In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the challenges faced in the previous year and the need to overcome discouragement. They mention the launch of a new program called Global Action, which will change the way things are done in the future. The speaker also discusses Operation X-13 or Breakthrough 2000, expressing concern and gratitude for the response it has received. They emphasize the importance of taking action and contextualizing the vision into personal ministries and homes. The sermon concludes with gratitude for the financial provision received in the previous year.

Thank you. Let's just pray again. God, we just thank you for the privilege of worship. We ask now that you would help us as we share and as we consider some of the things that are happening, some of the things that we are facing as we go forward together. We ask in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, thank you for your prayers for us as we were there in Singapore. It was a very challenging time, very stretching time. I was making some comparisons of the meetings we had in the 70s and 80s, comparison to the meetings in the 90s. Certainly the 90s, again, maybe 96 is an exception. I don't have that good of memory remembering all the details, but certainly these meetings go on in a far more peaceable way than I can remember in past years. Probably a number of reasons for that. I won't get into it. It doesn't mean that everything is smooth and that we all just agree easily on everything because we don't, but it does seem that there's a momentum that's built up over the years and maybe there's also maturity, maybe other things, maybe even some negative things. But we certainly got through a massive agenda. These are the two main papers or agendas, all kinds of other papers that I may just refer to a little later on. Before I do that, welcome back to some other people. Again, I don't have the credentials to welcome you since you're probably already here last week and I've been away, but it's great to have Viv back and we'll certainly be hearing from him sooner or later, hopefully sooner. I look forward to the meeting next Tuesday night. I am around just for a while, two weeks I guess, all told. And then between now and June, I will be here a lot more than I have in the past couple of months. It's good to see Yosef back and we're excited about what God is doing in Algeria. I guess if we really were able to measure things the way they see things in heaven, we would probably have to say that the breakthroughs in prayer for Algeria have been as significant as anything we've seen. I'm almost hesitant to say that because we know things can change again, but right now it does look encouraging and if Yosef is around on Tuesday, we'll have him and we'll have a bigger crowd share on that. It's just quite amazing. It's good to have Jack Rendell back from Latin America. Big things are happening in connection with the Rendells and so I think it would be good if Jack, you came and shared that. We discussed it on the phone and mentioned that would be good. So we can all be praying. It'll come a bit as a surprise to some people, but not to the Lord, right? I hope not. Well, good morning to everyone. I think some of the rumors of us going to the States for a while have been going around and I thought maybe it was good to say something very clearly or as clearly as possible about it to everyone so that it was more official. The idea is to go to the States for about a year and a half. Last November, Susan started struggling a lot with some physical problems that really started last spring, I suppose. She was getting problems with allergies, but it got really intensive in November, December. She actually has to carry a serum around with her now because if she eats certain things and she's not always sure what the context of everything she's eating is, she can get these terrible attacks. Her skin breaks out and her throat tightens up so she can't even breathe. Just recently she had another one and they had to give her something that she just places on her thigh and pushes in. She has a serum and it unrestricts her throat and she can carry on living, but it's death-threatening. So she is in a serious situation in that sense. Along with this, I think her homesickness began to grow. That probably brought it out more than anything else. She wanted to go see what it was like living in the States and we felt it would be a good thing for her to see something of that and what it was like and the differences from what it was like living here, at least some of them. I think she's just facing too much homesickness to be able to carry on. She called us several times and we kind of held her off and encouraged her and reminded her of all the positive side of things. But finally on the first of the year she called and said she just couldn't handle it anymore and was either coming home or we had to go over there. So we started thinking and praying about it and wondering what was the best thing to do. Of all the things and challenges that she faces, and they're not all negative, some of them are just good straightforward things that she has to face and work through, but of all the situations that she faced in the States, her spiritual situation was probably the best. Because the youth group in my home church is going very, very well. There's a couple in my home church that have just put months and years and hours each week of work into the kids in my church. They have good Bible studies with them. The kids have to go home and study and pray over things and bring feedback back. I mean it wasn't as good in my time when I was in that church in high school and she seems to be doing very, very well and growing spiritually, praying. We talk with her now about spiritual things like we've never done before, which is quite amazing. We can hardly believe it. And so we didn't want to take her out of that situation. We've talked with leadership in OM as well as in our churches and our church here in Britain as well and everybody seems to think it might be a good time to go and spend a little longer. When I was speaking to my home, the pastor of my home church, he says, well, you know, if you do take in a year and a half, call it a working furlough and I will be working from over there. In other words, I'll be making my trips from New Jersey rather than from here and a lot of what I do can be done from there anyway. It's been 11 years since we've been in the States for an extended period of time. We've gone over a couple of summers, but the visits to these places have been lightning. One church that's very enthusiastic in supporting us, maybe that's the reason, in Milan, Michigan, you know, we were in and out one day last time we were in the States in the summer of 94. Now I get to some of these places when the family isn't there on some of my trips, but again, it's just one day in and out or one meeting in and out. And so maybe it's time to go spend a bit more time, more like a year or a bit more there than just one summer moving around to 28 different places in seven weeks. Hopefully I can get some meetings in the States while I'm there in the New Jersey area and other places. And then people have asked us about Carolee, what about her and her schooling situation? My church is actually running a very good school, which goes through the eighth year. It has a high reputation. Lots of people want to put their kids into the school and can't get in. They kind of leave a few extra places for special cases like ours that are closely connected with the church. So Carolee can probably go into that school and she's doing very, very well in her own grades. She's in the top stream at school and getting good grades. So even with all the absence that she's had recently, so that's encouraging. And I think she'll come back early enough to settle back into the system here in order to be able to go into GCSEs without too much problem. I could go on and on, but I think maybe I'll just stop there. And if people have questions, you know, ask us the questions, whatever they may be. Thanks very much. Thanks, Jack. Let's just pray. It's a big step to be renting out their house. They'll be making this move. Let's pray for Carolee, the significant adjustment for her. Lord, we just thank you for Jack and Kathy and Carolee and Susan. We thank you for the way you're working in their lives. You know our hearts that we will miss them for that year and a half, their fellowship, their input in many different ways. But this does seem to be your way. We pray that our loss here will be a great blessing to the people of New Jersey and this church and throughout the United States. The challenge is just so great in that country at this time. We rejoice that even when we're separated, we can be upholding one another. We can be occasionally on the phone, email, and be tied in together much more, much more than in previous generations. Thank you now in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, a lot of things to share. I'm purposely putting this on tape. I hope to make a better effort in 1996 on internal communication to ICT members who are stretched out a bit in our two different sections. But I think most people are interested in keeping up on what's happening and being able to plan and pray intelligently because certainly the way things are building up, 96 and 97 are going to be very, very major years. I know we easily say that each year and the devil later tries to intimidate us and discourage us when the testings come and the heartbreaks come. And as we look back over 1995, we see some things that, humanly speaking, are pretty difficult. One of the things that was presented at Singapore was global action. That's the prototype of the new leaflet that now subject to, I think, a few changes has acceptance and global action is now in launch position, which will change the way we do things in the future, especially for the one and two year program. In the future, starting in 97, people won't join a one or two year program. Ideally, they'll join global action. I know some will still, of course, call it a one year program, just like sometimes I ask Vera to quickly send something to New Jersey office, which finished quite a few years ago. But it's exciting. And the hope is that instead of seeing our normal, about four or five hundred come for our midterm programs, that we will see closer to a thousand. This will happen not primarily through events. The main part of global action is not just events, but there will be two launch congresses around the same time, one in India and the other in the Netherlands. It's been interesting to just see how all this has evolved and how we ever got united on this, because when it was first launched a couple of years ago, there was considerable disagreement and the people behind this have really worked very, very hard. Quite a few of the key people in this global action are on this team, which means we really will be involved and we really want to be supportive of those people, Howard Herrigan, Peter Conlon, Christiana, and of course Peter Maiden and people in Carlisle, and then other people right around the world, because it is part of our global forward thrust. So that's one of the big things that was united on there in Singapore. I guess the thing I'm the most excited about, forgive me for my mundane-ness, is that we just had the largest single financial breakthrough in several years into ICT. It is so big that Peter Maiden, as this came into Carlisle, and I have decided not to release the amount of money. It is way over 30,000, 40,000 pounds. Why do we do that? Well, I guess maybe just that people get such a wrong idea and think that suddenly there's a huge amount of money sitting around, when in fact that's not the case. The amount of money we need just to keep ICT, Carlisle, and here going together with things like the Global Impact Fund. What used to be called the Development Fund, one percent is the Global Impact Fund. Don't confuse it with different national impact funds which are being born. USA just had a lot of funds, a lot of money come into their National Impact Fund. And especially the move of Petra to Carlisle and everything else connected with Petra is extremely expensive. We are going to freeze some of this money and use it over the next six months so that we can balance out this time of the year with the summer. We're just going to try to do this. Because last year, also around this time, we had some very significant giving. On top of this giving, our transfer into ICT, which is due any day, is bigger, I think, than any month. All of our bills will be paid. All of our loans will be repaid. Not a special project. They have a ways to go yet. So it is very, very encouraging and we hope that by freezing some of this money that we can have at least now six months of relative, I don't know what term to use. I don't like to use the word easier. I don't want to use the word sane. Stability. Six months of financial stability so that we can work on other things, including finance. But I thought it would be good, I'm going to turn the recorder off for a moment, just give thanks. I might just say, just before we pray, that in many ways, 1995 was the toughest and especially when you consider the provision of this place, the toughest and the best year that I can remember in living memories. Special projects alone income shot close to one million American dollar equivalent from all over the world. You say, why are we hearing about this in February? Well, I've been away a lot and in OM, December money comes in February. Fortunately, this big gift came in direct. So we had all this money coming in from December and then this bigger gift direct. Um, just really quite amazing. So let's give thanks to that for that. We often pray and ask and many have worked very hard on this. Let's give thanks to the Lord. I just thank you and praise you for this major financial breakthrough we've seen, not through just these big gifts, but also this matching fund for those who were short in their own support. What an encouragement this has been to so many. Uh, we know that actual cash hasn't, for the matching part of it hasn't actually arrived yet, so we can still look forward to that. We just thank you and we lift our hearts in praise and adoration. We never want to take these breakthroughs for granted, even though again and again, for way over 35 years, we have seen it happen. We thank you Lord for the months that, that it doesn't happen because that reminds us that we can't presume. That reminds us that it isn't just easy going, but it's spiritual warfare. It's a battle and there is suffering. And our unity, Lord, we think of how our unity was tested a number of times along the way, especially right after the New Era, uh, catastrophe. And Lord, I just, more than the finance, thank you for the oneness and the unity in the body in the midst of all of our diversity, in the midst of all the things that do hit us and hit us hard. And we worship you together now in thanksgiving for these breakthroughs in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. I'd love to spend a whole hour giving thanks. Um, just in a way of personal testimony, it is impossible for me to describe how much God has just poured his grace into my own weak, needy, struggling heart in the last weeks, as we've seen such an avalanche of finance after times of deep, deep, uh, despair, uh, never allowing it to, uh, last too many hours, but still it was there. Many disappointments, just the increased costs, uh, and then the shortfall of support used to just hammer me almost on a daily basis. And somehow the Lord heard our cries, your cries and, and rescued us. This will make all the difference in the world as to what we are attempting to do. You cannot launch all kinds of new things and do what we are trying to do with a massive financial cloud on your head and all that goes with that. And many, many things in 1995 were canceled and postponed. Some of those things are already being resurrected and we are aware Satan of course will be counterattacking. What are some other big things that should encourage and challenge our hearts? One was a phone call last night. It was like talking across the street on the best telephone in the world, but it was to log us to in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. My satellite, by the way, the kind of satellite we have on the ship, which cost a fortune, now you can have in your own briefcase. So if I go on the ship for any long journeys, I'll bring my own. Uh, they're about $2,000 coming down fast. They may be a little more than that, but, um, you can imagine what we paid for our commercial satellite communication on the ship. Some of you may not be aware of all these interesting things. You can now be on a jumbo jet over Afghanistan and phone anywhere in the world from the plane. I've seldom ever done it. I think I'm not accustomed to it yet, especially the price, but I almost did flying in from Singapore, but I couldn't think of anything urgent enough to phone about. So, so I didn't, I didn't call. They've had some pretty rough weather on Logos 2. They're looking forward to the Cliffords, uh, meeting them on arrival. They would like you to carry a tape that I told them about on the, on the, uh, on the phone. Miles Taves talked on the phone. Peter Nichols was out in Singapore. They had two calm days so far. All the rest, Force 7, Force 8. But, um, Miles said that people seem to be holding up quite well. And, uh, I guess some that were expecting to be ill were not ill, but others were ill. Toggy Benson sent his greetings. Captain, please do continue to pray for Logos 2 when it's, all the time, but especially a mid-Atlantic crossing is an extra serious challenge for a ship that old. So that's an item I thought you would like to, uh, hear about. Yes? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that, uh, that report. A little bit of an update on Operation, uh, AX-13 or Breakthrough 2000. Uh, this, uh, is scaring me right out of my shoes at present because, uh, Louise Bush has responded in a very, very big way to this. I sort of figured he would since he responds in a big way to most things. Uh, a number of you on the team responded to this challenge in a very, very, uh, encouraging way. I shared this vision in a briefer way with all the leaders at Singapore. And the response has been very, very encouraging. Mike Stracciura, by the way, was with us. We commissioned him into his new ministry. And of course, this new vision that, uh, God has given is very much up his, uh, up his street. It's still on discussion, uh, stage because, uh, but, but yesterday with his facts, big long facts back from Louise Bush, it is, um, almost moved into the cement stage, which is making me rather, uh, nervous because of course with it, Louise Bush is suddenly opening phenomenal doors, uh, for us to be able to promote this through the whole worldwide network. Uh, the same time he's trying, he wanted a decision yesterday, uh, to get me to be the co-chairman of this Congress in South Africa. There's four or five Congresses all going on at once. And the one that I would be helping to lead is, uh, Congress, especially for missionary executives from all over the world. This is 1997. The South Africans, uh, it seems maybe trying to match the Koreans. They're putting together a mega mega event in Pretoria around the 28th of June to the 5th of July, 1997. And I, uh, his line was always busy toward the end of the day yesterday. And I eventually fell asleep due to the jet lag. So he didn't hear from me, but, uh, I don't know. I don't know what to say at this stage, except, uh, we'll try to keep you informed as to what's happening. If you missed hearing that Acts 13 tape, you can get a copy. She might be in short supply right now, but within the near future, you could get a copy from, uh, Vera. This will not primarily be an OM, uh, vision. It'll be an 82,000 mobilization network vision, but the burden is that as many groups as possible will, uh, tie into it. It's a very simple thing to adopt. You don't have to be an 82,000. You don't, uh, probably similar to 82,000 different fields within OM will respond in different ways. Our policy on 82,000 is it's up to each individual nation. OM is linked in a general way. And as far as active participation, that varies from nation to nation. And in some nations, 82,000 is major, like for example, the Gulf with Kevin Penney. Other nations, uh, it doesn't, uh, the, the technical side of it and the structure side is not happening very much. That leads me to the next point that I've just come from a strategic meeting with, uh, John Ehrwicker and Stanley Davis, uh, Roger Foster, David, uh, is it Sprint? Spriggs. Thank you. As well as, uh, one or two others sort of making the final decision about 82,000 in the UK. And, uh, a survey was taken nationwide among the Evangelical Alliance constituency. And the survey shows that there is not unity about going forward in the UK with an 82,000 structure. So it looks like what's going to happen is that the Evangelical Missionary Alliance is going to, uh, adopt certain major concepts in the Evangelical Alliance, other concepts, and run with these goals and concepts within existing structures. For example, there's already a task force or whatever they call it for unreached people in this country. In fact, Les Wade is part of that. And hopefully that, Ben Samuel is the leader of it, also one of the leaders in 82,000. That will, uh, take ownership of the unreached people aspect of, uh, of the challenge without necessarily using, uh, the name. And this was a disappointment to some people. Others knew it, it was, it was what was going to happen. Um, through this, there's a definite groundswell in Britain that is saying something much more must be done in this country for world missions and the unreached people. And now exactly how that's going to move, I don't know. Um, Stanley Davis of Evangelical Missionary Alliance has shared that they're adding one or two staff. I think a key staff person already added. That is going to enable them to do much more. The relationship with EA and ENA, a very crucial relationship, is, is, um, perhaps much better than it's been in the past. There's certainly a desire amongst some very key people to get a greater unreached people's focus at, uh, spring harvest in the future. There's thought of launching some kind of major British missions, Congress, um, all kinds of things being discussed. And it's, it's quite encouraging. It's always easy to see the negative side. We seem to have so long, so far to go, but, um, there's also considerable encouragement and all those things will impact us in OM, I can assure you, because we are in the middle of many things here in the UK. So that, I wanted you to know about that and don't hesitate to give me, uh, feedback as I receive feedback from many parts of the world, especially concerning some of these new things we're launching into. It's especially helpful to get some from people on our own team as we're so, so much in the heart of, of some of this. I wanted to just mention, uh, just a word of thanks about this Korean event that's just taken place here. I've heard some good feedback. I know a lot of people had to work very hard. It's somewhat of an experiment to do that kind of thing. And I'm not saying how much we're going to be doing it in the future or doing it in that particular way, but, uh, experiments are good. And I just want to thank all of you. Um, I, I can take no credit for it actually, because I tried to stop it, but the consensus moved against me and I said, fine, you, you know, do it. And I always love to see things happen in which I'm not that very much involved, though in connection with things from Korea, I tend to get overly, uh, involved. So thank you. And, um, all those that, that put time and effort into that, and I, there will be long-term results from that kind of thing. Whatever effort and tears or hard work you put into it, knowing the way these things go, the benefits will be greater. And believe me, Korea is blessing OM big time. Um, and we're blessing them and that's global synergy for the kingdom. I wanted to say that we have another sort of experimental event coming spearheaded by the, uh, Brooks Chacko Duet and others. Um, Serpa probably doing most of the work. No. And that's, uh, this pastor's event coming up here on, is it 6th or 7th of February? 6th of February, about 40, 45 pastors will be here. In many ways, this is a seven or eight years overdue. It's a fantastic idea. So, uh, it's just, it's just a day event. Nobody will be staying here overnight or anything like that. So again, I wanted to mention that for, for prayer and that kind of event is so much in line with the new thrust of Acts 13. When I was in Singapore, I spoke at the Church of the Savior, one of the fastest growing churches in Singapore. Um, their missions, the commission leader or associate mission leader in that church is Frank Tale from, uh, used to work in Pakistan and they are sending 500 people out on mission trips. That's the new in turn, by the way, for missions now. Mission trips seems to be getting, everything seems to be getting shorter and shorter and shorter. And some people in very non-grace awakened ways react to these things. I think that's a great mistake. This is the world we live in. A lot of those people, they didn't go on a mission trip, they go on a holiday and they spend the same amount of money, maybe a little more, maybe less, who knows. The church up the road, which, uh, again, like most churches in Singapore do their own thing in missions. They don't work through agencies. Uh, they are sending 1000 church founded by a man named neighbor, whole church built on the small church, a small cell group concept, fastest growing church in Singapore. They have a thousand going on mission trips and they've only launched this concept in the last couple of years. And one of the beautiful things about, um, many of the ministries of OM, I think, especially of the ships, but many other aspects of OM is the phenomenal network we have with churches. And this past weekend we took meetings in 70 churches in Singapore and we've already had a phenomenal feedback from my church, uh, that I, where I took the meeting about two and a half thousand people in the meetings, uh, free services, they finally acknowledged that OM may have spirit filled people. It's always an accomplishment, isn't it? But it is amazing because we're not sort of fully, uh, in the charismatic movement. Uh, there are those rumors that go around that, you know, really OMers are not, uh, spirit filled. I mean, maybe even this George Gerber guy, he's not spirit filled. And though we may smile, those rumors are not exactly helpful when you're trying to build relationships with local, uh, churches. So it's just interesting how some of this is tying, uh, together, including, uh, things like this, um, meeting with these pastors that's coming up very, very, uh, soon. I wanted to just bring an update on the building. Um, this is certainly a huge, a huge challenge facing us. I had an important meeting with Mr. Gui, presented him with all the photos and all the plans, and he is definitely committed to, uh, help in a very, very big way for the repairs and refurbishing of the building, which will take a considerable amount of time. There will be inconveniences coming upon us while this is done, rewiring the building, repairing roofs. Um, we could opt out and move out for a year, uh, into some other facility, all temporary, and then move back. I think that would be maybe even more inconvenient, uh, to say the least. So I think we have to face facts. Probably 1996 will be a year of, uh, considerable disruption in this building. And I hope we can somehow roll with the punches and do what we have to do. Of course, a number of people work at home, some work at home and here. Uh, we are not starting anything immediately. We still have a number of things to get in place. We have quotes to get. So I hope that we can, uh, really, really make this a serious matter of prayer that we can see the breakthroughs, um, along many, many different lines. We have to make some important decisions, very important decisions about the use of the building at the latest by the end of March. So that's going to take grace and that's going to take, um, wisdom. Let's just pray about this building thing for a moment. That's just, uh, Ron Goodenough's coming here even today to, uh, work on some things in connection with that. Lord, we just commit to you the building. Again, we are stunned that you've given us this huge place with all this land, but it's also the responsibility. We think of what people pay just to buy one little flat just down the road here. It's incredible. And we think of the report on the radio this morning and housing prices continuing to climb, maybe only in a small way. I don't know. But Lord, we commit all this to you and especially that our unity may remain intact through the changes and that we would guard our tongues and not speak when in some cases we don't know what we're even saying because of the complexities and the challenge and the fast changes that are coming upon us. And again, we lift up the church, our relationship with the church. We lift up Heather and John as they live here and face many more complexities than the rest of us. And we're trusting you to give us the right contractors and the right architect and your mind as to how the building can be used. In Jesus' name, amen. I want to apologize for a mistake I made. I think it may be on that Acts 13 tape. I referred in some cases to the Jericho Project. Please forgive me. It's the Joshua Project. There is a Jericho Project. David Conkle works for Jericho Project in Minneapolis, in Madison, Wisconsin. Joshua and Jericho do have some connection. I had already caught this mistake, but then Louise Bush reminded me of it as well. The Joshua Project is the latest huge development in 82,000 and you can read about it in Ralph Winter's magazine, Frontiers Magazine. There's not time to go into detail, but basically everything happening in 82,000, not everything, but a lot of the various things are tied now in to the Joshua Project with all of its various aspects. So that's one other thing that I wanted to mention. Well, I hope that you find this information helpful as we work as a team. What one person does certainly affects others. I wanted to just show you a few of the things I brought back from Singapore that you might be interested in seeing. There's the LM Core Study Manual edited by Richard Briggs. This of course was received with great delight and seems to now be on target to become a reality and certainly a major part of global action. There's the OASIS Administrative Instructions and Overview of Ministry. There was a great affirmation of Alan Adams' ministry in this area of counseling and pastoral care. Just look at all the things that are in this one paper. Physician paper, The Vision of OASIS, Code of Ethics, Practice for Counselors, Counselors Confidentiality and O.M. Statement of Faith, Requirements for OASIS Counselors Interview Forms for Counselors with O.M. Notes for Love Europe Counselors, Briefing Session, Admin Instructions, Completion of Requests for Help Forms, Sample Memorandum for Home Offices, Referral Forms, Requests for Help Form. It does seem that the whole pastoral care challenge and counseling challenge, they are two distinct areas of ministry, is going forward in quite an encouraging way. There's a little form that quite a few of us had in connection with global action. One of the toughest challenges, and we're out of time, that we face, those of us who come from Singapore, and I challenged people about it just before they left now, is to communicate as much as possible from Singapore down right through the grassroots of O.M. If you think that's easy, then your knowledge of O.M. is fairly weak. It is incredibly difficult. It is also expensive, though email can greatly cut the price. Peter Mayne will do the official report. That will go out to leaders. Those leaders then have to discern in the light of their time how much of this they can pass on to their team members. Some of it isn't that relevant for the average team member. At the same time, we have many different kinds of team members. We have team members very interested in these things. We have other team members who, if they're honest, are not that interested in these things. So how do you know what to communicate and what not to communicate? And since Satan is also a master at intimidation, some of our leaders do find it very hard, and therefore the information doesn't get out. One of the biggest events coming at us in 1996, and there are many, is the General Council. We affirmed there in Singapore that for every one major leader we had there, five key people were not there who are equal to these people. Do not think hierarchically. That is going. And this was a specific meeting with a specific job that does not make them any more significant than someone who wasn't there. Quite a few, by the way, of people with those jobs, like field leaders, were not there because they could not afford to be there, especially many from Europe. But this was sort of known when we went that way, and the representation from Asia was phenomenal because it's right in their heartland. They knew it probably wouldn't be coming back again. And so, I'm not saying that's why they were there, but they were there, and I think that was very encouraging. It looks like next year's leaders conference, international leaders conference, will be in Sweden. It's amazing how quickly this group can make a decision at times. This one seemed to take only five or six minutes. Various other places were suggested. St. Petersburg was second. Germany was still in the running, but somehow they then gave a price for Sweden, which seemed to be incredibly reasonable. And it looks like, anything subject to change, that next January or so we will be in Sweden, where the weather is so lovely in January. Thank you very much. Let's pray. Lord, we believe that we live in the information age. We are told that, even though some of us don't fully grasp it. We're still hoping we're in the age of action. But we know information leads to action, and when it doesn't, then help us, Lord, to take our own spiritual temperature to see where we really are. Lord, these things that we have been able to share about have come as a result of many years of prayer and work on the part of a large number of people in and out of OM. And by your grace, we're going to somehow put these things together. We're going to somehow contextualize it into our own field, our own department, our own personal ministry, into our homes. And by your grace, we are going to go forward. Father, you know my knees are shaking. And part of me wants to run away and feel so overwhelmed, especially by the continued challenges that come on a global scale. Lord, our hearts are shaken as we see the need across the world and we read about things like Burundi and wonder how is this all relevant to that. And Father, we ask you for grace as we attempt to minister right across the world to our own people. Help our leaders to be able to share something of what's happening at OM and through this leaders meeting and to see it go down right to the grassroots of the movement. Give us greater wisdom and grace in building up the ministry of each individual OMer. To use that modern term of being able to empower them in their particular ministry. At the same time, may they know the crucified life and not overly focus on their own ministry and their own empowerment, but their ability to encourage and empower and help others. And somehow we may function as one body for your glory. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you very much.