MINISTRY UPDATE - SPRING 2005

Dear Friends,

Fruitful things are going on in this ministry, and all we can do is thank God, and praise Him for all He is doing.  The prayers of God’s people for this outreach are being responded to and we can’t thank you prayer warriors enough for your faithfulness.  Here are some highlights of what God has done, and is doing, because of your faithfulness to keep this ministry lifted up in prayer:

“Hello and greetings from Trans World Radio-Bonaire.  I received information about your ministry from a pastor friend.  I found your site to be very informative.  I am a radio producer with TWR working in the Caribbean.  I am writing to ask if I can use excerpts from the testimonies on your website on a radio program I produce here called, “Forever Friends.” [We gladly gave our approval].  On the program, I share letters that listeners write to our ministry and contemporary music.  I thought it would be a great outreach to share from your testimonies as well because they would truly bless the listeners. (For more info on TWR, you can go to: www.twr.org).”

A radio station in Florida... has contacted us, asking us to testify on their Sunday morning broadcast, which we have been honored in the Lord to do.  They are also asking us to alert other Christians to what God is calling them to do.  Here is an opportunity for you to be used of the Lord to reach out to others.  Their desire is the same as ours.  Let God use testimonies to draw the unsaved, as seeds get planted and watered in the hearers:

    Cross Walk Talk at WGTX.com

“ … Is taking the gospel to the nations every day - wherever there is Internet access.

Dear Intercessors,  

Would you agree with us in prayer for just a minute regarding our radio outreach?

That Cross Walk Talk will be posted on streaming audio on the Internet WEEKLY...

That it will be on more local stations reaching Florida and lower Alabama, in April, as planned...

That businesses who can benefit from regional or international advertising will "sponsor" us...

That the gospel of Jesus Christ will be heard around the world (we average 1200 hits daily)...

That God will pour out a double blessing on John and Joey Beebe for airing us on prime time...

Arise to newness of Life to lift Jesus high in 2005!

Carlotta Waldmann
www.cwlinc.com
850-835-LIVE

Share your testimony on "Cross Walk Talk," and be heard anytime of any day at www.wgtx.com on the Internet.
 
TIPS:  To record a testimony on our 4-minute voice mail, for use on our radio show, please call 850-835-LIVE.  DO NOT SAY ANYTHING that you do not want to hear on the air and DO NOT PAUSE until you are done!  If you decide to extend your testimony on another 4 minute message, DO NOT REPEAT yourself or include chit chat.  Feel free to delete it and start over if you need to.  Just lift Jesus up!”

From a sister who gave her heart to the Lord while on the Internet:

“I found your website by just searching the web for testimonies of reborn Christians.  I read almost every testimony and at the end of one I saw - that if I needed prayer that I could email your site and receive prayer (something you can never get too much of).  I thank you so much for yours prayers and your words of encouragement.  I am in the process of becoming more and more aware of the enemies tactics, especially with my emotions.  Saying thanks seems like such a little thing but you would not believe how your email has lifted me.    -- Jean

From another sister while watching television:

“I want to thank you for your ministry.  I started watching your television program a few months ago.  I was up late painting and looking for something on the TV that was uplifting to keep me company as I sat alone.  My son and daughter-in-law who had one time gone to church with us had strayed far from our Lord.  I could not understand, nor can I now, how they could be doing the things they were doing with their lives and with four young children they’re to bring up.  Our son was raised in the church and we have always lived our relationship with Christ openly.  How could these things be happening?  I had begun to lose hope the deeper they went into sin.  Drinking, drugs, etc … don’t need to go into more of the details.  My prayers seemed to be worthless.  Was it possible, with what I saw happening, for them to ever find their way back?  My grieving turned to anger, fear, and disgust.  Will my beautiful grandchildren follow in the lifestyle of their parents, after all if my son who was brought up to know right from wrong can do these things, what of those who are brought up with this lifestyle?  Hope was fading.

In watching your program on TV and now reading these testimonies on your website -  how can I not have hope?  Christ came to save sinners – not the self-righteous.  I have renewed faith that my prayers for them are not being wasted or going unheard, and that in due time, God will use them to touch my loved ones.”     -- Sandy

 Another person Writes …

“I spent hours on your website last night and found it to be fabulous.  Thanks especially for the article on MLM (Multi-Level Marketing – found in the Exhortations folder). I had been involved with a MLM that a church had put pressure on me to join and they even paid for my sign up fees.  It got so out of hand that the sermons revolved around the company and the money. 

Finally, God delivered all of us and taught us some valuable lessons.  We got sucked into New Age ‘positive thinking’ seminars and that allowed the enemy a stronghold in our lives.  They taught that one could change the vibrations of the body through thoughts to cause the Spirit to bring them health, wealth, and happiness. 

The ministry depleted; we all suffered severe financial breakdown to the point of losing almost everything, and I know the ‘leaders’ of this scam were believers and now are suffering severe marriage breakdown over it.  It’s sad really, so your words were well received and I thank you for them.  I forwarded a copy of your article to the Pastor. We now are walking in forgiveness and restoration, but it nearly destroyed us. 

The Lord showed me that I needed to ask forgiveness to my ‘customers’ – friends and family that had signed up under me.”       -- Jill

“I wanted to let you know that I print testimonies off the Precious Testimonies website and send them to the Pulaski State Prison in Hawkinsville, Georgia. 

I appreciate your Ministry Encouragers a great deal as well."

-- J & B Green

“A friend sent me a link to your site and as I began reading, the tears started flowing.  God began speaking to me through reading your testimonies and other writings on your site. 

I became a Christian in 2002, but then went off the rails and had a nervous breakdown late that year.  I was praising God so much and thought I had “broken through” to heaven, but then came the pain and I thought my head was going to burst as if the devil was fighting for my soul. 

I ended up in a secure psychiatric ward in England and felt broken, lost, imprisoned and defeated.  I took drugs and was a good patient, but could not talk of my painful breakdown without crying again.  No one would tell what had happened or why.

I came to Hamburg, Germany a broken man in December 2002, suffering from severe pains in my head as though my head was burning.  The German psychiatrist gave me pills and told me “talking would not help.”

After a lot more heartache and discouragement, I have been trying to rebuild my life despite great pain and suffering.  I now see I have been trying to do it on my own without God. 

My faith in God has grown stronger now.  God is helping me, despite my lack of faith, my worries, and my “perceived” mental deficiencies.  Change is hard, but we have the Holy Spirit within us; what greater power is there?  None!

I am learning to love God, to love myself and to love others – at last.  If you love someone you don’t want to hurt them anymore.  I can stop hurting myself now.  I thank the Lord for showing me this, and I thank you for following His call and giving your lives to HIS service through your testimony ministry.  I don’t know where my life is heading right now, but I don’t need to know as I am safe in HIS loving hands.”    -- John

We are so blessed and humbled to hear praise reports of this nature.  Lord … to YOU goes all the glory!  Without your grace, and without the prayers of your people, we fully realize our efforts to reach out to hurting people would all be in vain. 

You may have already discovered that we’ve added a new feature to the website.  Rather than just getting a ministry update emailed to you every three months, we’ll be updating readers more often, but we won’t be spamming you with more emails in doing so.  Under the Ministry Update section found on the main page of the website, you can click on: From Our Heart To Yours … and read more timely updates if you want.  For those of you God is calling to keep Precious Testimonies lifted up in prayer, we’ll be putting more specific prayer requests in this section as well. 

As each week goes by, God is steadily increasing the number of viewers visiting the ministry website, which we are truly grateful for.  Not only that, but viewers are staying on the website longer as well … always an encouraging statistic for anyone who has a ministry website. 

In January, we had 4,835 unique visitors - 6,997 total visits – 30,524 pages viewed – 117,169 hits. 

In February, we had 5,224 unique visitors – 7,224 total visits – 34,483 pages viewed – 129,133 hits. 

So far in March, we have 5,295 unique visitors – 7,115 total visits – 25,218 pages viewed – 104,743 hits.

What may be even more praiseworthy is the fact that according to the software we use to measure people visiting the website, people are spending more time on the site.  Sundays are normally one of the slower days of the week for people to read on the web, if our statistics are accurate, yet here is a breakdown of what happened Sunday, March 20: 

6,167 people spent up to 30 seconds on the site -- 297 people spent between 30 sec – 2 minutes on the site – 215 people spent between 2 –5 minutes on the site – 295 people spent between 5 –15 minutes on the site – 172 people spent 15 – 30 minutes on the site – 166 people spent between 30 minutes to 1 hour on the site – and here is the most encouraging fact of all: 107 people spent more than 1 hour on the site.  To God be all the glory!

Our prayer is that a sizeable number of these numbers are from unsaved people searching for answers about God.  Nevertheless, if it’s just believers who are struggling and need some hope and encouragement, that may be even more important to God.  After all, God’s people need to be built up in the faith to be strong witnesses.  Spiritual attacks are so intense and so frequent on many of God’s people that we never want to get so focused on trying to reach the lost at the expense of letting God’s people become causalities of spiritual conflict. 

Again, we thank each of you for being faithful in the important assignments God has given you at this season of your life.  No assignment from God is trivial or unimportant.  If you are like many, weariness creeps in, and from time to time it is good to remind oneself of 1 Corinthians 15:58: 

“Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.   

In closing, I want to say again … and again … and again … and again … please ask the Lord if He would assign you to pray for this outreach on a regular basis – praying for Kathleen & I and the rest of the staff at Precious Testimonies.  There are many things going on behind the scenes that we don’t feel liberty to share openly in a ministry update, at least at this time.  Suffice it to say that as this ministry continues, attacks from the enemy also increase.  We realize God is the one who assigns prayer warriors to keep a ministry covered … but it also depends upon our individual availability to actively grant Him permission, with one’s willingness to obey Him. 

The Apostle Paul asked the Church frequently to keep him and his ministry in their prayers.  God wouldn’t have told us that in scripture if it wasn’t as pertinent today as it was in Paul’s day.  To assume that God’s sovereignty over the affairs of the Church and Satan are such that little if no prayer is needed for people engaged in the call of seeking to win lost souls can simply engage in it without great opposition … let us constantly and soberly be ever reminded of what God communicates to us in 1 Thessalonians 2:18: 

“Therefore we wanted to come to you – even I, Paul, time and again – but Satan hindered us.”    

In the same battle with Jesus Christ for lost souls that the Apostle Paul was engaged in,

Norm & Kathleen Rasmussen

Directors