DEAREST FRIENDS,
SOMETHING WONDERFUL
I experienced something wonderful sitting on the town square Saturday afternoon. The last speaker for the Heart Cry Revival conference was a man named Angus Buchan, a South African farmer. He has no theology degrees, but his deep love and passion for Jesus Christ is evident. In his early seventies, his energy as he preaches is like a man half his age.
Thursday night we watched a movie about his life and how he came to faith. It was called “Faith Like Potatoes.” God used this movie to touch my soul. Faced with the loss of his family farm in Zambia, he moved to South Africa. His anger and drinking threatened his marriage .One Sunday morning he and his family visited a small church.
That Sunday God changed Angus Buchan when he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. His whole family came forward and prayed.
In his green cathedral (his corn field), he met daily with God. He learned to trust God with everyone and everything in his life. He saw God do such amazing things and he began to preach. Last year, he preached to almost 300,000 men who attended a weekend prayer meeting on his farm Shalom. Still, he is totally unimpressed with himself and totally impressed by the power of the living God.
On Saturday,he talked about how God uses nobodies to change the world, not important people, not amazingly skilled people, just ordinary people. He talked about prayer and I felt the Father challenging and encouraging me.
Angus spoke on how in Genesis 18 Sara doubted that God could give her a child. God responded, “Is anything too hard for God?” I began to cry. I thought of all the things concerning the puppet ministry that I have faced since Mike went home. My soul was so convicted as I saw my sin with clarity. Too often I have been surprised at provision instead of being confident in my Father’s care. I confess that I have worried about things like support that I should have prayed about.
I am crying again as I write these words. With all my heart, I want to obey. I want to run this race with greater passion. I do not want to waste precious energy and time on worry. I feel the Father is about to open some new doors and I want to walk through them, confident that nothing is too hard for God.
I encourage all of you to read his story and discover the deep faith of a simple man.
MOTHER’S DAY
I had the loveliest Mother’s Day! Last year, I celebrated in Moscow at an amusement park where everyone laughed at the “old lady” riding all the rides. This year, I watched a school of dolphins swimming in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa and ate lunch overlooking the ocean. Both Mother’s Days, we shared the hope of Jesus with children and saw some of these precious ones put their trust in Jesus.
I am so blessed! I am so grateful to God that my sons and their sweet wives love Jesus! I am so thankful for all the “sons and daughters” all over the world who give me the privilege of being Grandma Linda to their children and treat me as a mother. I received the sweetest card from our dear friends here in Worcester. It said that it was from my 2 boys in the USA and all my other sons in Christ all over the world. God is very kind to me. Please pray that I will not disappoint my children as I follow the Lord. I want to be a Godly example to all of them. They all challenge me to love Jesus more!
Four Shows
Each day this week, we are doing 4 shows through Thursday. Today was so very sweet as we watched children come to faith. We enjoyed their laughter as they enjoyed the puppets. One group of children had been told not to talk in their assemblies. So, we heard not a sound when we invited the children to pray. Afterwards, so many children ran up to me and told me that they prayed. They told me that they talked to Jesus. At every school, the teachers thanked us for coming. The children smiled.
Again, the children at 2 of the schools we were at live in very difficult places. There is a custom here in some communities where they choose to have a baby before they marry so that they can prove they can have children. An ocean of children will never know their fathers. There is so much pain for these children and so much hurt. Please pray for them.
In Jesus, Linda
Sam & Silvana Shaw
Meg Abbott
Billy Salinas