Written by Paul J Bucknell on December, 05, 2023
Prayer Letter #388

Open Doors

Dear Prayer Partners,

Thanksgiving was an excellent time to rest, with a total of 20 family eating together at our daughter’s nearby home. (I'm glad it worked out due to Linda’s foot pain). Life has settled down for the moment, and Paul has set his mind on completing his crucial book, An Examination of Our Theological Conclusions. It’s a spiritual battle as he struggles to learn the many new lessons the Lord teaches him.

Paul is preparing for the BFF annual board meeting. Much to do: summarizing information from many emails, What’s App, Vimeo, writings, web stat programs, financial spreadsheets, etc. After 23 years, we are still surviving! We didn’t aim to show how God could provide for a faith ministry in a large city with a huge family, but we are humbled to see how God has led us from scratch—this last year, notwithstanding. A faith ministry differs in that we (at least BFF) can’t live by a budget because we only have a small amount of regular donations, so income dramatically fluctuates. We live trusting Him that sufficient comes in to do His will.

Meanwhile, international Christian leaders regularly contact Paul. Someone loaned one Malawi brother/pastor: “The Destroyer is destroyed,” the subtitle to one of my books. He felt urged to work with me and is trying to leverage his community status to print books to reach Muslims and train Christian leaders in his country. He is willing to contribute a good percentage for the BFF books, but anything involving finances must be carefully considered and bathed in prayer.

On our Zoom video chat, I was able to introduce our resources and clarify his goals (stated above). I also connected him with one of our former coordinators in Malawi, who had actually worked together in a Christian ministry for numerous years.

Praise

Pastor Richard in northern Burma reported that due to their civil war, some roads were closed, preventing 5 leaders from the discipleship camp that just concluded from returning to their homes. But is using this time to train and get to know them better.
Praise the Lord that, on average, 29,500 BFF web pages are being viewed daily!
Paul completed the fifth article in the series on Antichrist. The fast advance of AI (Artificial Intelligence) has much to do with the end of the age.
The message at the local Chinese church went well.

Pray

Pastor Jagannath has been in poor health since his return to India despite much good ministry news.
Linda’s ankle has been hurting her for more than a week.
Paul would love to complete the draft of this book by mid-December.
Wisdom on following up on the request for Zoom training and books for Malawi. Next Zoom chat is Dec 6, morning.
The upcoming BFF Board meeting is on December 7th.
Increased financial support for the BFF ministry.
One of my Philippine coordinator’s two daughters were at the school that was recently bombed. They are well, but pray for Berbs, his daughters, and the huge earthquakes shaking that region.