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Salvation and Healing Stories from Bracknell
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Salvation and Healing Stories from Bracknell

Adrian Holloway on April 26, 2010 with 0 Comments

Thirty-five people responded to the gospel, and a woman got out of a wheelchair and walked around before giving her healing testimony when I visited Bracknell yesterday.

Her name is Millicent, and after praying for her I asked her to stand up and take a few steps during the evening service. (It was her first visit to the church, having been invited by her son David.) She walked tentatively around the front of the stage, and her posture changed visibly. Then we gave her the microphone to tell us more. Millicent said she had been diagnosed with osteoporosis, which means that she can’t stand up straight (i.e. she has a curvature of her spine, because parts of her lumbar back are missing.) She made us all laugh by declaring: “I can’t walk!” after walking around for 5 minutes in full view of everyone. I replied: “For someone who can’t walk, you’re doing pretty well.” Then her son David took the microphone and explained that he’d never seen her stand up straight before. It was a brave thing for Millicent to take my hand and get out of her wheelchair and take those steps of faith, because as some of you will know, the main danger with osteoporosis is falling over (because bones have become so fragile). Something has clearly happened, but I’ll get an email in a few days from David to find out the level of her recovery/healing.

We also had 4 people report that they’d been healed in the 9.00am service (including the pastor Simon Benham), after which 7 people responded for salvation. Then in the 11.00am service, two more people took the stage to give healing testimonies, and 10 more people responded for salvation, though only 8 came forward. The most moving story in the second service was from a man who told me afterwards that he had never visited Kerith Community Church before. In fact he had no intention of doing so, until his wife texted him after the 9.00am service saying: “I believe God has told me to text you and ask you to come to the 11.00am service.” All credit to him, he stopped what he was doing and drove to church. Better still, he put his hand up to respond to the invitation to receive Christ and walked to the front. There’s a lot more to his story than I can share on-line, but it was an amazing work of grace, as far as his wife is concerned.

After a great lunch with Simon, Catrina, and their teenage children, Zachary, Jacob and Alice, it was time to walk the dog! The irrepressible ‘Nemo’ bounded down to Bracknell rugby club, where we watched the home side trounce Broadmoor RFC.

Then it was back to the Kerith Centre for the 7.00pm service, where Millicent was healed (as above) and then we had 3 other very strong healing testimonies, all from people Simon (the pastor) didn’t know. We then had 18 people respond to the salvation appeal, which was thrilling.

The background to the evening response is that recently the church’s youth work on a Friday night has expanded from around 50 to evenings with over 350 teenagers attending. A few of them have now started coming to church on Sundays, and about half of those who came to the front last night had come into the church through that avenue.

On a personal level, I love spending time with the Benhams, who must be the easiest family in the world to be friends with, and I also had some lovely fellowship with Ben Davies, a hero of mine, who I have admired from a distance for years. Ben led the church for 43 years, and is still an elder there. He had a formative influence on me when I first became a Christian years ago. I used to drive over from Wimbledon to “Bracknell Family Church” as it was then to listen to Ben preach. Those were the glory days, though, to be fair, yesterday was a bit of a glory day.

Thanks so much to all of you who pray for me. Your labour in the Lord is not in vain!

Grace to you all,

Adrian.

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