Your Comments:                   Page 78     1/3/08 - 1/20/08

Next  Next Topic Comments Index

Next Previous Page of Letters (Page 77)

Celtic Pages

Plan of Salvation

1/20/08____________________________________

Dear friends in Jesus,
Greetings from New Zealand.
In your Statement of Faith you say, and rightly so, that the Bible is
the Word of God.
New Zealand has may prayer warriors like yourselves.  The first settlers
and the later immigrants have a record of evangelism that echoes that
of the Celtic saints.                                                                                        Please pray for Israel.
God bless you, fellow travelers.
Madeleine (New Zealand)

1/14/08____________________________________

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
I am very intrigued by your website.  I have considered myself a Celtic Christian and an emerging prayer warrior.  My deep desire is to see radical
change in lives by the power of prayer and to pray for the Lord's return.  I am very attracted to a monastic lifestyle that can blend with my family
responsibilities.
...as I prayerfully consider joining and supporting your ministry.  Your Prayer Foundation is exactly what I have looked for, for a long time, but I see the level of commitment (reading, prayer and scripture study), and realize that saying yes to this means saying no to a thousand other things.
Blessings,                                                                                                    Susanne H. (Switzerland)

1/11/08___________________________________

1/10/08____________________________________

1/7/08____________________________________

To your knowledge, are there any copyright laws associated with showing movies purchased from your organization?
Our church is considering a "film night," during which we would present various films (free of charge) to our congregation.  I am interested in a number of films on your list.
Thank you,
Marc P. (Warren, Michigan)
Administrator, Lord of the Harvest Christian Fellowship

Reply from The Prayer Foundation ™: Yes, the law requires permission from the Copyright holder (this is usually the Movie Producers, not sellers) for any use other than home use.  There is an organization that will allow you to purchase a blanket permission for a majority of films (not all---each producer must be checked against a list).
The organization is called: Church Video Licensing International.

1/6/08____________________________________

Hi Monks all,
Thank you so much for putting me up (and putting up with me and my friends) on Dec. 26-27!  It was a wonderful beginning to a hard week.  I was able to
relax and focus on God, which prepared me to do what I had to do next.  Also, I was considerably less plagued with jet lag than usual.  Although Mizuho didn't show it, she apparently enjoyed it too.  She kept sniffing her clothes and saying, "This smells good, it smells like the monks' house."
I'm back to teaching from today.  Just wanted to say THANK YOU for letting me be a part of your life and worship for a day.
In Christ,
Monk Denise (Japan)

Note from The Prayer Foundation ™: Monk Denise is a missionary in Japan, teaching missionaries' children.  In honor of the Christmas Holidays, the incense we were using in our Chapel during our Worship Service was pure Frankincense from Eritrea.  Real, natural  incense is beads of resin-like  sap that comes from certain trees in the Middle East.  

1/5/08____________________________________

Survey:                                                                                                                     How Found:  I found your website online while looking for a prayer chain.                                                                                                      First Impressions: It is easy to navigate around the entire site.        Liked Best: I love reading the answered prayer.  It is such an encouragement to see the many answers to prayer.                            Liked Least: The only thing that I found difficult was when I lived in the states and I could no longer email my prayer requests, especially if I needed immediate help.  Other than that I just love this site and prayer chain.  It is just so biblical.                                                                       Like to See: More pictures of where you live.  It looks beautiful.
Born-again? Yes.                                                                                     Visit Site: Less than weekly.
Comments: I loved it.  Being Scottish, I immediately associated with the Celtic roots.                                                                                        (British Columbia)

1/4/08____________________________________

Disillusionment with Church Leaders, Family Deaths, Divorce

To all involved in this ministry,
Thank God for this web site!  And, Thank God for You!                     Over the course of a three-year period, I experienced deep
disappointments and hurt by witnessing moral and ethical failings, and even fraud, by leaders I trusted in the church, shaking the very foundation of my faith. 
This "shaking of faith" was only compounded by nine consecutive, and tragic, deaths in my family.  There was a drowning (cousin), an auto accident (father), a heart attack (grandfather), heart attack (cousin), stroke (grandmother), kidney failure (aunt), diabetes (great aunt), bone cancer (spiritual father / mentor), stomach cancer (uncle).                    My marriage was already strained between work, finishing my masters, and taking care of my grandmother.  After the deaths, certain situations caused me to be personally responsible for becoming the primary caregiver to several elderly family members. This led to financial strain, family fights and division, deep depression, and ultimately a divorce from my wife.

                                                   Business Failure

I then tried to start over.  I took all the money I had and co-founded a new company with a friend from Bible college, whom I had known decades earlier. To my surprise, the business was an early success, and I worked on my past emotional wounds and struggled to continue on---believing that the clouds were finally moving away.  After only a year, my business partner became increasingly unstable.  He was having serious emotional issues, and problems with alcohol and prescription drug addiction.  He was attending an "off-balance," "seed-faith," "prosperity," "kingdom-now" church.  Being already unstable, this caused him to become foundationless and motivated by greed, sending him into a spiritual tailspin.  After becoming distant and combative...he ended up stealing tens of thousands of dollars from me, bringing me to complete bankruptcy.

                                                       Depression
                                                                                                                                 I retreated into a life of poverty and seclusion.  I lived in an empty apartment in the most dangerous part of the city with only a dirty mattress on the floor, an old blanket nailed over the window to keep out the light, and a once discarded computer that barely worked.  I didn't work.  I cried, and slept, and sat catatonic on the mattress.  I roused only occasionally to get food or try to force myself out of my stupor.  I lived in a hellish cycle of despair, self pity, sloth, resentment, disappointment, sorrow and worthlessness for almost two, yes two, years.  I was paralyzed by depression---I had reached the end of myself.
After a year and a half of wallowing in the mud and mire, I started to
venture out onto the web to find out what was going on in the world. Everything was meaningless anyway, why not venture out.  Googling this and that.  Reading, looking, trying to reconnect with the world.  During this time, I even started to make an effort to try and pray, though I felt my prayers never got higher than the ceiling.  

I found your web site.  It had none of the expected...canned, glossy, homogenized, mainstream Christian visuals that I could sneer at.

I started realizing the insanity of the way in which I was living, and recognizing that I was indeed a hermit, living in poverty, praying alone, eating alone, being alone.  I thought to myself, jokingly, in my twisted mind, and may have even said out loud, "Maybe the reason I went through all of this is God just wants me to be a monk."  So, mockingly, I got on the computer and googled: "Protestant Monk."                               I found your web site.  It disarmed me.  It had none of the expected traditional, canned, glossy, homogenized, mainstream Christian visuals that I could sneer at.  It intrigued me.
Where were the modern Christian stereotypes that I could vent my
disillusionment, frustration, and bitterness towards?  It was old, really old.  I love old...it was so old that it was new again.  Because the symbols of the "modern" church, with all it's baggage, were missing, I could look, once again, at the word of God, the purposes of God, the love of God, without being tripped-up by my anger at the failings of the modern institution of the church, and man.

Your web site...led me back to scripture...back to God.

Your web site was foundationally sound.  It was a rock.  It gave me traction.  It led me back to scripture.  It led me back to my first love. It led me back to God.
For the next six months God healed me in the deepest of ways.
(Psalm 40:1-3): "I waited patiently on the Lord, he turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire, he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord."
God is Good! He delivered me!                                                          Thank you for your faithfulness.  He used you to reach me.  May He bless everything that you put your hands to!
Kindest Regards and Blessings!
Christopher (Texas)

1/3/08____________________________________

™ ____________________________________________________________

Next Previous Page of Letters (Page 77)

E-mail Your Comments to: monks@prayerfoundation.org

    Copyright © 2008 S.G.P. All rights reserved.

   Next  Next Topic  Comments Index