Stories of faith from around our Diocese

My name is Kandy and I have been in England for more than three years since I left China in 2006 and followed on my husband --Mao, who was pursuing his PhD degree in University of Bolton, Manchester. In the first month of my arrival, I spent most of my daytime on the internet and rarely communicated with English people while my husband was in the university. All this was due to my poor oral English. Everything was fresh to me because the culture and the people in England are so absolutely different from the Far East. I didn’t have any friends and sometimes felt real lonely.

Mao occasionally took me out to have a city view in order to relieve my homesickness and at weekends we normally went shopping. Life was very simple. One evening Mao brought me to join a Christian ‘House Group’ to study the Bible with other people. That was my first access to the Bible and I felt the lovely affection from the members of the group. We shared their stories and experienced encouragement, cheerfulness, sympathy, comfort etc. At the end of the study we prayed for each other. I was quite inspired. From then on, we regularly attended the group study every two weeks and went to the church service on Sunday night. God was gradually coming into our souls. We made a lot of friends there. My loneliness went away from me and smiles came back to my face because I knew God was with me. At the beginning of 2007, our first child, Terry, came into our lives and Mao completed his studies at the university and got his degree. We faced our big life decision of where to go next: China, Manchester, or London?  It was God who guided us and we decided to move to London. We would like give many thanks to Lesley Bernard, a dear lady and a Christian who has always looked after us. She helped us move to London which meant five hours driving from the northwest to south. We were deeply touched and gave glory to God. Less than half a year later, Mao changed his job and we had to move again and came to Kirkby in Ashfield. At that time Terry was very young and I spent most of the time at home looking after him. We moved to a little house we bought in 2008 then and we started our life in a new environment. Thanks to God for his direction! I am very pleased to live here not only enjoying our new home but also being beside All Saint’s Church in Annesley where we have felt God with us more closely. We saw the notice on the wall of the Annesley Church Hall when we had a walk around and went to “Open door”, a fellowship group. The memory is still so clear as Terry and I got a very warm welcome when we came to the Church Hall for the first time. All the members smiled at us with passion; Mrs. Sylvia Robinson quickly found some toys from her home for Terry to play with. I was really touched and it seemed as if I was back in China at that moment. Thanks to all the members of Open Door we share memorable times together. Terry does not get bored living here because he goes to the Toddler Group in Annesley Church Hall and spends a lot of fun time with other children. Here I should specially mention three ladies—Jean Cundy, Betty Runacus, Eva Bradbury who always keep an eye on us and teach me new English words, correct my pronunciation, explain the English culture and enjoy happy tea times together as well as playing with Terry. There is much love around us, thanks be to God. We have decided to follow God and we will get baptised next month. We know that means that God will be with us for ever and the commitment of loving all people together.

Vicar at All Saints, the Revd Liz Turner-Loisel says:
“It is great to have Kandy, Mao and Terry as part of our Church family here at All Saints, Annesley. They are lovely warm, friendly people and fantastic parents who really bless us. Kandy has taught us some Chinese words and songs and Jean and Betty say her cooking is fantastic! Kandy works really hard for the church in all kinds of ways and it is fantastic to see how she and Terry have joined all kinds of groups and integrate really well with all ages. Mao is so supportive of his family and we love them all dearly – they have quickly become a really important part of our lives. We are very much looking forward to the baptism of their whole family on the 2nd August and, as their family here in England, will be celebrating with them after the service over a special lunch. It will also be great to meet their friends from the church in Manchester who made them so welcome in their early days in this country.”

What is it like to see the village where you grew up devastated by violence; your neighbours’ homes deserted, burnt out; to live with the constant fear of attack, arrest, and murder…? The Revd Daniel Njuguna, vicar of St Peter & St Paul’s, Hucknall recently returned to his roots in Kenya.

“We were visiting a nation torn and ravaged by post election violence. I already knew that my village was heavily affected. Some of my neighbours had been killed, homes destroyed and many villagers had sought refuge in other places. It was apparent that we would not spend even a single night with my parents in our home village; we were going to stay with my sister’s family in Nakuru. But we had to go and be with my people in these devastating moments in their life.
My home village in Mau-Narok is about  40Kms West of Nakuru, the 3rd largest city in Kenya after Nairobi and Mombasa and also headquarters of Rift Valley Province. This province is the only one in Kenya settled with a majority of different Kenyan ethnic groups and plays a significant role in Kenyan politics. In the last general election, despite gaining the majority vote in the province, the presidential candidate was not declared the overall  winner in the presidential election, which contributed to the country’s post election violence with communities in the Rift Valley Province experiencing more devastation than anywhere else in the country.

The road to my village passes through the village of a different ethnic group (Kalenjin) who had apparently become the enemies of my ethnic group (Kikuyu). It was therefore nerve wracking driving through the village knowing that if our vehicle stalled or the villagers decided to stop and search the vehicles for people of my ethnic background anything could happen to us. At the height of violence and afterwards a number of my villagers had been caught in such circumstances and paid with their lives. But we managed to drive safely through to my village.
What greeted us were deserted homes and ruins of burnt homes, and for a moment I thought we had lost our way. The angel of life had surely left the village, leaving anxiety, hopelessness and emptiness. The village where I grew up, the former White Highland (from Colonial times) had a rich legacy in agriculture which included sheep rearing, wheat and horticultural farming. Life had unfortunately come to a halt and what many people had earned for many years had been reduced to nothing. The few people left in the village survived by staying together in small groups in fear of sporadic attacks especially at night. The majority of those left in the village had no other place to go, or like my parents were just hanging on in desperation because they felt leaving the village meant the end of their life.
I was glad that I had finally made it to my village and we had a wonderful time with my parents and friends. Unfortunately that night, a few hours after we had returned to Nakuru, three business premises in the village’s trading centre were burnt down.
In the second week we managed to squeeze in a baptism service for our sons Leo and Emil in the village church. It was a joyful occasion and even more special because we managed to incorporate the dual heritage of our sons with our travelling companions, the Revd David Anderton and his wife Emma, as their English God parents, and a Kenyan couple. The most poignant moment however was meeting the widow of a long serving member of our church who was killed during the violence, and their property reduced to ashes.
It was distressing to leave my family. I knew peace was still elusive and their future was fragile and unpredictable. The sporadic manner in which the violence and crime was instigated makes me think that it might be a long time before the wounds heal and violence ceases. Meanwhile the prayers and support from well wishers has remained the only hope for many Kenyans caught up in the violence.

Frances Finn had broken her leg skiing as a teenager, resulting in one leg being an inch and a half shorter than the other – but one memorable evening at a Christian Conference in April her leg actually grew to it’s original length – and the whole amazing experience was recorded on a mobile phone.

Frances, a BBC Radio Nottingham presenter and worship leader at St Mark’s Church,Woodthorpe, explains: “The shorter leg has meant my pelvis has slumped and my back is curved. I get quite bad back pain and wear an insert in my shoe to stop me limping. During the conference a speaker called Mark Marx said he wanted to pray for me to be healed. He actually asked people to get their mobile phones out in readiness. I thought: God won’t perform for the cameras. My faith was not high at that point, but when my leg started to grow it was incredible – and it certainly wasn’t directly proportional to my level of faith. Sometimes God just shows His goodness. Mark said a prayer and all I felt was a little pressure in my tibia.Then I got up and walked around and it felt normal.”
Several months later the proof is there. “If I put my insert in it affects my walking on the other side. The chiropracter said the bone had overknit and was one and a half inches shorter, but now the tibia bone is the same length. I don’t have any doubts that God healed me.”

This very public and dramatic healing – you can watch the miracle on the BBC Faith website and on Youtube – has been a real ‘door-opener’ for Fran to speak about her experience.

“But because the BBC expects their presenters to be impartial with sound judgement and this is incredible and hard to understand, I needed to be interviewed - not just me coming out with lunatic claims unchallenged. On my own show I just mentioned it had happened and where they could hear about it.”

Faith has definitely risen at St Mark’s as a result of Fran’s miracle. “We’ve see more healings, one lady was healed of ME after nine years. I’ve spoken all over the country; it’s been a very busy time.”
Fran gained a degree in Theology at Trinity College, Bristol in the 1990’s and was a full time Chrsitian worker before doing a post graduate diploma in Broadcast Journalism.

“I had the head knowledge about God’s power and goodness, but I always struggled with the issue of me as an individual experiencing God’s love, making that connection. I fed myself on disappointments and felt left behind in the moves of God, but when Mark prayed he just said: ‘God will you show Fran how much you love her and are passionate about her.’ It all came together for me in that experience.”

Now Fran wants to see more of God’s power working in peoples lives. “A guy called Bill Johnson spoke at the conference. At his church – Bethel Church in Redding, California – everyone is charged with praying for the sick and they have dozens of healings every week. They log the miracles, which are happening out in the shopping malls as well as in the church.”

Salvation is the biggest miracle but whenever Jesus preached about the Kingdom of God being at hand he always followed it up with a demonstration. The Gospel without power is not Good News. If  Jesus did it like that then we need to, and conversions will follow.

Our church believes that Jesus came and lived as a man having emptied himself of his divinity. His supernatural ministry began when he was baptised in the Holy Spirit by John, therefore all he did was in the power of he Holy Spirit. He modelled for us what we can do if we are fully living in the power of that same spirit. Why aren’t we seeing what Jesus did? Sothere’s a hunger to press in for more. We need to see ourselves more like Jesus, not just in being Christ-like, but in ministry too.”