‘Unloved’ Yet Loved By God
All her life she felt unloved and abandoned, as a child by her parents and later by her husband. After hearing me share on these concepts she told me. “Ian do you know what I do to feel loved?” I had no idea, I could…
Just Be a Good Girl
There have been many times in our married life that conflict or issues have arisen and Tania will say almost verbatim, the same words. “Well I have just have to be a good girl then. I just have to do what’s expected and not be…
I Am 35 but My Mother Treats Me Like a Five Year Old
One day a woman came to me to ask for help. She told me her mother was coming for a visit. My mother-in-law (Tania’s mum is visiting at the moment). Sometimes such visits are positive but at other times such visits are not positive. If…
Calling the Shaman to Find My Shoes
On visiting one village area up in the mountains in Sulawesi where we spent 6 weeks doing a language survey, we were ready to leave and begin the two day tramp down to the coast. I went out outside to find my shoes but they…
The Holy Spirit Can Heal Past Memories
That happened to me in a dramatic way at a Jack Winter meeting in Hamilton some years after I became a Christian in 1973. Standing in the meeting room with about 100 others Jack described how we can ask the Holy Spirit to deal with…
My Stronghold of Evolution
Probably one of the first strongholds to take hold of me in a significant way was atheism. For me it happened when I was nine years old via my father and then was strengthened by the stronghold of thought that is Evolution. Growing up I…
Given a Unique Diploma
So when I got back to Matamata after the time in Wellington, we went off to find a suitable Bible College. We went to Faith Bible College, where we felt we could best fit. Milton Smith said "No, you need more than we can give…
Tell Me My Life Verse
I know a young woman in JPCC who when faced with the issue of choosing her life partner, told the guy in question that she had a life verse. In order for her to know if he was God’s man for her he had to…
Asked to Leave
When we first made contact with the language group we wondered about their unique ways but just put it down to cross-cultural differences and figured that every translation team would face difficulties and oddities. We just have to tough it out. But we did wonder.…
When God Didn’t Answer As I Expected
When we were living in rural villages in Indonesia, we usually stayed with the Village Chief (Kepala Desa) and his family. In the village of Bonelemo where we had decided to make our base to work in the southern region of the language group, we…