Shammah Ministries International
2 Walton View, Chapel Brae, Bucksburn,
Email: sandiniven@hotmail.com
Phone: 01224 773828
Newsletter
from Aberdeen
Scotland
The
above picture is of the River Dee taken near Balmoral
which is the seat of Queen Elizabeth in Scotland. I found out sometime ago that Aberdeen means
“mouth of the Dee”. In other words the
city is situated on the mouth of the Dee River.
It doesn’t look quite as good as this by the time it gets to us but is
nevertheless a pretty sight. It’s not a
very deep river but remains fairly wide all the way down to the sea.
We’ve
had a month of really bad weather.
Autumn seemed to come on us overnight and the wet cold weather moved in
and settled. I thought we’d never see
the sun again. Very depressing and
certainly made me want to count the cost of being here again. I do long for the sunshine. It’s as though the Lord knows just how long I
can last without it then the sun suddenly makes an appearance and I can settle
again. It cleared suddenly yesterday
morning – after heavy rain going into town – and we have seen a fair bit
today. Enough to be
able to hang my washing out to dry.
Yes, no tumble driers out here – good old fashioned washing lines! Mmmmmm!!
I’ve
much to catch you up on. I preached at
the Apostolic Church at the end of September.
I was given 30mins which was a miracle for me – to be able to say what I
needed to in 30mins, that is!!<grin> It was a powerful meeting though and very
challenging. I don’t think most people
realise that when I preach the Lord deals with me just as challengingly. The
message the Lord had me bring was “What are you doing with what you are
hearing?” He had me ask for a show of
hands who knew what they calling and giftings were. That was a shock. We had a total of 5 hands raised pretty high
and about two very tentative “not sure” ones.
The Lord showed me that if we don’t know our giftings and callings then
we are a dead weight in the body. So much so that the rest of the body cannot move into position
because they are being held back.
Hard words? No.
Truth.
I’ll go into that in more depth later.
Next
I was invited to speak to a women’s group down in Markinch,
in Fife. It’s about 2 hours either way
by train and it meant a really early start to my day. 5.30am to be precise. I had to catch a bus at 6.30 and with it
being pretty dark still at that time of the morning I had to stand practically
in the middle of the road to flag the bus – he almost didn’t stop.
The
meeting was great. These women come from
pretty mixed backgrounds but a few of them are Church of Scotland. They are all spirit-filled – well one wasn’t
but we got that sorted before I got to sharing with them. They were hungry and it was a joy feeding them. The Lord had me share on prophetic
intercession. It was very new to them
and I know I will have to go back to do
a follow-up sometime. We taped the
meeting so that they could listen to it again.
There was a lot of meat and I knew they wouldn’t absorb it all in one
sitting. It was a case of feed them as
full as I could – in case I didn’t get invited back. No only kidding. They just seemed to draw it out of me. Since then I’ve had a phone call. One of the women is part of the Prayer
Initiative for the Church of Scotland nationwide. She had been speaking to one of the convenors
of this initiative and there is a suggestion that I be invited to their annual
conference next year in June to speak to the conference. It isn’t set in concrete yet so I require
much prayer for this please. I believe
it is the possibility of a HUGE open door into the Church of Scotland – which
is very Presbyterian by the way. I had a
prophecy that the Lord had called me not only to the Church IN Scotland but
also to the Church OF Scotland. This was confirmed earlier this year and it’s
one I’ve been praying into much.
The
next joy of this month was doing a seminar for the Youth – or rather young
adults (most are students) – of our church.
(I’ve been attending the Apostolic Church for some months now). They are a great bunch of young people and
they are very hungry. Ira Milligan had
prophesied to several of them in April and they had approached me to do some
training. We weren’t able to do it
sooner and I thought they would lose interest and that it would be difficult to
get them enthusiastic again. How wrong I
was. They couldn’t wait for the
seminar. It was one of the most
exhausting but rewarding weekends I’ve had in a long, long time. The Youth Pastor, a lovely young New
Zealander, who I suspected at one time of not being spirit-filled – informed me
that he was available on Friday night but wouldn’t be there on Saturday as he
was playing golf. Well, the Lord had
other plans. He was so excited after the
Friday night that he couldn’t wait to get there on Saturday.
Brenda
helped me and we started round 7.30pm on Friday and didn’t get home till nearly
12pm. Then we were back there for 10am
on Saturday and went all day till about 7.30pm.
I provided sandwiches and stuff so that they wouldn’t have to go and
find something for themselves. Much
appreciated as most are students and we all know what that means!!!<grin>
What
was so exciting was the questions these youngsters
asked. I was blown away at some and grieved
at others. I once again see the lack of
foundation and wonder how any of them have come as far as they have with the
Lord. Only His grace!! They kept asking for examples and that became
quite fun. It was fun going back to some
of the things that have happened to me and others through the years. Some embarrassingly funny
and others rather poignant. It made these youngsters see that it takes
ordinary people living ordinary lives.
God will use who is available. I
demonstrated the laying on of hands as well and encouraged them to anticipate
the “virtue” flow through them – the anointing.
It took a while but they were so hungry and the Lord was so gracious,
they all experienced the flow of God through them. Never again will they lay
on hands without anticipating that flow.
Would that everyone knew this!!
There
was a young Finnish girl (came from
I
am so proud of these young people. God
truly touched their hearts and they are so excited about hearing His voice and
realising that they are a part of what God is doing in the earth today – a very
relevant part! It hasn’t stopped with
that weekend either. They meet every
Friday night and they have been practising what they were taught and the Lord
is making them more and more hungry for His presence. Brenda and I “gatecrashed”
their meeting last Friday and we were blessed to see how they were moving on in
the Lord. One of the young girls who
just recently has really had my focus – wasn’t at the seminar but was there
this Friday night – was being water baptised on Sunday and asked for
prayer. The Lord told me she needed to
be spirit-filled as well so – after getting permission from the youth pastor –
I prayed for her and the Lord filled her and she got a wonderful new
tongue. It was so exciting for
them. This is a huge thing here. Most claim to be spirit-filled but never move
in the gifts. It’s been a joy
ministering into their lives. This is
only the beginning!
SO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH WHAT YOU ARE HEARING? James 1:22 says, “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive
themselves. For if any are hearers of
the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at
themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the
law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who
act--they will be blessed in their doing”.
I
asked this same question last newsletter but the Lord won’t let it go. The Lord has been showing me that for the
Body of Christ to come into position and fulfill it’s
calling we need to be more pro-active.
In other words we need to be putting feet to what we are hearing. We so often come away from a Sunday service
having heard a really good message and by the end of the week we can’t remember
what it was that the pastor or speaker said.
Mostly it’s because we don’t take that word prayerfully and ask the Lord
how to apply it in our own lives and how to pass it on to others around
us. While we are doing this we are
remaining immature and still requiring the milk of the word that the writer
speaks of in Hebrews 5:10 –
Christianity
isn’t about doing works. Praise God for
the works that are done, but if the Lord isn’t in them we are doing “dead
works” and need to repent of them. It
takes faith to please God and we must do everything by faith.
The
other thing the Lord is really dealing with now is the so-called unity in the
Body. We all think we have achieved
unity to some extent. But we are so far
from the unity the Lord intends and especially the unity the first church
experienced. We play at unity but we are
not truly unified. If we were, the world
would know it and we would be seeing the fruit of it in the church. I would love to challenge the church to write
an essay on what we think true unity is.
It would need to be something we have understanding of, something we are
experiencing – not someone’s definition of what it means, or a good sermon we
heard sometime, somewhere. Then we need
to ask the Lord to reveal to us what true unity is – implant it in our hearts
by faith – and then for us to begin to DO.
The
Lord said He was coming back for a spotless Bride. We are so spotted and full of warts and bumps
and ugliness that we aren’t actually recognisable as the Bride and we wonder
why the Lord is delaying! I believe if
each one of us begins with our own lives – using the word as a “blemish
remover”, allow it’s power to change us from within,
then as we begin to look at one another, we will slowly but surely start seeing
the true Bride emerge. Most of us avoid
unity because it means exposure. We have
to be transparent and because of all the spots and blemishes, we don’t want to be exposed. Much like the spotty child that doesn’t want
to be seen by anyone so doesn’t want to go to school or go on a date. “You were taught, with regard to your former
way of life, to put off your old self,
which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your
minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness
and holiness”. Ephesians 4:22 – 24
When
we start seeing the fulfilment of the Lord’s prayer in
John 17, we can then start anticipating the coming of the Lord with all the joy
and anticipation we should.
Let’s
start becoming Doers and not just Hearers.
Let’s get rid of the self-deception so that the deception that is
currently in the world can be exposed.
Be
challenged. I am!
Future news:
I am finally booked to go home in December. I can’t tell you what a joy it is knowing that I can have this time with my family. Having lost my brother in July and not being able to get home was one of the hardest things I’ve had to face since being in the ministry. I believe God’s hand was in it though and that healing has come, to some extent, to all of us during these past months, and we will be able to enjoy one another without death hanging over us like a shroud. It is also the first time in many years that I don’t have a fear of going home. Talk about being transparent! Having gone through almost 15 years of rejection from my family, and then having had the Lord heal that rift when I was home in May of this year, I can’t tell you what is going on inside of me. I am like a child anticipating a great adventure and I believe it is going to be a time of further healing for all of us. Please pray for us. We desperately need one another as a family. Besides my nephew, it’s only us women left and there is still much we need to work through. My sisters needing to come to salvation still too – God’s timing and His will be done! – and there is much we don’t know about each other because of the years of separation. I’m sure we’ll step on each other’s toes every now and then, but GOD!!!
A huge THANK YOU to
all who are sowing into the ministry here in
I am still believing the Lord for a vehicle of my own so please be praying about this as well. Brenda has been very gracious in taxiing me round at the weekends but I can’t limit my ministry to weekends and need to be able to get around during the week. A lot of the pastors I am needing to be in touch with are in outlying areas and buses aren’t always the solution.
Please know that I am praying for you and praying for God to multiply what you are sowing back to you so that you can sow into more areas for Him. It’s all about HIM and all about what He wants us to do in the Kingdom.
Please
keep praying for the work here. Pray for
the leadership in this city (
Blessings and love to you all
Sandi