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Bing
Marilyn Mary-Ann and Alison
Carmarthen Summer
06
It was so good to
see Bing and Mary-Ann receive Jesus Christ as their Saviour in the Carmarthen
Summer Mission. It was a real highlight for us especially as last year Mary-Ann
had a near death experience when she was taken suddenly ill and rushed from
Carmarthen to the intensive care unit in the Heath Hospital Cardiff.
Mary–Ann a tiny,
Philippino nurse had been struck down and was at the point of death on a life
support machine in a Cardiff hospital. A nurse from Carmarthen had telephoned
and asked us to go and pray in the Name of Jesus and anoint Mary-Ann with oil
for healing. I will never forget that day when Alison and I walked into the
special room where Mary-Ann lay deeply unconscious, attached to the life-support
machine breathing apparatus on kidney dialysis and uncountable intravenous
drips. By her side was her sister who had flown in urgently from Canada and was
sat by her side lovingly reading the Bible to Mary-Ann and praying for her.
As we walked into
the room Mary-Ann’s sister was very moved and said “Thank you for coming, I
prayed that Jesus would send someone to pray. I do not know anyone in this
country.” Holding tears back we walked up to Mary-Ann and I remembering
whispering in her ear “Mary-Ann you are not going to die but you are going to
live, Jesus Christ is near you!” We anointed her with oil and prayed in Jesus
name. How thrilled we were to have a telephone call a day later to say that
Mary-Ann had made an incredible improvement. And as you can see by the above
photograph she made a full and miraculous recovery. How wonderful to know that
Jesus Christ is still the Healer today!
Holy Spirit Falls
It was a special
joy to see the Lord move in an incredible way upon a group of young people who
had gathered in one of the South Wales churches one Sunday evening. Many young
people were present and many of them received a genuine touch as the Holy Spirit
fell upon them.
Some of the young
people were violently baptised in the Holy Spirit and one of the Korean young
men told us this story:
(I knew he had a
story to tell having seen him on his knees rocking back and for, for several
hours as the Lord baptised him in the Holy Ghost)
I said to him
tell me what happened to you tonight? He said that he was from Korea and that
his Father was a Pastor in that same country. He had become a Christian as a
small child and was a worship leader in his home church but he said tonight I
have met my penuel. He continued saying,
“As the Holy
Spirit came upon me I saw three visions. Firstly of the fire of God falling
over Wales and especially over a notorious nightclub in Bridgend. The second
vision was of Korea and the third God showed me Africa”.
With quivering
lips he told us,
“I thought I was
coming to the UK to study theology (He was on his way to Cambridge University)
but tonight I know that just as that young man from Wales, Robert Jermain
Thomas, who was the first Christian martyr to Korea gave his life for the Korean
people, I believe God is calling me to be a missionary in Wales.”
Testimony of
Robert Jermain Thomas 1840 – 1866
Missionary and
First Christian Martyr to Korea
Born at Rhaeadr,
where his father was a Welsh Independent minister. Later, the family moved
south to the old county of Monmouth and his father becoming minister of the
Hanover Church, in the village of Llanover.
Robert Jermain
Thomas spent a period as a school teacher, prior to becoming a student in the
University of London. He attended New College in London following his
acceptance by the London Missionary Society (the predecessor of the CWM –
Council of World Mission – to which the Welsh Independents currently belong) as
a missionary to China. He was ordained in 1863, and sailed to Shanghai. He
visited Korea in 1865, and started becoming familiar with the language of that
country. He spent a period serving the English – Chinese School in Beijing.
But in 1866, another opportunity came for him to visit Korea. He was not to
know that he and all the crew members would be killed by Korean soldiers.
In 1866 an
infamous massacre occurred, in which 10,000 bishops, priests and Korean converts
were martyred for their faith. This massacre began with the death of a Welsh
Christian missionary, Robert Jermain Thomas.
September 3rd
1866. The Korean army sent a boat filled with pine branches on fire, towards
the grounded ship. The crew attempting to escape jumped into the water and were
killed as they came on shore.
Once ashore, the
Reverend Thomas exclaimed “Jesus, Jesus” in Korean and offered his Korean Bible
to a Korean man. The man refused and when Thomas knelt to pray, the man cut off
his Thomas’ head and threw it into the river. The young missionary’s life had
been cut short and to what end?
Thomas’ legacy
was not over. The Korean man who killed him was quite convicted in his spirit
that he had killed a good man, so he took the bible home. He thought it was good
paper and used the pages of the book to wallpaper his guesthouse. Reading these
pages he became a Christian.
In 1891, a full
quarter of a century later, an American visited the area and asked the
proprietor about the unique wall paper in his guesthouse. The owner told of how
over the years, people had come from far and wide “to read the walls”. Inn the
years that followed the killer’s nephew graduated from Pyongyang’s Union
Christian College and served as part of a team that revised the Korean Bible.
The Word had come to Korea at the price of the martyr’s blood.
Progress for all
Christian churches was difficult for the first century. By 1900 Korean
Christians numbered only 0.4% of the population. By the 1980’s the charismatic
movement had begun to permeate the traditional Protestant and Catholic churches
of Korea, bring Pentecostalism into the mainstream of the churches. Church
growth specialists noted the incredible growth of all the Korean churches and
the central role of the Holy Spirit renewal in their growth. By 1990 such
researchers were listing the largest churches in the world, five of which were
in Seoul and all of which were classified as “charismatic” to some degree. They
included:
Yoido Full Gospel Church – 200,000 in Sunday worship services
Kum
Ran Methodist Church - 50,000
Nambu Full Gospel Church – 47,000
Soong Eui Methodist Church – 40,000
By 1990 it was
estimated that over 350,000 Korean Roman Catholics had been baptised in the Holy
Spirit and were active in the Charismatic Renewal. By 1992 the percentage of
Christians in the population of the nation stood at 40.7%. From small
beginnings in the early years of the century, the Korean Pentecostals added
their spiritual fervour and organisational skills to the massive growth of the
church in the nation.
The Korean church
growth was unparalleled in any other part of the globe. The growth from a tiny
persecuted minority to almost certain majority of the population is a quantum
leap that can only be explained in spiritual and supernatural terms.
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