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Friday December 9, 2005
Dear Praying, I wanted to inform you about our decision regarding the building situation this week. Recent days progressed as follows: It was Sunday evening that the owner called me really pressuring us and insisting upon an immediate decision and action. I told her that we were constantly working towards a final decision, that many variables were involved, and that we would give her a final decision by the New Year. I also indicated that we had our leader’s prayer meeting on Tuesday and would be seeking a decision. I sent you all our update letter Wednesday morning. Tuesday we discussed things, prayed, but didn’t sense any distinct leading for a decision. On Wednesday afternoon, before bible study of course, she called me with more urgency and more pressure. Due to her pushing and pressuring mixed with the unsettled nature, or lack of total peace in my own heart, I told her flat out that if I had to give her a yes or no on the phone, then we would just have to say no and free her to move forward with any other prospects that she might have. I know that God would not have us make decisions in haste or under such pressure. As much as I love the location, the building, and the potential of it all, I just wasn’t sure. Not that I don’t, or wouldn’t trust God, but truly, I just wasn’t sure if it was His will and leading. It is one thing to step in faith out of obedience and trust God for lots of miracles and provision. It is a whole other matter to presume upon God, go for it, and then wind up in a mess that affects so many other people etc… I left the owner with the reality that should things not work out for her, then she was welcome to call us back. Especially if she was ready to SELL! Interestingly enough, many of you wrote your thoughts and encouragements which came through to me Thursday. God even used these to confirm what had already taken place. I want to really thank each and every one of you who, from the beginning almost 3 years ago, have followed this whole process, prayed, and shown your support. Many have encouraged us, counseled us, cautioned us and blessed us in many ways throughout. I have peace at this point, and hope is not lost by any means. It was hard to let it go, but, God is God and he has something great for us certainly. At this point, we will apply for land from the city so we can build something of our own, and will continue to look around at other properties that suit our needs. Thanks to those of you who have written to encourage our hearts with regard to our ministry as well as this particular situation. We look forward to what God has ahead. Please do continue to pray for us, our need for our own building, and for the saints at CC Rome. May God bless you thoroughly by His amazing riches in Jesus. G.R.A.C.E. – God’s riches at Christ’s expense!! What love!! Love you guys. By Grace, Wednesday December 7, 2005 Dear brothers and sisters, Happy holidays everybody. No doubt we need Jesus at the center more than ever. I pray it will be so for all of us. Things have been a bit intense here lately so we would ask for and appreciate your prayers. We would ask for immediate prayers concerning the building situation. Within this week or so, we must make it final as either a go or a no. I have reservations and am quite boggled as to whether it is me, my unbelief, or of the Lord and a "just wait" call. We are praying and need great wisdom and discernment, not to mention faith. Having our own place is very important. This building had and continues to have certain risks involved. Also it is only for rent. Basically the landlord would require us to put all of the money down front for the remodel, which is about $75,000, and would then make a contract for 6+6 renewable years where the money we invested up front would then be deducted out of our monthly rent at a fixed rate. At least the rent wouldn’t change that way. First, we have no money. God would have to provide every cent. No doubt he is very capable. We are simply seeking a final confirmation in our hearts concerning this specific situation. A decision will be made this week. Time is out. If we don’t have peace and clear direction, we will cut it loose. The body is suffering in seemingly normal ways as Christians do, yet, it seems to be so magnified and concentrated. People are in need financially and work-wise certainly, but there is a void spiritually too. I myself sense I have drifted and need that refreshing and intimacy of first love. May God show His mercy and pour out his spirit on us all. The hardship of life has grabbed the attention of many. Some are lonely and sad. They are struggling to break through that "what about me and my life and my mate to be and .... " thought, and fix their eyes on Jesus and be satisfied and filled in Him and by Him. This of course can be my battle at times too!! Lidia continues to struggle to survive and pay rent. Her boys are both on their own path, Davide is way out there. Full of anger, wrath, hate, hurt. There has come a possible job helping a lady that lives in Rome. Pray for God's will and provision. Robert too is financially hurting, can't find any work outside of what we are supporting him. Things are stressed in his family. Paola is in the states visiting some friends but not doing so well; seeing a Christian counselor, taking medication for panic attacks etc... Vladimyr has to work grueling hours and is always fried. His heart is somewhat cold... no time to pray and read accept Sunday. Praise God he finally managed to pass his driving test though. Ester continues to grow through pain and loneliness as a new believer and young lady who came out of a worldly relationship as well as other mistakes. I could go on and on with each person... There are a few who seem to be fine. They are the Americans with good jobs and pay sad to say. One lady, Zerphe however, just reconciled to her husband after 2 or 3 years of separation. She is very happy and praising God. We need more victory and joy in the life of the Spirit. We need to see even more answered prayers. Hearts need to be stirred and led to repentance. May God anoint my heart, soften it, and bring forth convicting, uplifting, life changing prophetic words from the teaching. May our services, prayer meetings etc... not merely be ritual and habit, but be filled by God's presence, power and grace. For the prophecy conference, many things seem to be on track. I feel that much of the attack recently is connected to this conference so please pray against the enemy or for us to be strengthened and fight the enemy with faith, purity, and praise. Nonetheless, pray for churches to support this conference and that we could nail down the venue. The Italian bureaucracies even in these areas are amazing. The costs of these auditoriums that hold from 500-1000 people are astronomical in Rome. May God give us favor. Today we will have met with an Italian pastor by the time this email is read in America. In the coming weeks we will meet with two more. These are three key, respected Italian pastors among the many Roman pastors. Our hope is to involve them and get them behind the vision, Lord willing. This way they then can become the mouth piece unto the Italian pastor’s nation wide as we invite all Italian churches to participate and be blessed by the teaching. Lastly, we have invited a wonderful choir from Budapest, Hungary to participate as well. They will potentially do a couple of songs the first night and then a full outreach concert the last night concluded with a call for the lost to receive Jesus as their personal Lord and Savoir. As they pray and consider coming, pray for God to move on their hearts according to his purposes. If they do come, it is our desire to see funds donated from churches, to partially support their trip, lodging etc... Please pray for me and my family. The girls have had colds, flu etc... We are certainly pressed, but seeking to be still and rest in Him. Pray that we keep our eyes on the prize. Thanks for your prayers and may God draw you close to his heart and pour out his love immensely on each one. By Grace, Brent Harrell, CC Rome Monday November 14, 2005 Dear faithful,
Grace and blessings from Rome. Praise God, we made it back. It is good either being stateside, or being here, but the in between's are killer. Thank you for your prayers as we spent time with our family. We were very busy and had a wonderful time. But now we are back and beat. So, we could use more of those powerful prayers of yours.
Robert, Amy, and Vincenzo did a great job of taking care of things while we were away. I'm so gratefeul that God has brought us such faithful people who love Him and love his people. Of course it is Jesus' Church and he tends it regardless and for that we are grateful too. God has blessed our church family with great intimacy and love one for another and that is a joy. However, there really is so much need and so many suffering. Our only hope truly is Jesus. And he has given us prayer as a means to enter in, cast our cares on Him, and let our requests be made known... beleiveing in faith that he is wonderful and good, and that he will respond according to His wisdom and in His time. Please take some time to pray for the CC Rome church family. As I look out over our little congregation and connect with other weary pilgrims, I see so much pain and weariness. Each life represtents 100 times as many problems, challenges and needs as you know by each of your own experiences. But things are hard here. Pray for joy filled, faith raised up, discernment excercised, obedience immediate and total, direction clear, love overflowing, understanding deepened, doors of opportunity opened etc... for all of us. I know we all so long to see more victory and more souls saved, more families reconciled, broken hearts healed, lame people walking, cancer patients healed and so forth. Please step up the battle with us as we seek to. We are very weak!! Praise God right? I know that His strength is perfected in our weakness. The hard part seems to be to convince those that God has entrusted to us of that reality. Pray against the enemy and ultimately, pray for God's will to be done in and through us. Pray for:
p.s. Anyone interested in supporting the Prophecy conference in June of 2006 financially can give at the support address below. Write CMItaly (for Chapel Mission Italy) prophecy conf. in the memo. There is a way to do it electronically online at www.calvarychapelboise.org By Grace, Brent and Hope Harrell, CC Rome Support address: Friday September 2, 2005 Praise God for answered prayer:
Pray for:
Love, The Harrells Monday August 29, 2005 Hello everybody, Greetings from Rome and the tired, but not complaining, yet spiritually refreshed Harrell's!! We just arrived back Saturday afternoon from our missions conference up in Austria. Two weeks before that we were in the same place for our Italian conference. We drove back to Rome in between to let the kids have their own space and get some laundry done then headed back up. We drove about 4000 km or 1800 miles or so. Praise God for a reliable car!! It is good to be HOME. The Lord was reminding me at the missions conference just how much of a blessing it is to know him and serve him, but especially to have the privilege of being a missionary supported by good ole honest, hard working people that love him the same. So, we really want you all to know that we are so grateful for your prayers and hard earned money that you send so that this ministry can be realized and move forward month to month. We take great peace in knowing that your rewards will be ultimately in heaven for your labor of love. Thank you sincerely!! Getting back to the summer, great thanks to Craig and CC Montebelluna for all of the organizing and kids ministry they did for the Italian conference. Thanks a mil to Pastor's Bill Gallatin, Ray Viola, Greg Opean, and Brian Broderson for the awesome teaching on the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer and their sweet fellowship and godly examples. It was a great time with all of the Italians from the three CC's in Italy. Both conferences were blessed and we ate tons of food and enjoyed our time immensely. Now we are tired!! Traveling is work! Before our Italian conference we had our pastor, pastor Bob Caldwell, his wife, and several missionary guests out of our home church for a leadership conference here in Rome. What a blessing for our body and those who attended. We want to thank all of you for praying for all of these events and especially thank pastor Bob for coming and being such a blessing. Good stuff on the Christian life, leadership, walking in the Spirit, dealing with the flesh, and playing our role in the body. It is awesome to be surrounded by people who desire to invest in eternal things! Building: Here in the next couple of weeks we will be back at the negotiating table with the owner. The main thing is her initial responsibility financially concerning the building permit. This is no little expense because it includes 20% of the total over-all costs of the project. She has to be willing to absorb that at least and then the rest of the expenses, or any that we incur I should say, will be taken out of our monthly rental fees over the next several years. Don't forget, our desire is to see her sell and we continue to pray that God would work on our behalf to this end should it be HIS WILL!! Lastly, pray for the door to open up on bringing American volunteers over to work. May God show us the right contacts here in Rome to work through these processes legitimately as this will be a major part of our financial responsibility. Prophecy conference 2006: Last month some things fell beautifully together for which we will need lots of prayer. At the Italian conference we were joking about doing a "woman rides the beast" conference in Rome and one thing led to another and now we are organizing this for perhaps June 2006 with Dave Hunt, Roger Oakland, Bill Gallatin, and Ray Viola. As you can imagine, all that these guys have to offer, combined, will be a great assault on the enemy and on false religious systems that the devil supports. This will no doubt be met with great opposition, so the sooner we begin to bathe it in prayer, the better. Pray for the specific dates, topics to be shared, speakers to speak, location or venue, number of days, hearts to be prepared, souls to be saved, and cooperation among the churches in Rome and Italy. I believe that this will be quite an international event and everybody will be welcome. The bible has a lot to say about Rome and the revived Roman Empire of the last days and many people are ignorant of these things. This conference will deal with Ecuminicism and many other vital topics. Exciting!! Do know this, our desire is to give people the truth in love, and see them set free from the lies of the devil and the bondage of false religious systems or teaching as well as understand the times in which we are living. We will get things up on our web site as soon as we can. Pray!! Personal: Please pray for Hope's grandpa who is sick and in the hospital with internal bleeding from ulcer's. He has undergone various procedures and is in ICU. He is a Christian and getting older, but we ask that the Lord would give him some more time in good health in accordance with his will. Please keep my step-dad Jim in prayer as cancer continues to spread throughout his body despite surgery, radiation, etc... God is God and with God all things are possible. Pray for total healing. Jim too is a believer. Lastly, pray for my uncle Marv who is in the hospital for reasons unknown to me at this point. He has led a life opposed to the Lord and his ways for years. Pray that God uses this incident to break him spiritually and lead him in repentance. Pray for Hope, Isy, and Livy as they are all kind of battling some flu thing that I had last week. Let's leave it at that for now. Thank you for lifting up our weak hands by your prayers and support, words of encouragement. May God bless you as you battle for truth, love, and fruit to God's glory in these most interesting times. By Grace, Brent Harrell, CC Rome Friday July 29, 2005 Dear prayer folks, (July 29) I just got a note from our home church asking about prayer requests for financial needs so as I typed up a couple of things to send back, I figured it wouldn't hurt to get everybody praying. We just finished our Leadership conference. Praise God! It was a great time with about 20-30 people throughout the different sessions. Pastor Bob did a great job of setting out some basic principles that need to be in place in each life, including leaders and churches in order for there to be victory and fruit. All were edified and encouraged. Thanks Pastor Bob and Cathy for your love and sacrifice. Thank you all for praying. There were a hand full of folks from our fellowship that made it for many if not all of the sessions so we look forward to see what God might do as there was this stirring towards calling, gifting, and servanthood. Continue to pray for lasting fruit and that all of us who attended can put into practice all that we were reminded of or learning for the first time. Next week is our Italian conference with the CC in the north of Italy so be in prayer please. We are taking a good 20-30 people from Rome. Pray for soft hearts, anointed teaching, renewal, fresh vision, unity in marriages restored, the children's ministry, etc.... as the Lord leads. Along the lines of financial needs at CC Rome:
Concerning some prayer needs for immediate provision for the Harrell's:
Jer 31:3 By Grace, Brent Harrell, CC Rome Copyright © 2002 Calvary Chapel Rome ~ Developed by: iNetMatrix.com |
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