and was responsible for recommending me for my first visit to Ethiopia in 2005 and my visit to India in 2010, about which I will say more next time.

 

But it was Pasi Parkkila, the Director of the Finnish Bible College, who was responsible for most of our visits to Finland. I first met Pasi at an EPTA conference – I don’t remember which, possibly at CTS in 02 or in Nantwich in 04 – but he asked me if I would be willing to teach on their MA programme at Iso Kirja, which incidentally means The Great Book – what a name for a Bible College! So, apart from 2010 when I was too unwell to go, I taught at Iso Kirja the same subjects as I was teaching at CTS every year from 2005 to 2012. But apart from teaching at Iso Kirja I also visited Finland for the EPTA conference in 06 and was the guest speaker at their National Pastors’ Conference both in 08 and 09.

 

Eileen invariably travelled with me on our visits to Iso Kirja when most years we were accommodated in a comfortable log cabin overlooking a beautiful lake.  Tuula, Pasi’s wife, a primary school teacher, kindly loaned us her car throughout our visits which gave us a measure of independence while we were there enabling us to drive into the nearest town, Keuruu, or to Jyväskylä a larger town a little further away.

 

We were also able to visit a number of churches during our trips, including one at Seinäjoki where outstanding miracles of healing were regularly taking place in their meetings. From the reports I was hearing I could hardly imagine that there was anyone in the church left with a problem, but after my preaching some fifty or sixty people came forward for prayer, all expecting to be personally prayed for. And as we had to communicate through an interpreter this inevitable took twice as long as usual. An hour and a half after the end of the meeting I laid hands on the last person and was feeling in need of prayer myself. I was extremely tired and hungry but felt I had learnt a lesson – even when miracles are happening there will always be people in need of prayer.

 

Perhaps the final thing to say about Finland is that at the request of Aikamedia, the Finnish Publishing Department, at least four of my books have been published in Finnish. I am encouraged that my teaching in Finland still goes on even though I have not been there in person since 2012.

 

The Lord had certainly extended the scope of my ministry and confirmed that it was right for us to leave Mattersey when we did.

 

Next time we’ll talk about our trips to Reunion, Africa and India.

My Story  Talk 30  Finding my successor and saying farewell to Mattersey

Welcome to Talk 30 in our series where I am reflecting on God’s goodness to me throughout my life. Today my subject is finding my successor and saying farewell to Mattersey.

From all I have said so far it has been clear that the Lord had abundantly blessed our work for him at Mattersey and there was no requirement that I should retire in 2004 at the age of 65. The system at the time was that my name was put forward for re-election every four years and the next time this was to happen was in 2003. There was little doubt that I would be re-elected if I let my name go forward, but did I want to serve another four years and continue until I was 68? More importantly, what did the Lord want?

It was clear that he had been blessing my ministry beyond the College for some years and an increasing number of doors were opening for me, particularly with regard to teaching internationally on the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps I would be able to continue teaching in the College but make room for someone else to take over the principalship.

The more I thought about this the more I felt it was right. Guidance comes in a variety of ways, sometimes supernaturally and quite dramatically, and at others by an increasing inner conviction that a particular course of action is the right one. I have already described the wonderful way the Lord led us to Mattersey and how, soon after we arrived there he confirmed that the building we were planning was his plan too. But now, as no clear guidance was forthcoming, I decided that we just had to do what we felt was right and ask the Lord to intervene if it was not his will.

I wondered if the AoG Conference would agree to let me put my name forward for just one more year, instead of the usual four and decided to talk to my friend Paul Weaver, the AoG General Superintendent about this. A suitable opportunity arose when we both arrived a day early for a PEF meeting in Prague and were both accommodated in the same hotel.

Paul assured me that he felt that, if I decided to take that route, no one at Conference would raise an objection, and we started to explore possibilities about who would be my successor. Colleagues had already told me that they couldn’t think of anyone suitable, but I realised that, whoever they were, my successor didn’t need to be another David Petts. Talking to Paul, I suggested four names who I thought could do the job and he agreed.

However, I need to make it clear that it was not my responsibility to appoint my successor, though I would be part of the interview panel and hopefully people would prayerfully consider any suggestion I might make. Having informally agreed these things with Paul, I referred the matter to the Board of Governors and the Executive Council who all agreed with the procedure I was suggesting.

As a result, Paul Alexander, a South African who had been a student at Mattersey and who had gone on to found the Africa School of Missions and who had been one of the four names I had mentioned to Paul Weaver, was appointed as Principal with effect from summer 2004. He was, however, expected to work alongside me from 2003 so as to get used to the way we were doing things. I personally felt it a pity that he never really did so, but he did, nevertheless make an excellent Principal and invited me to continue teaching annually on the Master’s programme, which I did until 2015.

But before Paul finally took over the reins suitable arrangements had to be made to celebrate the years we had spent at Mattersey. The Board of Governors asked me what I would like, and I said that I wanted opportunity to say thank you to all who had made possible the things we had accomplished together over the past 27 years.

As a result, we ended up with no less than four celebrations. First there was a sumptuous buffet banquet at the General Conference for all former students, staff and faculty who were able to attend. Then, in the final week of the Summer Term there was a celebration meal for all the present students. This was followed a day or so later by another meal for all the staff and faculty, past and present, who had ever served the College during my principalship.

And finally, there was the Graduation Service on the Saturday where Ken Morgan, the Chair of the Board of Governors, expressed appreciation on behalf of the College and handed me a generous cheque. It was also the occasion when the University of Wales conferred upon me the honour of appointing me as an Honorary Academic Fellow of the university. I, of course, expressed my appreciation to all concerned and welcomed Paul Alexander as the new Principal. Two days later we vacated the house we had lived in for 25 years and moved to Devon, grateful to God for all he had done and excited about all he was yet to do. But that’s the subject of the next talk.

 

Meanwhile, by way of a summary of our years at Mattersey, I want to read you my final report as Bible College Principal to the AoG Conference held in 2004:

 

Thanks be to God…

This is something of a special occasion as this will be the last report that I shall write as the Principal of the Bible College. I intend, therefore, instead of reporting on events in the college over the past 12 months, to look back over the 34 year period of my relationship with the college, and especially the 27 years of my principalship, in order that I might place on record my profound gratitude to God for all he has done, and to those who have helped to make it all possible.

My relationship with the college goes back to 1970 when, at the invitation of the Principal, George Jeffreys Williamson, I became a visiting lecturer. It was during that period when, in January 1972, God spoke to me supernaturally in the middle of the night and told me that I was going to live at the Bible College.

When David Powell became Principal in 1973 and the college moved to Mattersey, he continued to use me as a visiting lecturer until, in 1976, I was appointed by Conference as a member of the Board of Governors.

In 1977 David Powell offered himself for re-election but withdrew his name at the last minute at conference. This led to my sharing the principalship for a year with Alfred Missen and Keith Munday whose experience, expertise and advice were to prove of great value to me. I was finally appointed Principal in 1978 and took up residence at Mattersey in June of that year.

 

… for what he has done

The purpose of the college has always been to prepare men and women for Christian service at home and overseas. I feel deeply privileged to have been involved in the training of well over 1000 full-time students during my time as Principal.

On leaving college many have gone into church leadership roles and those who have not have been better equipped to serve the Lord in other capacities. In recent years, since we developed our degree programme up to 10 each year have gone into school teaching. Several are now in prominent positions in the Fellowship nationally or regionally. Others are doing a great job for God overseas. We are so grateful that the money we invested by giving scholarships to students from India and Africa has resulted over the years in many churches being planted in those countries.

It is because I passionately believe that the training Mattersey provides results in a better-equipped Christian leadership that we have sought from the start to expand the number of students as far as our capacity and ability would allow. As a result I am pleased to report that there are some 500+ students who are currently engaged on courses provided by Mattersey Hall compared with the 48 we started with in 1978. We started the current year with 126 full time BA students, 56 part time MTh students, and 323 students enrolled on our distance learning courses. This growth has only been made possible by the development of both the programme and the campus.

As far as the programme is concerned, much has been added over the years. Whereas we originally offered only a two-year diploma programme where all students took all the same subjects, we now provide a varied curriculum with specialist options for training in the specific areas where students are gifted or to which they feel called. Details of these are to be found in the latest college prospectus and there is no need to mention them here. Suffice it to say that Mattersey now offers courses that combine both academic excellence and practical relevance with a spiritual dynamic that reflects our Pentecostal heritage.

But the development of the programme has only been possible because of the development on the campus. Thanks to the many gifts we received from churches and individuals, particularly back in the 1980s, the Lord has enabled us to improve the facilities on campus beyond recognition. This may be summarised as follows:

 

1979

Construction of the Principal’s house

1980s

Erection of the hall of residence providing 120 individual study-bedrooms for students

Purchase of playing field doubling the size of campus to 14 acres.

1998

Erection of new chapel and three new classrooms.

We are very grateful to property trust for the help they have given us in providing a mortgage for this and for other assistance they have given from time to time.

In connection with all of the above, I wish to place on record my sincere appreciation for the faith of those who have served on the Board of Governors and for the support they have given me over the years. It has not all been easy, but the Lord has stood by us and by his grace we now have a campus equipped with facilities commensurate with the task that we seek to undertake.

 

… for those who have helped

Of course, there have been many helpers along the way. It gives me great pleasure to place on record my sincere appreciation to all who have served the College in any way during the course of my principalship. Worthy of special mention are my wife, Eileen, who served as Matron for 21 years; Dave and Beryl Allen who have worked with me full time since 1983; Brian Quar, whose experience in the building industry was most valuable to us in our major building projects; and William Kay, who has encouraged me and helped me to bring the college to its present academic standard. However, I am no less grateful to all who have played their part and accordingly I honour them here.  (There then follows a long list).

My thanks to them all, and to any whose names I may have inadvertently omitted.

…for what the future holds

Finally, It seems appropriate to say a word as to what I feel the future holds. As far as the college is concerned, it is clear that the job is by no means finished. I have every confidence in Paul Alexander and I know that he has a vision for further growth and expansion. I entrust to his care the college I have been privileged to lead for 27 years and the gifted and dedicated team who have been working with me. I pray that he will be able to take the college further than I have been able to. May the Lord inspire him and direct him to that end. I believe with all my heart that Mattersey is the best – though not the only – means we have of preparing men and women for the ministry. Potential leaders need to be encouraged to make the most of the great opportunity it offers.

As for me, I have made it clear that I am not retiring from ministry. The call of God is as strong as ever. I am relinquishing my responsibilities as Principal in order to be free to serve in a wider capacity. As long as the Lord enables, I shall continue to preach and teach and write. I shall remain a member of the Board of Governors, though now in an emeritus capacity. Paul has kindly asked me to continue to teach some part time courses that relate to the work of the Spirit, and this I have agreed to do. I will be happy to support him in any way I can.

Thank you for giving me the great privilege of serving you. When all is said and done, I have only done what it was my duty to do (Luke 17: 10). But it has given me great joy to do it.

To God alone be all the glory!

Respectfully submitted

David Petts, Principal

My Story   Talk 29  Travels in Asia and Africa

My first trip outside of Europe or America was in 1986 when I visited Pakistan, India, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. It came about in a quite remarkable way. One Sunday in 1985 I was reading an article about India in a Christian magazine when quite unexpectedly I had the distinct impression that the Lord was going to send me to India. I told Eileen about it and we agreed to wait and see what would happen. The very next Wednesday evening we had a meeting in the College chapel where the guest speaker was Ray Belfield who had come to challenge the students about overseas missions.

After the meeting Ray came round to our house for a hot drink before making the return journey back to Wigan. As we prayed together just before he left, I found myself praying that the Lord would show us how best we as a College could support the work of missions, and the moment I had finished Ray said to me,

            I’ll tell you what you can do. You can go to India.

I had told him nothing about what had happened the previous Sunday, so this seemed to be a real confirmation of what I felt the Lord had been telling me. But how would I raise the airfare?

Shortly after that, Bob Stevenson was the speaker at a similar Wednesday evening meeting, and at the end of his message he totally surprised me. He said to the students,

Now the Principal doesn’t know I’m going to do this. In fact, I haven’t asked anyone’s permission to do so, but I want us to take an offering now. It’s for your Principal’s airfare to India.

And the airfare was covered. The following January I went to India.

In fact it was not just India. That month I visited Pakistan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia as well.

I travelled first to Pakistan and preached for a weekend in Karachi. This was my first experience outside of Europe or America and the culture shock was massive. And it wasn’t helped by a severe attack of sickness and diarrhoea! I was so grateful that my friend Dr John Tonge had told me to pack some Imodium tablets! As a result, I was able to preach but sadly unable to eat any of the wonderful food they offered me.

On the Monday I flew on to India with an empty stomach but soon recovered very quickly. I landed in Bombay (now Mumbai) and flew on to Coimbatore in the province of Tamil Nadu where AoG missionaries, Lawrence and Margaret Livesey, had planted churches decades earlier. It was truly wonderful to see the results of their sacrificial labours.

I spent a little over two weeks there, preaching, teaching and visiting orphanages and schools run by the churches. David Prakasam and Lawrence Arumanayagam had both been students at Mattersey and were now training others to plant churches. One of the greatest thrills of my trip was to visit some of the many churches that had been planted by the students of our students. I saw very clearly that what we were doing at Mattersey was following Paul’s instruction to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2.

The rest of my trip was spent in short visits to Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. I was based with Cyril and Barbara Cross, British AoG missionaries in Singapore, who looked after me very well. Before I flew back home I had the privilege of preaching in Bible College chapel in Kuala Lumpur, a large AoG church in Singapore, and a very lively house group led by an eighteen-year-old girl in Medan, Indonesia. If I had ever had doubts about women’s ministry in the past, that girl’s anointed leadership gift was more than enough to change my mind.

My final trip to countries beyond Europe while we were still at Mattersey was to Burkina Faso in the year 2000. Several of our students at Mattersey had come from that part of Africa, formerly known as the Upper Volta. Like our students from India, most of them came on full scholarships which we provided for them. The first of these was Guetawende Roamba, the student I mentioned earlier who had recognised that a woman speaking in tongues in a College rally in Manchester was speaking in Moré, his own native language.

Another, who came a few years later, was Philippe Ouédraogo who when he first arrived at Mattersey couldn’t speak a word of English. I remember picking him up at Retford Station and speaking to him in French, giving him his first English lesson on the ten-minute journey back to College. Passing a field of cows, I pointed at them and said, les vaches, en anglais, COWS. Not that that piece of information would be much help for his studies at Mattersey! But it was a start, and Philippe became remarkably proficient in English in just a few weeks.

It was through him that we received the invitation to visit Burkina Faso in November 2000. Eileen was very much looking forward to coming with me but unfortunately was prevented from doing so at the last minute. Eileen had retired in 1999 after serving as College Matron for 21 years and was at home in the utility room doing some decorating. As she was putting up a frieze she climbed onto the washing machine to help her reach the top of the wall and losing her balance fell off it backwards onto the hard floor, breaking the top of her arm close to the shoulder.

On hearing the news I was home within minutes – our house was in the College grounds – and rushed her to A&E who confirmed the fracture and strongly advised her not to make the trip to Africa. And when I arrived there a few days later and experienced travelling on their bumpy roads, it was clear that we had made the right decision. The leaders in Ouagadougou were so impressed that she had let me come that they sent me home a few days earlier than planned.

The highlights of the trip were preaching several times in French at the National Pastors’ Conference, having a meal with, I think, seven of our former students, and being taken to visit some of the villages in the surrounding area. I shall never forget a lady giving me one of her chickens as a thank you for visiting her humble home and being taken by Philippe to a pool inhabited by several alligators.

One of them, about eight to ten feet in length, was basking in the sun on the edge of the bank. Although they were wild animals Phillippe persuaded me to approach it from behind while he threw it a chicken.  He then encouraged me to pick up its tail and I, not liking to appear not to trust him, cautiously did as he said. And there was no reaction from the animal! So I was able to tell the grandchildren what I had done and show them a photo to prove it, warning them never to anything so foolish!

But actually it wasn’t quite as foolish as it sounds. The alligators were indeed wild, but as Philippe explained to me, the people who were not yet Christians worshipped these animals and regularly brought them food. As a result they had become relatively tame. There was, of course, an element of danger – you never know what a wild animal might do – but they were, oxymoronically, tame wild animals!

I am so grateful to the Lord not only for the privilege of visiting so many different countries and cultures, and for so many opportunities to be a blessing to so many people, but also for the fun I’ve had in doing so. And this was to continue for years after my retirement from Mattersey. But before that could happen a very important decision had to be made. Who was to be my successor?

Next time I’ll tell you how that decision was made.

My Story  Talk 28  Activities Beyond Europe

Welcome to Talk 28 in our series where I’m reflecting on God’s goodness to me throughout my life. Looking back on it, I suppose I travelled fairly widely during the time we were at Mattersey. Apart from the many places in Europe we visited, I found myself on the Lord’s business in America, Africa, and Asia, though never, incidentally in Australia. These visits, which cover the period from 1982 to 2004, were either in connection with the Pentecostal World Conference which later became the Pentecostal World Fellowship or preaching trips

The Pentecostal World Conference

My reason for attending the Pentecostal World Conference in Oslo in 1992 was that, because it was being held in Europe, the PEF presidium had decided to hold a committee meeting there at the same time. Eileen and I had visited Norway for the first time two years previously where we had enjoyed a holiday there before attending the EPTA conference in Lillehammer. This time, however, I was alone.

During one of the mornings, I was sitting high up at the back of the auditorium and was surprised to hear my name mentioned at the close of the session. Dr Ray Hughes was asking me to see him on the platform during the coffee break.  I couldn’t imagine why but, of course, went to see him as requested. This was not quite as easy as it sounds because to get there I had to make my way through hundreds of people who were exiting the venue and all walking in the opposite direct from me.

When I finally got there, he said to me,

Oh David, as you know, you’ve been appointed to the Advisory Committee, and we’d like you to sit on the platform with us for the rest of the conference.

Well, I knew nothing about this appointment. It was a complete surprise and when a year or so later I was elected to the Presidium it was an even greater honour.

The 1995 conference was particularly special because it was held in Jerusalem. And this time Eileen came with me. We had never been in Israel before and we made sure that we saw as many of the biblical sites as possible. We had booked a tour with a Christian company and travelled in a small coach with a group of Brits who were attending the conference, and it was there that we met Ivor and Jan Maddison who were pastoring the church in Ollerton, not far from Mattersey.  (We got to know Jan very well when she came to live in Brixham after Ivor had died).

The tour involved a visit to Tiberias on the shore of Lake Galilee from where we visited Capernaum, took a trip across the lake in a boat like those used by Jesus’ disciples and from which he calmed the storm, and had a meal on the lake shore eating ‘St. Peter’s fish’, so called because of the occasion where he found a coin in the fish’s mouth. We went to Caesarea Philippi, a beautiful place, where Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ. We visited the place in the river Jordan where Jesus is believed to have been baptised, and further south we had a brief stop in Jericho.

 

We travelled up from there to Jerusalem in time for the conference and of course visited Bethlehem and all the places you would expect, many of which have been spoilt by centuries of tradition and tourism. Eileen got to see Nazareth, but I missed the trip because I had to be in a presidium meeting.

Highlights in Jerusalem were the Garden of Gethsemane, and the via dolorosa. But without a doubt the visit to the garden tomb was by far the most moving. It may or may not have been the actual site of Jesus’ burial and resurrection, although I like to think that it was, but it was certainly a powerful reminder of the truth – Jesus is not here, he is risen! And who could forget the visit to the Upper Room and joining with other Pentecostals in speaking in tongues as the first disciples did in Acts 2?

After the conference we visited Masada, floated on the Dead Sea where it’s impossible to sink, and went to the cave where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered. It was there, I think, that we paid an Arab to let us take a photo of his camel! We also visited a museum where we saw a number of ancient seals, some dating back over three thousand years, and reminding us of Paul’s teaching that after we believed we were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

So during the trip there was much to remind us of Bible times and the truth of God’s word. We were glad that we went but have never had a wish to return. Eileen is now enjoying the heavenly Jerusalem and one day I will join her there. And all because of Jesus!

In 1998 the conference was held in Seoul, Korea, at the vast Yoido Full Gospel Church led by David Yongghi Cho, numbering at the time some 720,000 members. We had at first thought to extend the trip and visit China and the Great Wall. Eileen had always had a great interest in China, but when it turned out that the visit was not feasible she decided not to accompany me.

I had met Cho at the London world conference in 1976 when I gave him a copy of my book, Know the Truth, later to be renamed You’d Better Believe It. I was naturally interested to visit his church and to experience one of the Sunday services there. There were, I think, six services each Sunday to accommodate the vast numbers. Everything had to be organised and left little if any room for the exercise of spiritual gifts like tongues, interpretation and prophecy which we might expect in a smaller congregation. Presumably there was opportunity for such gifts to be experienced in their many home groups.

The final meeting of the conference was held in the Olympic Stadium where it was estimated that over 100,000 people were in attendance. I was privileged to read from the scriptures, which I found a little difficult on this occasion as I had somehow mislaid my glasses on a visit to the Prayer Mountain and was using a pair borrowed from an English brother who was staying in the same hotel as me.

During the conference it was decided to hold the next presidium meeting in Hawaii in 1999. The reasoning seemed to be that as Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean it was not too far from either Asia or America. However, no one considered the inconvenience for anyone travelling from Europe! But as I was the only European on the presidium I could hardly object.

So that is how I came to fly to Hawaii, a 24 hour journey each way, for a three-day committee meeting! The purpose was to plan for the 2001 conference which was to be held in Los Angeles. Fortunately, the meeting finished a day early and I had a day to spare before flying home. This gave me the opportunity to take a minibus tour of the island, visiting among other things Pearl Harbour and a tropical rain forest. I also experienced macadamia nuts for the first time and learnt that the name comes a Scot named Macadam who first discovered them and who also invented tarmac!

Eileen was able to travel with me for the Los Angeles conference in 2001 and in the week before the conference we both enjoyed a short holiday staying with Brian and Ann Lee, old friends from Retford who had emigrated to La Verne just a few miles from L.A.  It was good to renew fellowship with them and to preach in their local AoG church.

At the conference itself I had been asked to chair a theological seminar at which Roger Stronstad, a Canadian scholar whose writings I greatly admired, was to be one of the speakers. The subject was the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and at the last minute, I was asked to be the other speaker deputising for an American brother who was unable to attend. I was so grateful to the Lord for the opportunity he gave me to speak at the conference and the help he gave me to do so.

The last world conference we attended was in South Africa in 2004. This conference was in many ways different from all the others. In the opening meeting the delegates were warmly welcomed by the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeke who had been deputy president under Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1999 and served as president from ’99 to 2008. Eileen felt particularly honoured as she was seated right next to him on the front row!

But much more important was the fact that so many participants were from African countries, and the meetings were marked by the freedom of expression so typical of African worship and so different from the formalism we have seen elsewhere even in some Pentecostal meetings. It was something we were to see much more of in later visits to Africa in the years that followed my retirement from Mattersey,

After the conference we hired a car and travelled to the Africa School of Missions founded by Paul Alexander, my newly appointed successor at Mattersey. We broke our journey at Witbank where I preached at two services on the Sunday, travelling on to ASM on the Monday where we were warmly welcomed by the staff. They asked us if we were planning to visit the Kruger National Park, and, when we said no, one of them kindly phoned a relative who worked there and arranged for us to stay for a few nights at Skukuza, one of the safari lodges in the park.

Our accommodation was in an extremely comfortable one-room apartment that looked something like a traditional African hut with a thatched roof. The restaurants served excellent food which was relatively inexpensive and offered views overlooking the wonderful wildlife. We enjoyed every moment we spent at Skukuza, especially when a company of mongooses ran across the compound in single file right in front of us.

But of course it was driving outside the safari park that we saw most of the wildlife. It was early spring in the southern hemisphere, and the leaves had only just begun to appear on the trees and bushes, making it easy to spot whatever animals and birds happened to be in the area. We travelled miles each day, taking care to obey the instruction never to get out of the car except in specially designated safe places.

We were also glad that the car had good air-conditioning because it was often important to ensure the windows were closed. On one occasion we stopped to watch a group of baboons in the road just ahead of us and I closed the electric windows. However, I had momentarily forgotten that, unlike our car at home, our hire car had electric windows only at the front.

We only realised the back ones were still open when a large baboon leapt in onto the back seat attempting to steal our lunch! I turned round and shouted in a loud voice – Eileen later told the grandchildren that Grandad roared like a lion – and thank God, the animal obeyed! Both we and our lunch were safe. After that, we never opened the back windows again for the rest of the trip.

Apart from that, the remainder of our stay there was relatively uneventful. We loved it so much that when I was back at ASM a few years later I borrowed a car and went back there. Our visit was far too short but was the highlight of our trip to South Africa. We were particularly grateful that in such a short time we had managed to see the big five – lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and buffalo, a wonderful ending to our last Pentecostal World Conference.

Preaching trips

But of course my travels beyond Europe were not limited to my role in the Pentecostal World Fellowship. There were preaching trips as well. At first, these centred on the USA where I combined preaching with raising funds for our building project. An American AoG pastor named Paul Curtis had a burden for Britain came to see me on one of his trips to England and said he would like to help raise funds for our new Hall of Residence.

So at Paul’s invitation, in February ’82 I spent ten days preaching in AoG churches in North Carolina with a view to returning in mid-May for a period of four weeks. I enjoyed the trip in February, and the Lord blessed my ministry, and about £1400 was raised towards our building fund. Hopefully the trip in May-June would be more fruitful in that respect. I was looking forward to it and had bought my flights in advance as that was more economical.

But only a few weeks before the trip Paul contacted me to apologise and tell me that he had been unable to arrange a suitable itinerary for me and that he felt that the time was not right. But I had already bought non-refundable tickets for flights both ways! And I had already planned the timetable at Mattersey to enable me to be away from the college throughout that period! After praying about it I contacted John and Sara Miles who were by then living in Naperville, Illinois, and asked their advice.

Sara suggested that I was in a situation like Abraham’s when he set off not knowing where the Lord would lead him. So I used the air tickets to fly as far as New York and paid the extra to fly on to Chicago where John and Sara collected me from O’Hare airport on May the 18^th. When I arrived they told me that they had contacted Richard Dortch, the Superintendent of the Illinois AoG, and that he was arranging an itinerary for me around Illinois where I was already known through my three visits back in the seventies.

I stayed with John and Sara until 6^th July preaching in churches in the Chicago area on Sundays and Wednesday evenings. These included Yorkville, Palatine, Dekalb, Naperville, and Lake Villa as well as Chicago itself. I also spent a day at Wheaton College, had lunch with John, who was now a French professor there, and with Peter Kuzmic from Yugoslavia, and saw the wardrobe made famous in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

On Thursday the 27^th I flew via Denver to San José, California, to visit Bethany Bible College. Dick Foth, who had been the pastor in Urbana where I first preached on my visit to the States in 1972, was now the President of Bethany and I had a couple of useful days with him visiting the college and comparing notes. 

I had an interesting experience flying back on the Saturday. The weather was extremely hot and everyone else was dressed in shorts and T shirts. I, however, was still wearing my jacket. As I was waiting in the queue to check in, an airline official approached me and said,

Excuse me, sir. I wonder if you can help me. We’re overbooked in Economy Class, and as you seem to be a suitable gentleman, I wonder if you would mind travelling First Class.

Would I mind! It was the first and only time I have travelled First Class and, although I could never justify the expense of doing so, I was more than happy to enjoy the experience at no extra cost to myself.

On 6^th June I left Naperville and flew to Urbana where I preached on the Sunday and where my old friend Jim Hall was now the pastor. The next day I flew to Springfield MO to visit two other AoG colleges, Evangel College and Central Bible College, as well as the Graduate School located in the AoG Headquarters in Boonville Avenue.

When I returned to Urbana on the Friday, Jim Hall had arranged an English Evening where I talked about the spiritual state of the UK and taught the Americans how to make a proper cup of tea! On the Sunday morning, I preached in Normal, where Marvin Foulkes was the pastor. I had preached for Marvin back in ’72 and ’74 and was delighted to see how much the church had grown since then.

In the evening, I preached in Decatur from where I flew back to Chicago ready for my return to England the next day. Looking back on it, I felt that the trip had been very worthwhile, not just because it raised about $5000 for our college, but because of the opportunity it gave me to visit and learn from other AoG colleges and expand my vision for Mattersey. I was very grateful to Richard Dortch for making it possible.

A year later I met Dortch in Portugal at the opening of the new chapel in the Bible College in Fanhões, near Lisbon, and he shared with me that he was soon likely to become the Executive Vice-President at PTL, the centre of Jimmy and Tammy Bakker’s ministry, and he invited me to preach for a week on their TV station. This took place in 1985 and during our stay Eileen, Jonathan, and I were treated to the luxurious accommodation of the Heritage Grand Hotel. And we came home with a significant sum of money for our building fund.

 We were, of course, very grateful for their hospitality and generosity, but I confess I was not really comfortable about so much luxury. Coming to terms with the cultural differences and levels of poverty or prosperity we see around the world is by no means easy. The riches of America were in stark contrast with the poverty I was to see in India less than a year later.

But I’ll tell you about that next time.

My Story   Talk 27  More Activities in Europe

Welcome to Talk 27 in our series where I’m reflecting on God’s goodness to me throughout my life. Last time I was talking about our off-campus activities while we were at Mattersey. I began by talking about activities in Britain and concluded with our activities in Europe, particularly in connection with EPTA, the European Pentecostal Theological Association.

Today we’ll be saying more about Europe, first with regard to our activities in the Pentecostal European Fellowship, and then about my preaching in national leaders’ conferences as well as in local churches.

The Pentecostal European Fellowship

As I have already explained, PEF was formed as a result of a merger between PEC and EPF. Little did I know when I accepted the invitation to preach at the PEC conference in 1978 that it would eventually lead not only to the founding of EPTA but also to a ministry within PEF itself, and ultimately to representing Europe on the Presidium of the Pentecostal World Conference.

Because of my experience in Europe, I was first asked by the AoG Executive Council, as its chairman, to represent AoG on the PEF committee. Jakob Zopfi from Swtizerland had been its chairman for many years and, after Reinhold Ulonska retired as vice-chairman, the PEF Committee elected me to take his place.

Major features of the work of PEF were the conferences it usually held once every three years. Thousands of people from all over Europe came to these conferences, though the majority on each occasion came from the country that was hosting it. Relatively few, however, came from the UK. This may have been because of the cost of crossing the channel, or even because the preaching was always done through an interpreter which English speaking people often find it hard to get used to.

After preaching at the conference in The Hague in 1978, the next PEF conference we attended was in Böblingen near Stuttgart in 1984, but not in any official capacity. Eileen and I went on to attend conferences in Jönköping, (Sweden, 1991), Bordeaux (France, 1994), Fridek-Mistek (Czech Republic, 1997), Helsinki (Finland, 2000), and Berlin (Germany, 2003).

There are many towns in Sweden with a name ending in –koping. It’s connected with our English word shopping and is roughly equivalent to market. It was at Jönköping (pronounced yernsherping) that I was appointed to serve as Vice Chairman of PEF. We travelled there by car, which may seem surprising bearing in mind the distance, but it meant that Eileen could come with me, and the trip would cost no more than the price of one air ticket for me. And it turned out that, as most of the delegates had arrived by plane, there was little transport available between the hotel and the conference centre.

This meant that we were able to transport Dr Ray Hughes, who was the chairman of the Pentecostal World Conference and the guest speaker from America, to and from the meetings. It gave him the opportunity to get to know us and may have been partly the reason why the following year I was appointed to serve on the PWC advisory committee, and eventually as a member of its presidium.

We also travelled by car to the Bordeaux conference in 1994, combining it with a holiday exploring south-western France and visiting Castera Verduzan in Gascony, and Mauléon-Licharre and Eaux Bonnes in the Pyrenees. The conference was particularly significant for Eileen because she was the wife of the Vice-Chairman. This normally carried no specific responsibility, but Sylvia Zopfi, the wife of the Chairman, had broken her leg and was unable to attend.

Consequently, it fell to Eileen to preside at a meal for ladies, most of whom were French speaking. Of course there was an interpreter, but Eileen never saw herself as an ‘up front’ person and was understandably nervous. Because it was a meal for ladies, I was unable to attend, but I found out later that Herman von Ameron, the husband of the guest speaker, had crept in at the back. So I asked him privately how Eileen had got on, and he replied,

She was magnificent. She was like the Queen!

Following the political reforms known as perestroika introduced by Russian President Mikhail Gorbachov in the late 1980s, Czechoslovakia was divided into two separated nations, the Czech Republic (or Czechia) and Slovakia. Fridek-Mistek was the venue chosen for the 1997 PEF conference, because it lies on the border of these two countries and so provided delegates from both equal opportunities to attend.

Once again, Eileen and I travelled by car, taking extra care in Czechia not to exceed the speed limit, as we’d heard that the Czech police were likely to impose heavy fines on foreigners for any minor infringement. We took the opportunity to visit Prague, a beautiful city, for a weekend before travelling on to the conference.

It was now almost 20 years since I had first preached at the conference in The Hague, but for the next decade I was to become a regular speaker with the special responsibility of preaching on the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and praying for people to receive. Sadly there are still many people who attend Pentecostal churches who have not yet come into the experience and in a conference where thousands are in attendance the numbers coming forward for prayer were likely to be enormous.

Pentecostal pastors often seem reluctant to teach on the subject, possibly because they are frightened that, when they lay hands on those they pray for, they will not begin to speak in tongues. So I felt the need to preach not only to the people, but also to the pastors. And at Fridek-Mistek I decided to pray for the pastors before I prayed for the people. I asked all the pastors who wanted the Lord to use them in laying hands on people to receive the baptism, to come forward first. I explained that I would pray for them first so that they could then join with me in praying for the people.

Dozens of pastors came forward and after I had prayed for them I asked them to turn round and face the congregation. I then called the people to come forward. Hundreds came and each pastor had a queue of people to pray for. Of course, it’s impossible to know how many spoke in tongues for the first time, especially in a meeting where so many different languages are spoken! And, even with the people I personally prayed for, there was no way of knowing if they were speaking in tongues or if they were just praying in their own native language.

But one thing was particularly noteworthy. When teaching on the baptism I have always been careful to stress that the evidence we are expecting is tongues, not tingles – or shaking, or falling over, or anything else that has no clear biblical basis! However, when one of the people I prayed for did fall over, there was an immediate reaction in the queue next to mine. People started to move into my queue. Perhaps they felt that, despite all I had said, they would somehow get something extra if they fell over! There is still a desperate need for teaching on this throughout the Pentecostal movement and the charismatic renewal worldwide.

After the conference we drove into Austria and stayed in an apartment in the church in Bad Ischl where Klaus Winter, the PEF treasurer, was the pastor. I preached in his church and we had a wonderful ten days there exploring Salzburg and the Salzkammergut, the wonderful area where The Sound of Music was filmed.

The Helsinki conference was held in the summer of the year 2000 but was preceded by an EPTA conference held in Kaggeholme near Stockholm. We travelled by car as far as Kaggeholme but after EPTA we parked it at Arlanda airport and flew to Helsinki. As Jakob Zopfi was unable to attend because of an illness, it was my responsibility to chair the conference. I also preached on the baptism in the Holy Spirit and, as at Fridek-Mistek, had the privilege of praying for many who were seeking.

Shortly after that Jakob Zopfi retired as the PEF chairman and I confess that I was rather relieved not to be appointed as his successor. I too was soon to retire from Mattersey and frankly I didn’t want the responsibility. Ingolf Ellsel, a younger man who was the leader of the BFP in Germany, was appointed as chairman, and I was happy to continue to serve as vice chairman.

In 2003 the conference was held in Berlin in June. En route we stopped at Liège preaching there over the weekend. We reached Berlin in good time for the conference travelling at times at almost 150 m.p.h. on the autobahns where there was no speed limit. We stayed in a hotel on the outskirts of Berlin in Spandau, famous for its ballet company, and travelled in by underground train to the conference meetings.

As in previous years I preached and prayed for people to receive the baptism and hundreds came forward. When Ingolf Ellsel asked who had spoken in tongues for the first time it seemed like just about everybody who had been prayed for raised their hand. It was experiences like this that were undoubtedly the reason why I was asked to speak at so many churches and conferences for national leaders.

Churches and National Leaders’ Conferences

During the years I was at Mattersey I spoke at several national leaders’ conferences as well as ministering in local churches. Most of the teaching I did at national conferences centred on the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit and how to encourage them at local church level.  These included Germany and Hungary (1989), Iceland (1990), Austria (1999), Belgium (2003) and France (2004) where I was required to preach six times in French on a variety of topics.

 

The conference was held in Léognan, near Bordeaux, and close to the site of the ADD Bible College. (ADD Assemblées de Dieu i.e. AoG). I taught several sessions in the college in the week preceding the conference and then preached at a youth event held in a marquee in the college grounds.

This was an occasion where I really needed the Lord to help me. Of course we always need his help, but this time even more so. I had completely forgotten that I was scheduled to be the speaker at this event, so I said to the principal of the college,

            I don’t really need to be at the youth meeting this afternoon, do I?

To which he replied,

            Mais si, vous êtes le prédicteur!

(But yes, you are the preacher!)

But I had nothing prepared, and I had never preached to young people in French before. Fortunately, several of my books have been translated into French including The Holy Spirit – an Introduction. I had little more than an hour before the meeting began and so, helped the French text of the section on the fruit of the Spirit, I hurriedly prepared a message on this, using examples from the life of Jesus. And the Lord really blessed it. Dozens of young people came forward responding to the appeal to seek to rededicate their lives to Christ.

That really encouraged me as the I was preaching in the thousand strong assembly in Bordeaux where Daniel Hébert, whom I had met through PEF, was the pastor. But before leaving the subject of national conferences I need to mention that it was at that conference that David Cizéron gave me a book about his father’s work in a part of France I had never heard of, something which will become relevant in a later talk.

As far as preaching in local churches is concerned, there are of course far too many to mention them all. I have already talked about my trips to Sweden when I preached in local churches as well as teaching in Bible Colleges. One highlight of these trips was preaching in the Filadelfia church in Stockholm founded by the renowned Pentecostal pioneer, Lewi Pethrus (whose name, incidentally, features immediately before mine in the International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements). Another highlight was travelling with Eileen to Kristinehamn at the northern end of Lake Vänern, the largest lake in Sweden, and preaching for a week for Paul Gren, one of our former Mattersey students.

Germany was another country I also visited frequently. My contact with Germany came from three different though interrelated sources – EPTA which I have already mentioned, the national leaders of the Volksmission group of churches, and the local church in Heidenheim.

Herbert Ros and Günter Kaupp were president and vice-president of Volksmission and had both been students at Kenley under the principalships of Donald Gee and John Carter respectively. They both had a great respect for what we were doing at Mattersey and over the years sent us a good number of excellent students who, after they had returned to Germany to take up pastorates there, invited us to minister for them whenever we were in Germany.

It was also through my contacts with the leadership of Volksmission that I was invited on several occasions to travel round the churches for a couple of weeks often preaching for just one evening in each church. I was usually accompanied by Eileen, who loved travelling with me and enjoying the beautiful scenery of southern Germany and the warm hospitality we received in homes wherever we went.

We undertook such trips in 1998, and 1999, when I was also the guest speaker at the BFP national leaders’ conference. (BFP was the wider Pentecostal movement in Germany of which Volksmission had become a part). We made similar trips in 1994, ’95, and ’96.

But it was the church at Heidenheim that we visited most frequently. The pastor there was Albert Bühler. In the early eighties his son-in-law Jürgen Single had heard about a youth camp we were holding at Mattersey during the summer vacation and asked if he could visit it with a coachload of young people from their church as they were arranging a tour of England. We were delighted to receive them and that was the beginning of a lovely relationship we enjoyed with the Bühler-Single family and the church in Heidenheim.

We also visited Luxembourg on several occasions due to our relationship with John and Ann Leese who, as AoG missionaries, did an amazing job over many years planting a church there. John had been a student at Kenley when I first started teaching there. We first visited them for a weekend with William and Anthea Kay in 1990 and then again for a holiday in ’92 with our daughter Debbie, her husband David, and their one-year-old daughter, Emily, who was our first grandchild. We have visited them many times since including 2001 when John asked me to take care of the preaching (in French, not Luxembourgish) while he and Ann were on holiday.

It’s also through our contact with Luxembourg that some of my books were translated into French. I will always be grateful to Caroline Hutin, a French schoolteacher who specialised in English, who spent many hours translating You’d Better Believe It, Body Builders, and Just a Taste of Heaven.

Having these available was very helpful when I was preaching or teaching in French-speaking countries like France and Belgium. I am so grateful to the Lord that people have enjoyed my teaching and have usually wanted to know more. And my books, in whatever language, have made that possible.

My ministry in Belgium was concentrated largely in and around Brussels, at the Continental Theological Seminary where I taught regularly for several years, and at the Christian Centre which held services in both English and French. Daniel Costanza, the pastor of the French speaking church, has used my books as a basis for teaching various courses of Bible study.

Jacques Dernelle, who teaches regular courses at CTS, also pastors a great church in Tubize where I have also had the privilege of teaching and preaching. And on at least two occasions I visited Liège and gave a series of teaching which seemed to be well appreciated by the people there.

In France where we frequently went on holiday we always sought to attend the nearest ADD church on Sunday mornings and I was often asked to preach. I remember preaching in Versailles, Pau, Mourrenx, Clermont-Ferrand, and Toulouse. However, in Embrun they didn’t know who I was and anyway there was already a guest preacher, a French pastor, Samuel Foucart, from Pavilly near Rouen. I enjoyed his preaching and spoke with him afterwards. We exchanged contact details and as a result I was invited in the year 2000 to do a week’s teaching on the Holy Spirit.

Countries I visited only once or twice during this period were Austria, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, and Italy. In 1982 at the invitation of Carl Pocklington we went to Austria for a week and I preached in Villach and Klagenfürt. And in 2000 I taught for a few days in the church in Linz where Eddie Griesfelder was the pastor.

On two occasions I preached for a week in Messina in Sicily where Giuseppe Melusso was the pastor of large AoG church. In 1991 I preached in Reykjavik (Iceland), and in Nokia (Finland) where Teuvo Valkama, one of our former students was the pastor. And in 2002 I preached in Copenhagen (Denmark) and Limerick in Ireland.

I look back on all these experiences with great joy and a profound sense of gratitude to the Lord for the privilege of declaring his word in so many places and to so many people.

Next time we’ll be talking about our service for the Lord beyond Europe.

My Story   Talk 26  Off-campus Activities

Most of what I have said about our years at Mattersey so far has related to what happened on the campus, and that was certainly where we spent most of our time. But our ministry was by no means confined to the campus. It was becoming increasingly international and interdenominational. So in this talk I’ll begin by describing some of my activities within Britain which took place beyond the College campus before proceeding to our travels in Europe and further afield.

 

Activities within Britain

Apart from my regular preaching in local churches around the country my main activities in Britain during this centred around:

 

The AoG Executive Council

My relationships with the charismatic renewal

and expanding my writing ministry.

 

The AoG Executive Council

I have already mentioned some of the positions I had held within AoG before becoming Principal of the Bible College, but in 1984 I was elected to the Executive Council. This was important because it meant that the College had a voice at national level and that I could ensure that the interests of the College were always taken into consideration. And it became even more relevant when in 1987 I became its chairman, a position I held until 2007 when the structure of AoG was radically changed and about which I shall say more in a later talk.

 

Since its inception in 1924 the final authority in AoG was the General Council which met annually at the General Conference. The role of the Executive was to take responsibility between conferences for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of the Fellowship. It was a great privilege for me to serve alongside respected older brothers like Veyne Austin, Herbert Harrison, Aaron Linford, Keith Monument, Aeron Morgan, Keith Munday, John Phillips, Douglas Quy, and Colin Whittaker, as well as younger men like Paul Newberry, Warwick Shenton, and Paul Weaver, who were all newly appointed at the same time as me.

 

Each year the Executive Council elected its own chairman to serve for a year and in 1987 I was appointed. These elections were always held by secret ballot, and I was surprised to be reappointed year after year for the next 20 years. This obviously gave me added responsibility especially when it was decided in 1993 to form AoG Inc., which made Executive Council members the sole members of a new charitable company, Assemblies of God Incorporated.

 

The purpose of the company was to protect AoG churches and ministers from any personal liability for actions taken by AoG. This was felt necessary to avoid any crises like the vast debt that had been incurred by the Overseas Missions Council over a situation that had arisen in Paderborn, the details of which I do not need to go into here. The Board of Directors of this new company was comprised of all members of the Executive Council. As directors we were given financial responsibility for the affairs of the Fellowship with the safeguard that each director was only personally liable up to the value of £1. It also gave us legal power over all the assets of the Fellowship without reference to the Conference.

However, as we were appointed by the General Council by being elected to the Executive Council at the General Conference, we were always aware of our responsibility to abide by the wishes of the Fellowship as a whole. Despite the legal authority we had been given, as a matter of integrity we would never have taken independent action on any major matter without bringing it to Conference. This, as we will see later, was to change in 2007.

 

My relationship with the Charismatic Renewal

But my ministry in Britain was by no means confined to AoG. I had not grown up in AoG and ever since I heard about the baptism in the Spirit my heart has always been for Christians of other denominations to come into the experience. That had been a major part of my ministry when I had travelled round the universities in the sixties, preaching and laying hands on people to receive the Spirit.

Those were the days when the charismatic renewal was getting under way, and in the seventies, while we were at Basingstoke, I had good fellowship with Barney Coombs, the Spirit-filled pastor of the Baptist Church, who was holding regular ministers’ breakfasts and monthly All Saints Nights for Christians of all denominations to hear about the things of the Spirit.

 

So when, early in my time at Mattersey I received an invitation from Michael Harper to attend something called the Charismatic Leaders’ Conference at Whirlow Grange near Sheffield, I was pleased to accept. It was at these conferences that I met people like Roger and Faith Forster, David Pawson, Terry Virgo, Colin Urquhart, Gerald Coates and other charismatic leaders.

 

For several years I was part of the planning committee that organised these conferences some of which were held at Mattersey. I was also a member of committee that planned the International Charismatic Consultation on Worldwide Evangelisation (ICCOWE) held in Brighton in June 1991.

 

I continued to participate in the conferences throughout and beyond my time at Mattersey, and in fact at the time of writing this I am expecting to attend one this year. I have learnt that, although Pentecostals in Britain have been considerably influenced by charismatics, there is still very much that they can learn from us. For example, I am told by friends and family members that even in flourishing charismatic churches there is still little clear teaching on the baptism in the Spirit and spiritual gifts. But sadly, the same could be said of many Pentecostal churches.

 

So it became my vision that Mattersey should become more than a college that prepared people to be AoG ministers and missionaries, and we advertised the college as having a distinctly charismatic emphasis. As a result several of our graduates are now doing a great job for God as Anglican, Baptist, or Methodist ministers. It also had the benefit of introducing AoG students at Mattersey to a wider cross-section of the Christian church than just their own denomination.

 

Expanding my writing ministry

But whether it be in AoG or any other denomination, the fact is that people need teaching. Genuine spiritual experience comes from a correct understanding of biblical truth. That was surely the purpose of a Bible College! And as it is not possible for everyone to come to Bible College, I was determined to make our teaching more readily available to a wider audience. I was able to do this in some measure through articles I contributed to the AoG magazine and Renewal, but in 1998 I had a distinct impression that the Lord wanted me to write more books, using the teaching I was giving at Mattersey as a basis.

 

That expanding my writing ministry was the way the Lord was leading me was confirmed in a wonderful way by César Castellanos who in 1998 was the guest preacher at our AoG conference in Prestatyn. At the end of a late-night meeting where César had been speaking to the members of our Executive Council and their wives, he prayed for each one of us in turn. When he came to me, instead of praying, he prophesied. His prophecy included the following statement:

This is what the Holy Spirit says: I will greatly anoint your pen and your writing will be a blessing to thousands and thousands of people.

Now that prophecy was remarkable for at least three reasons. Firstly, César did not know me. He had only just met me that evening. Secondly, he knew I was a Christian leader, but he did not know that I was a writer! And thirdly, as I have said, in the weeks leading up to that conference I had been feeling that God wanted me to give more time to writing. César’s prophecy came as a wonderful confirmation.

Since that time I have written several more books, some of which have been translated into at least fifteen different languages. They have certainly reached thousands already. I’m so grateful to the Lord that even while we were still at Mattersey he was still using me to be a blessing beyond Mattersey, not only in the UK but much further afield. But that brings me to my ministry in Europe.

 

Activities in Europe

In an earlier talk I explained how my ministry in Europe began in the seventies while pastoring the church in Basingstoke. This was as the result of contacts with Willy Droz in Switzerland and George and Warren Flattery, American missionaries working in Belgium. These relationships continued while we were at Mattersey. For several years Eileen and I led teams of students on missions to Switzerland and I had regular contact with the Flatterys through the work with I.C.I., Continental Bible College, and EPTA.

 

And indeed, most of my work in Europe was related to either:

EPTA, the European Pentecostal Theological Association,

or PEF, The Pentecostal European Fellowship

 

The European Pentecostal Theological Association

EPTA was formed as a result of the Pentecostal European Conference held in The Hague in August 1978 at which I had been invited to preach. Apart from the main meetings held each morning and evening there were workshops each afternoon for various special interest groups including Bible Colleges. As the recently appointed Principal at Mattersey I was naturally interested to attend these and found them very helpful.

 

It was good to meet with faculty and staff from other Bible Colleges and share what we were doing and what our hopes for the future were. I found myself wondering if it would be possible for us to meet on an annual basis.  The PEC conferences were held every three years, so it was clear that something separate from PEC needed to be organised, and I suggested this while a few of us were chatting after one of the sessions.

 

As there seemed to be a general agreement about the matter, we decided to look for a suitable venue and dates for the following year. I knew already that the European Pentecostal Fellowship were holding a conference in Vienna in 1979 and suggested that this might be a good time to hold a planning meeting. (EPF and PEC were at that time separate bodies, but a few years later merged to form the Pentecostal European Fellowship, about which I will say more later).

 

So in 1979 Eileen and I, along with several other AoG personnel, attended the EPF conference in Vienna. The meeting with other Bible College people was not an official part of the conference but was tagged on at the end. However, during the conference itself I was unexpectedly asked by John Wildrianne to be the speaker at one of the sessions, as a brother from France who was scheduled to speak had been unable to come.

 

The subject was Spiritual Gifts and fortunately I already had plenty of material on that topic and was grateful for the opportunity to speak to leaders from across Europe on a subject that was close to my heart. The talk was well received and, together with my preaching in the Hague the previous year, proved to be the beginning of a much wider ministry in Europe than I had ever expected.

 

The meeting for Bible College leaders that we had arranged to take place after the conference lasted only a couple of hours but was a good starting point at which it was agreed to call ourselves EPTA, the European Pentecostal Theological Association. At the invitation of the brothers from ICI, we agreed to hold our first conference the following year in Brussels where, in addition to hearing papers on subjects of mutual interest, we would discuss a doctrinal statement for EPTA, conditions of membership and other related matters.

 

The meeting in Brussels was a great success and was the first of many annual gatherings of college personnel from all over Western Europe. And when Eastern Europe opened up after the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989, we were delighted to welcome delegates from those countries too. Over the years conferences were held in England, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Poland, Slovakia, France, and Portugal.

 

They were times of great blessing. Despite the name, they were not just an opportunity for theological discussion. Their primary purpose was for colleges to help each other by sharing mutual concerns, many of which had little to do with theology! It was good to know that other colleges faced the same problems as you did – practical issues like student discipline, catering, timetable, finance, governance and, something which was a major topic for several years, accreditation.

 

In addition to all this there were great times of worship and prayer. Working in a Bible College often means facing stressful challenges and faculty and staff found EPTA conferences times of refreshing and spiritual renewal. And they were especially relaxing when we held them during the summer vacations when many combined them with a family holiday. The ones held at Mattersey were particularly popular.

 

Eileen and I formed great relationships with many of our EPTA friends and trips to EPTA helped forge stronger relationships with our own faculty members too. I well remember the fun we had when we travelled by minibus to Germany with Dave and Beryl Allen and Brian and Audrey Quar, spending a few days relaxing in Switzerland before staying with friends in Heidenheim enabling us to attend the PEF Conference near Stuttgart followed by an EPTA conference in Erzhausen. Much of the blessing we enjoyed at Mattersey sprang from the strength of those relationships.

 

For many years I served on the planning committee for these conferences. In the days before the internet this necessitated flying to various venues in Europe most of which I enjoyed immensely despite the occasional problem with flights, and the anxiety you experience when you don’t speak the language and the person you’re expecting to pick you up doesn’t arrive! The American brother who was picking me up had mistaken my arrival time at Stuttgart, which was 14.40 as 4.30 in the afternoon! But we learn from these experiences – I know he did – and these trips also gave me opportunity to preach in one of the local churches on Sunday morning before flying back in time for work at Mattersey on Monday.

 

But possibly the most fruitful result of founding EPTA was the openings it gave me to teach and preach in several of its affiliated colleges. I have taught courses both at bachelors and masters level in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Germany, Portugal, and Ireland.

I made several visits to Sweden where the system was rather different from the other countries I have mentioned. Because of the number of large Pentecostal churches there, there was no national college, but there were several colleges offering full-time courses based in the local church. The church at Gothenburg, for example, when I preached there had a Sunday morning congregation of over 2000 and had a large enough complex to house a full time Bible college.

 

Stig and Marianne Hedstrom, who led that college, had brought a party of young people to Mattersey and heard me teach on spiritual gifts, told me that they needed this teaching in Sweden and asked me if I would come. On two separate occasions they organised teaching tours for me, the first starting at Gothenburg on the west coast and travelling across to Stockholm on the east. En route I visited colleges in Jonkoping, Linkoping,  Mariannelund, and Brommaskolen and Kaggeholme,  both in Stockholm. On the second tour about two years later I visited the same places but in reverse order, this time travelling east to west.

 

Some of the other countries I mentioned, Belgium, Finland and Portugal for example, I also visited more frequently after my time at Mattersey and I will comment on them in a later talk. But what most of them had in common was the fact that my initial contact with each of them came through EPTA. So whether it was the annual conference, or the trips to help plan them, or teaching in some of its member colleges, EPTA was a source of personal enrichment for me, and I will always be grateful to God for the prompting he gave me to suggest it back in the PEC conference in 1978.

 

Next time – more about PEF and my involvement with the World Pentecostal Conference.