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A New Season… and some new Windows and Balcony Doors...
Dear Friends,
It’s been a while since we last wrote – I think it was back in November when we sent out the last Newsletter and Building Update. In the meantime, for a couple of weeks in December, we were able to take some time off and fly to Cape Town to be with our daughters and grandchildren. We had a truly wonderful time!
Before we left for Cape Town, there was a moment that really encouraged us. Cathy and I REALLY wanted to get the windows and balcony doors installed, as that would seal the building and enable work to continue inside the building during the cold winter weather (more about this at the end of the letter…). Our builder was already organising the next steps, with his own team of people coming back in January to start on the internal walls, as well as organising an electrical company and a plumbing company to come in and do their parts. All of this needed the building to be sealed so that it could be warmed up on the inside.
We had enough money for about two thirds of the windows. I’m not sure how it happened but we drove to Krakow to find out what was possible and ended up signing a contract for all 34 windows and doors! They would be installed in early January and we had 2 weeks to pay.
We left a little stunned and stopped off at IKEA for Cathy to get a short piece of fabric she needed to finish her sewing project – only to find that IKEA had stopped selling that particular fabric. For Cathy, this was a major setback! She looked everywhere and couldn’t find it anywhere. As she was leaving, her eyes caught something under a cutting table. It was a piece of fabric – her fabric. It was 1.65 metres long and she needed a piece that was 1.6 metres long. Truly the Lord provides!
I know this may sound trivial to some, but that REALLY encouraged us. That little incident showed us that God KNOWS what we need and that He can arrange WHATEVER is necessary to meet that need.
We didn’t know how He was going to provide all that money in so short a time, but He did. He used different people and with just 2 days to go we had all that we needed, with almost nothing left over. The same thing happened last year. We had to pay the final invoice for the basement and at the VERY LAST MOMENT a gift came in that covered the outstanding amount, with almost nothing left over.
I don’t think our God is always a “just-in-time God”. There are times when He blesses us with abundance. But this was His way to show us that HE is the One in charge and He is the One pulling it all together.
Thank you, Father!
+++ SELAH +++
On the morning the windows were due to be installed I felt the Holy Spirit say He was calling us to a NEW SEASON. And this season would go hand in hand with the building works that are going to take place INSIDE the Prayer House in 2019. Up to now all the work has been on the main structure of the building. The foundations, the basement, the walls, the roof. It’s really interesting, but as each phase was being built, the Lord would do something in the spiritual realm that matched what was going on in the physical realm. We were starting to realise how connected they are!
As we build the physical building, God is building the spiritual building. They go hand in hand.
God said to Moses when he was about to build the tabernacle, “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain” (Heb. 8:5). It was important HOW Moses built the tabernacle, because it was to be a copy and a shadow of what is in heaven.
Here are some “happenings” that illustrate this. If you’ve heard them before, then please feel free to skip to this bit!
The first is the river that used to flow where the Prayer House is now located. As we dug down to put in the foundations, the builder pointed to a layer of round stones about 1.5 metres below the surface. “Look” he said, “There was a river that used to flow here”. We could see that it came from the direction of Auschwitz-Birkenau and flowed exactly EAST “through” the Prayer House and came out just south of the front steps.
We couldn’t help thinking of Ezekiel 47, because it was an EXACT parallel description of the River of Life flowing out of the Temple. For some reason God wanted the Prayer House to intersect that river, which represents the River of Life. Remember that the whole purpose of what God wants to do here is to release HIS LIFE in a place of death.
Then it rained solidly for 2 weeks, and this ancient river started to flow! Not much, but enough for water to cover the foundations for several weeks. We had to pump away the water every morning. There are probably many interpretations you could draw from this, but one I believe is that there was some kind of washing and cleansing that took place in the Spirit.
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