This past month has been very eventful for us, and made especially memorable by an interview with Luke Weston from United Christian Broadcasters.
It all began when we entered a competition on UCB Inspirational.
The competition question was something like this:-
According to a Boston University, research shows if you eat this particular food every day for breakfast, you’ll have a 30% less chance of catching flu. What’s the food you must eat?
Well folks; after some suggestions by others, we discovered that neither grapefruit, kiwi-fruit, raw egg nor kippers were the correct answer.
Indeed, we had thought it may be porridge, another cereal, or even vegemite!
But after further consideration, and bearing in mind the research came from a Boston University, we opted for Peanut-butter on toast.
If we’d been a little more clever, we should have said it was peanut-butter on Boston toast. However; the answer was actually “peanut-butter” – and guess what, yep, we won the prize – a compact-disc by “Jars of Clay” and another by “Tenth Avenue North.”
Anyhow; Luke requested that we forwarded to him via Email our home address, and in doing so, we also included a link to the Newday-Prince web pages.
A little while later, Luke contacted us for an interview.
To cut the story short; I was given 90 seconds to prepare myself for an interview about the Newday-Prince story.
The interview lasted around 2-3 minutes – leading up to the breakfast news – just before 8 o’clock.
In retrospect; throughout the fifteen years that I’ve been sharing the story, I don’t think I’ve ever been given so little time to share – but somehow, I managed to condense about 16 years of the story into a few minutes.
Amazing!
In any case; we always believe in taking hold of every opportunity, and we were particularly blessed when we had some positive feed-back – not only from the radio presenter, but also from some listeners in England and Northern Ireland.
Praise Him!
The events of the past month don’t end there though.
Two weekends ago; not only did we enjoy the celebrations on Rachel’s brother’s wedding day – but we also had the opportunity to once again share the Newday-Prince story.
This time with some wonderful folks at the Gateway Community Church in Kettering.
A great time was had by all, and we’ve even been invited back, wow!
We were also encouraged and blessed this past weekend; when the folks in Hemsworth Christian Fellowship invited us to share the Newday-Prince story.
I began with a couple of songs, one being the old time children’s hymn “Jesus Loves me this I know.”
I don’t think the folks were quite expecting a jazz style version of the song though, but it went down really well.
One could almost envisage the folks Swing Dancing, doing the Boogie-Woogie or Jive!
As I began to share the Newday-Prince story; I reflected for a while upon a moment in history – when Chairman Mao, the leader of the communist party in China attempted to crush the church. At this point in time things seemed to offer little or no hope!
However; in 1972, a message leaked out from the under-ground Church which simply stated: “The this I know people are well.”
Obviously; the Communist authorities did not understand the message – they hadn’t a clue!
But the rest of the Church worldwide knew at once.
Yep, that’s right! We all realised this was making reference to the world’s most famous children’s hymn – “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
In a miraculous way, the Chinese Church, instead of being made ineffective, boomed and grew stronger under persecution, growing from 1.5 million believers to between 70-80 million by 1993!
[In fact; according to one source in 2008, a former Communist Party official who converted to Christianity, reckons there are up to 130 million Christians in China.]
Now, that’s utterly astounding!!
Incredible!
Anyhow; as I progressed through the Newday-Prince story; the quotation “It never rains but it pours” would echo through the episodes – concluding with a positive statement: “Let nothing and let no-one rob you of your joy. Why? Because the joy of the Lord is your strength!”
Today folks; we pray that the Newday-Prince story will encourage, challenge, and inspire everyone – who may be facing difficulties in life – to reach out and press on with the God given purposes of life.
Remain strong!