Newsletter #27
News & Praise
We at Love Lines are always encouraged and blessed by news reports from Centers. We are at awe how the hand of God is using this telephone ministry to give Salvation to the open heart, Healing to the needy and Encouragement to the depressed. (ed.)
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Pam Drinnan
Hull, England
Pam Drinnan became involved with Love Lines Crisis Center in Minneapolis in 1995. After witnessing the wonderful results of such a ministry, she opened Crosslline Christian Telephone Helpline in 1998.
Pam has accumulated thousands of testimonies from people how the Lord has met their needs. Pam says, “We are here to give the callers time and acceptance as they share their burden of grief, loneliness and frustration, indecision or guilt. Ministering with tender, anointed care, we seek to help them through their particular problem through prayer and putting them in contact with others for additional help. We try to put each one in touch with supportive churches where they can receive further fellowship and spiritual encouragement.”
They have over 100 prayer supporters around the city who pray for the ministry every day. Pam and her associates have formed a national Christian Helpline Association with ten other organizations to network together, enabling them to have 24 hour service, seven days a week. Crossline Helpline have the support of over 90 churches and they are responsible to the Hull and District Evangelical Alliance.
“The Lord is leading us into new territories and enlarging our borders as in the prayer of Jabez.” (I Chronicles 4:10) We have various ways of advertising our ministry.
The Crossline Emmanuel Choir sings at a variety of events. We hand out Crossline business cards and posters that quite often end up in doctor’s offices. We give out bookmarks to everyone who makes a purchase at Good News Bookshop. A large sign may be found on the side of double-decker busses that reads, “God Help Me – We’re here to listen – call this number”
Crosslines was nominated for the Community Pioneer Award. A new website has been designed. <www.crossline.org.uk>
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Jim Thurston
Santiago, Chile
Jim Thurston operates the fourth largest Christian web site <www.integridad.com> of all languages in the world, according to Christianity Today.
Presently one million people are coming into the site monthly from 130 countries. They also operate chat rooms where people can communicate on a one to one basis with godly counselors. In 2004, 8,000 received Christ. The Love Lines Counselor Training Material is used by the counselors as their major source of training.
Recently God gave Jim a wonderful idea. Having the names and addresses of contacts from around the world, Jim has decided to encourage the people in specific localities to get together where they can communicate with each other along with a mature spiritual leader. If these people are not involved in a church, they will be encouraged to do so. Where no church is available, they will seek to establish one. Eventually they plan to do this in every country. “We have a strategic alliance with Campus Crusade to help with the closing design of our evangelistic page to make it more effective and to be stronger in discipleship.”
(A great web site, even if you do not read Spanish. I would encourage you to invite your Spanish speaking friends to visit this site. The quality is on par, or better, with any news network site. To develop a site takes many talented people. ed.)
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Innocent Ochei
Lagos, Nigeria
During the Ghana training conference in April 2006, Rev. Ochei received a vision of opening 1,000 telephone counseling centers in Nigeria. He is the president of New Dimension Seminary where he teaches telephone counseling as one of the subjects.
As of October 2006, over 80 people in Nigeria have sent applications to become directors of telephone centers. Twice a month he gathers the new directors for additional training. He has appointed a coordinator for each of 36 states in Nigeria. These states have been grouped into six informal regions that will be supervised by six regional directors who will in turn report to the national executive of the International Fellowship of Christian Crisis Centers.
Each coordinator has been given the challenge of identifying and disciplining 50 new directors in their states. Two of the northern states are Muslim dominated. A committee has been selected to generate new ideas for raising finances and ways to further the ministry of telephone counseling. Rev. Ochei plans to extend his Seminary to Liberia by creating a campus in that country.
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Issac Palash Baroi
Dahka, Bangladesh
We met this young man during our Directors Training Conference in Bangalore, India in May 2005. Because of the call of God on his life, he sold his personal inheritance iin order to begin the ministry. He has written a book designed for Muslims that has been very successful. After giving out 2,000 copies he has plans to print 200,000 more to share with all the college students of Bangladesh. He has begun a telephone counseling ministry using mobile phones.
One of the ways that Issac generates finances is through F.A.I.T.H (Food Always in the Home) With gardening as the focus, Power Evangelism International Ministries teaches ministers a scientific and intensified organic backyard gardening approach that enables a family to produce on a 100 square meter lot, 50-80% of their daily nutritional needs the whole year around. The surplus can be sold to add extra income.
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Richard Aggrey
Tema, Ghana
Richard Aggrey heard about the ministry of telephone counseling and began to correspond with Damaris Faulkner, Managing Director of Love Lines International. After receiving information about this ministry, he indicated that members in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana wants to become involved. He attended the Directors Training Conference that was held in Accra, Ghana in April 2006.
Recently he reported that amazing things were happening as they began to act upon Mathew 10:8 stating “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons.”
A woman with swelling in both legs received instant healing. Another woman with an incurable stomach and intestines disease that had become “rotten” was healed as the “rottenness” was expelled from her body after prayer. A man who was impotent for sixteen years “became a man” again after God touched him. Three people have been raised from the dead. ”We have decided that God’s word is still true today.”
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Kizito Wanyonyi
Bungoma, Kenya
Kizito Wanyonyi has been operating Bongoma Crisis Counseling Centre since 2001. Last year he received 21,471 calls. He is convinced that telephone counseling is making a big difference in people’s lives.
Recently he shared with us some ways that he has been led to generate finances for the ministry. A brick making project and a printing facility have been financially profitable. Donations have been given by those God has blessed through the ministry. Kizito also has a farm that helps feed his family. He shares his produce with those in the famine stricken areas. Kizito is working with Paul Mwesigwa in Kampala, Uganda to have a regional Directors Training Conference in October of 2008.
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The greatest under-developed territory in the world sits on top of your shoulders.
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God's Blessings on you and your work as you continue for Him.
