The power of prayer goes with the power of faith, when we pray and ask for something in the name of Jesus Christ, these prayers are answered and what we have asked for we will receive. We give thanks to God for answered prayer!!
Firstly we received a donation for the sole purpose of purchasing a ride-on grass cutting machine, this is amazing and we are able to cut grass and lawn with this machine. Secondly we were able to repair the swimming pool and the leaks have been fixed and the pool is fully operational. Thirdly a generous person had a low pressure solar geyser delivered to us for installation, which will be installed for use in the kitchen. This is the one place where we need hot water all the time and using the sun to do it is fantastic.
We have also re-thatched room 18 and completely re-vamped the bathroom, the room opposite which was used as a bookshop has been converted into a counselling/prayer room for the use of the ministers or facilitators. We have also had a spate of burst galvanised pipes and all the water supply pipes to rooms 6 to 18 have been replaced with the new cobra PVC pipe. The old galvanised pipes were extremely corroded.
The gardens are looking beautiful with the spring colours and the avocado and mango’s are in blossom as well as all the citrus trees. In the vegetable garden butternut, beetroot, Hubbard squash, watermelon, sweet melon (spanspek), cucumber, tomatoes, beans have all been sowed and we are all praying for a bumper crop.
We have been very busy with groups especially August and September; we are looking forward to groups booking for next year. Please consider coming to us for your church camps or even for a mid-week break. If you do not support us who will?
We are also involved directly in providing help and a home to Shane and Stephen both of whom have no source of income at this stage. In return for board and lodging they assist us in the many tasks that needs to be done.
Healing Ministry
Jesus made it clear to His followers that it was required of them to heal the sick, all those that believed in Him believed that healing the sick was the normality of the Christian life. Within the history of the Church the movement was to focus on the knowledge and structure of the church organisation, who did what became more important than fulfilling the purpose of the Church, which was to heal the sick and bring succour to the broken-hearted.
The reality is that many people today are still in need of the same ministry that Jesus Christ came to earth to provide and the question asked is where will such healing be offered to those people in need? The problem encountered more often than not is that of unbelief, poor faith response and preaching that proclaims the gospel but denies the power thereof. Jesus Christ is the same today as He was yesterday and will be the same tomorrow, His Word is the truth and it is upon the truth of that Word that the healing ministry either stands or falls. If His word is true then it must follow that when it is preached in truth, the signs and wonders will follow.
The sick need to visit the church, just as much as the church needs to visit the sick. Not just the sick on the membership roll but also those who need to be healed who are not. The call to do so is not structured in an institution but based on the calling of those who follow Jesus Christ and are obedient to His calling on their life, ‘Go and heal the sick”.
When someone is sick in our family we need to pray for them, when we see a need within others we should pray for them. When we turn to God in prayer God turns to us, and He will hear our prayer and heal.
Missions and outreach
Wh en one does a mission it is a compliment to be invited to return and to continue the ministry in the congregation. As a result a number of congregations has built up a relationship with the Christ Healing Ministry. The problem with this is that this requires a personal touch and not all those in need are helped. With the help of Theo Schmidt this was addressed to a certain extent with the book published by the Christ Healing Fellowship, ‘Yes, you are healed’. We have realised that this has been limited in its achievement as it will only reach those though the written media. A decision was taken by the Board of the Christ Healing Fellowship to expand this through the use of the electronic media; so a website is under construction to be used by all who have access through the internet. The first domain is christianhealing.co.za and the second linga-longa.co.za these will be interrelated domains. All the talks and support required will be found on the sites and hopefully will be linked into the denominational sites as well. We hope to have this up and running shortly. This will also include suggestions for healing services, liturgical aspects of healing, as well as relevant issues such as healing and depression, healing and Christian marriage and so on. This will be available to any person with access to the internet, any where in the world. All you need to know about Christian healing hopefully in due course will be published on this site.
During October we are also having a retreat, the topic being the ‘Refreshing of the Holy Spirit’. In from 19 to 24 November I will be in Kokstad doing mission work at St Columba Presbyterian Church, with regard to the healing of family relationships, on the weekend 25 to 27 November a Woman’s Retreat will be held at Linga-Longa organised by Polokwane Methodist at which I will be facilitating the retreat: ‘Being a woman for Christ”. This is open to any woman who would like to attend.
We have also been blessed with a visit of a young lady Yuyan He from main land China who is undertaking a two month internship with us here at Linga-Longa. She will be helping us to develop a marketing profile which hopefully will help us to position the work we do and offer what we do to a wider audience in the community we serve.
Support needs
We always need support but we often feel that we should not always be telling people what we need. However, we need to be bringing our prayer requests to your attention, because we know that God is our only Provider and when we are united in prayer these prayers will be answered. We are praying for many who are sick on our prayer list, many of whom have been healed in answer to that prayer. For us to continue, we need you to be praying for us that the work we are doing here for Jesus Christ will continue.
We are still praying for God to raise up the right couple with a love for Jesus to come and help us to manage Linga-Longa. We are also praying that our finances will be blessed through the support of those coming and using the Retreat Centre. For it is out of this support that we are reinvesting in Linga-Longa by upgrading and refurbishing the facilities.
OUR BANK DETAILS ARE: The Christ Healing Fellowship
ABSA BANK, BELA BELA AC.no 4048900830 Code 632 005
For any membership fees or donations
Daily Encouragement
Who does not need encouragement? This is an on-going ministry that is slowly growing in it’s outreach with over 240 people receiving the daily encouragement via email. Many who do receive this are not necessary attending church or even a member of a congregation and in this simple way many people are receiving the Gospel which they would otherwise not have received. Over the last 6 years or so nearly 1500 of these has been sent out, with not one being repeated. This also results in providing on-line counselling for those who request advice and help.
Financial aspects
As most of you are aware many aspects in terms of the budget has come under pressure due to price increases beyond our control. The Electricity bill of Escom has increased by 40% and fuel costs, tollgates has increased in real terms by 13%. With careful management and strict controls we have been able to show a small increase in net income of about 10%, this does not allow for any unexpected costs. The cash reserves are low and we need to have at least two groups a month of 35 people to be able to meet our costs. We thank God that we have been able to do this, this year. As stewards of God’s property we need to ensure that we are obtaining the correct income in relation to expenditure which requires us to increase the tariff for 2012 by 16,66%. We still need to have 840 beds filled over weekends in 2012!
Below see our tariffs for 2012 which we still consider to very competitive
Tariffs 2012:
A 50% non-refundable deposit is required to confirm the bookings.
Double Room Daily Rate per person sharing:
Group weekend R550.00 Friday Supper to Sunday lunch.
Dinner/ Bed/breakfast: R300.00 .
Full board: R350.00 .
Self catering cottages tariff on request
David
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