I was raised in an unbelieving home. I came to Christ at 15. My mum became a Christian soon afterward. But my father was the most resistant person to the gospel I’ve ever known. He’d told me never to talk to him about that “religious stuff” again. At 84, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. One day he phoned, very upset.

“I’m in terrible pain. I’ve got a gun to my head. Sorry to leave you with a mess.”

I begged him to hold on. I made the 30-minute drive in 20, jumped out of the car and pounded on the door. No answer.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the door. On the floor I saw a rifle and a handgun. Calling out for my father, I turned the corner into his room, prepared for the worst. Eyes half closed, I bumped into him as he walked out. My heart racing, I rushed him to the hospital, where they scheduled him for surgery the next morning.

I arrived an hour before surgery, praying that in his despair, with no easy way out, my dad would turn to Christ. Standing by his bed, I opened my Bible to Romans. I began reading in chapter three. “There is none righteous, no, not one … All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Those weren’t easy words to read. My tavern-owner father had always taken hot offense at being called a sinner. I wanted to gloss over this portion, moving quickly to the good news of God’s grace. But I forced myself to keep reading, verse after verse, about human sin. Why? Because I told myself, If I really love Dad, I have to tell him the whole truth. If God’s going to do a miracle of conversion here, that’s His job. My job is to say what He says.

We made it to Romans 6, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Then Romans 10, about being saved through confessing Jesus as our risen Lord.

Finally I looked Dad in the eyes and asked, “Have you ever confessed your sins and asked Jesus Christ to forgive you?”

“No,” he said in a weak voice. He paused, then added, “But … I think it’s about time I did.”

I’ll never forget that moment. The impossible took place right before my eyes: my father prayed aloud, confessed his sins and placed his faith in Christ just before they wheeled him into surgery.

Randy Alcorn is the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM), a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching biblical truth and drawing attention to the needy and how to help them.

A young Saudi had a dream about Jesus, began to read the Scriptures and trusted Christ. He then married, but his wife did not accept his faith. They later had a child who became very ill. The husband told his wife that they were going to pray to Jesus and that only He could heal the child . The child was then healed and the wife and also her mother came to faith.

Source OM global  (Arab world series)  Sept 14 issue 3

Beginning on September 15th  for 4 weeks .Monday to Friday 10-am to 12 noon Ty-Isaf will open its doors for people to sit inside, pray , have a look inside, ask questions about God..  There is a welcome for people just to drop in for an informal chat & have a cup of coffee.  (Ty-Isaf is the Risca Street pastors base on a Saturday night)

For Christian prisoners of faith, ‘taking up their cross and following Christ’ is no easy road. Their testimony of enduring faith is both a challenge and an encouragement to their brothers and sisters in Christ here in he UK and Ireland and around the world.

North Korean, Eritrean, Iranian and other Christians who seek to share and live out their faith in theses countries often pay a high personal price- yet it is a price they accept as ‘normal’ Christian discipleship.

Their prison experience is not viewed with surprise outrage: on the contrary, they often regard the prison cell as their mission field, imprisonment as training and the whole experience as part of God’s purpose & plan.

The reality is that today in detention centres and prison camps across the world, God is doing exactly what he promised to do: building His church.

Just as He did with the early church, God is there in those cells watching over His children, pouring out His love into their hearts and reaching out in love to others, prisoners and persecutors alike. Still He calls us to ‘remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison’. (Hebrews13V3