January 2025 UK, Ukraine

We have now finalized our plans for the next Carelinks UK / Croydon Church in a Pub retreat weekend planned Lord willing for March 21-23 Lord willing, at the Carrotty Wood Centre in Tonbridge, Kent. The last one was such a huge success. So many recently baptized brothers and sisters attended from the Croydon area, it was just so "live", so real, so amazing. This weekend will be of huge spiritual benefit and boost to all who attend. Many who attend can't afford to donate as much as needed, so, we're open to your donations to enable them to come. Please share the invitation to others you may know in the UK. There will be kids activities as before with sister Astrid.
    

UKRAINE
In November we reported the baptism of sister Oksana in a heavily bombarded area in Ukraine. She has been reading and re-reading Bible Basics for years and has a wonderfully fluent understanding of all aspects of the Truth. She has sent some heart breaking messages of how she sits in the bomb shelter re-reading the book and her Bible. But she does so having had a diagnosis now of ovarian cancer. Getting medical attention in Ukraine is really difficult as the health system isn't functioning much beyond emergency medicine. We're sending funds to assist her. She cares for her grandson who also has health issues... do, please, pray for this wonderful sister. Ovarian cancer is hard enough anyway without having to fight the battle with it in wartime Ukraine under bombardment. We continue to be open to your donations towards our work in Ukraine as there are so many such issues we deal with. Here are some file pictures of her from last year, one of them outside the bomb shelter near her home.
         
We are in contact with a very interested man who is passionate for baptism in Ukraine. He downloaded our app soon before he was taken into the army. He used the app intensely throughout his army service. He has a wonderful appreciation of all our teachings. He was wounded and released from the army, and now lives quietly with his sister, reading the Bible and longing for baptism. Please pray for him and others like him.

There's also the need for prayer for some of our loved ones who have relatives in the Ukrainian army who have been taken prisoner into Russia. There is major blackmail of relatives of prisoners of war, anonymous calls telling them their loved one will be tortured unless they give military information to the caller... a scary but realistic
 read https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9w5jyd9nnwo

UK
After church in a pub last Sunday, we drove into Essex to meet and baptize HOSEIN a Muslim who has now fully come to the Lord Jesus. He was introduced to us by brother Ali whom we baptized online in Iran and who has now made it to the UK. It was amazing to meet him in the flesh, and to see the validity of our online work.
                   
Later in the week we made a short missionary journey to North East London. First we visited MONICA and her 10 year old son at her flat and baptized Monica. She is yet another online follower of our talks in Croydon.
              
Then we went on to visit housebound sister Christine , whom Evia baptized in her PJs last year. Christine was so thrilled to be visited and to do the breaking of bread together in person. Evia also tried yet again to explain to Christine how to use the Bible Companion app on her phone:
    
Our long distance trip this week was to Devon to baptize ANDY, one of the many [nearly 11000 on YouTube] online followers of Croydon Church in a Pub. He is a lovely gentle quietly spoken large man covered in tattoos, ex-lorry driver, living in a delightful house by the sea with his charming wife of 34 years. Andy decided to turn to God seriously and realized this meant reading the Bible. Which in turn created his desire to understand the Bible, and didn't find local churches much help. And so he came to us online with this wonderful result. We'd been corresponding quite a while and Andy really wanted to go for the baptism. We were able to use his bath tub and achieve a full immersion. In his personal testimony he speaks of his guilty conscience about his earlier life, feeling "chief of sinners" [although Paul also claims that title!] and especially conscious of his tattoos, some of which he is ashamed of. He explains his prayers for forgiveness and his earnest looking for the return of Jesus as the world spirals into meltdown... his testimony and baptism in his bath tub is all in the
video at https://youtu.be/4R9bHATscLE
We give thanks for the Lord's amazing outreach to those driven by the current world situation to reach out to him.
                   
Some of the folks who regularly attend our meetings in Croydon live in tents, particularly pitched on the grass verge of a car park near our meeting place; and they awoke earlier this week to find notices attached to their tents, telling them that their tents are going to be removed. Life on the street is so unstable and uncertain. Our efforts, hope and prayer is that those enduring this will turn to the stability found in Jesus and the "enduring city" of the Kingdom, rather than to anything else.
              

PRAYER POINTS
   - For those recently baptized
   - For those living in tents or other accommodation who are being moved on by the authorities all the time and have no stability
   - For those wanting baptism in Ukraine
   - For all enduring blackmail especially at this time in Ukraine
   - For our retreat

With love from your brothers and sisters of Carelinks