AN AMAZING TESTIMONY - FROM WITCHCRAFT TO CHRIST BY ALLAN RICH

...In a few month, after the death of a number of people resulting of casting of spells, after a NDE (Near Death Experience), a suicide attempt, and a one week stay in a psychiatric hospital...

6 MONTHS TO LIVE.

At the age of 15, I was placed in an institution for teenagers with family problems. However, a number of older guys were also admitted, namely, ex-prisoners, troublemakers, drunkards and drug addicts.

From the first week of my stay there, I was initiated to smoke cannabis which had a great and immediate impact on me. The following day, I went to town to buy more and from that moment onconsumed in great amounts. When I was short of drugs, I stole medicines or alcohol. I took as much as I could until I got "high." I sniffed all sorts of powders, took pills as well as LSD. Consequently, I started to be very depressed, paranoiac and had great anguishes. I was trying to fill a void that seemed to be getting deeper as years passed by. I was incapable of working so was taught how to steal cars, break into stores, drug traffic, etc. until I was arrested by the police and hated them. I was a runaway and was becoming a delinquent.

One by one, my friends started to die around me from heroin and LSD overdoses, or motorcycle accidents. One of my last friends who was only 32 years old died of premature old age due to metabolic dysfunction. I was feeling useless and lonely cut out of social interactions and, having lost all motivations, wanted to die as quick as possible.

Out of curiosity I started to practice white magic, and soon enough, in an empirical and instinctive manner, I got involved in occultism. I began to discover my spiritual aptitudes and became interested in oriental mysticism. I immediately noticed that I had special "powers" such as the ability to see a person's aura as well as divination etc. I was so fascinated with these powers to the point of finding out how far my capabilities could go... until I found myself involved in black magic.

In a few month, after the death of a number of people resulting of casting of spells, after a NDE (Near Death Experience), a suicide attempt, and a one week stay in a psychiatric hospital, I decided to change the course of my life. I stopped taking harmful substances, as well as meat. I tried to remake a good "karma." I was 19 years old then and assiduously practicing both yoga and sports. I tried to purify my body and spirit but by the end of six months of this intensive regimen, I had this inner revelation: Living the most dissipated or the most ascetic life possible will not draw me an inch closer to God. I decided, therefore, to live an "average" life, which was, in my own point of view, neither too good nor too bad.

I hated Christians. However, one day, I accidentally found myself,, in one of their meeting. While a young guy was preaching, I saw his aura. I have never seen something as clear, as powerful, as great, as pure. I knew inside me that he had the ultimate spiritual power and I undoubtedly wanted to possess this power. "Unfortunately," he was only talking about Jesus Christ and the cross. Nevertheless, I decided not to let him go until I discovered his secret.

So as I went back to another meeting, he invited those desiring to receive the power of God to go to the front. I told myself that it was my opportunity to receive this unlimited power to be able to use it as I wish. I went to the front. And there, in my spirit I just felt Jesus Christ presence’s and saw His cross. At this very moment, I had the inner conviction that I had to make a choice: that of accepting or rejecting Him. I chose the latter. However, a moment later, God spoke in my spirit and showed me that I had to accept Jesus because if I insisted on living this kind of lifestyle, I would only have six months left to live.

Since I have already undergone a NDE, I knew that I wasn't ready to die, and that I had to better get right with God or I will be going to a place of big torment after I have given up my last breath. So, in spite of my repulsion and knowing that I didn't have any choice, I put my pride aside and accepted Jesus Christ and His cross in my life in order to be saved and be set free.

That was in September 1977 and since that day, everything began to change... the direction of my life, my motives and objectives... As it is written in the Bible: If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new(2 Corinthians 5:17. A slow healing process started to operate in my physic, affects, emotions and intellect, repairing my wounds and hurts. It would be too long here to tell you all the miracles God did for me.

Today, I am immensely grateful to God for His patience and for not having given up on me, for having "succeeded" in saving me, in spite of myself. Moreover, I give thanks to Jesus Christ who has saved my soul by dying in my place and by paying the consequences of my mistakes, thereby, changing my final and eternal destination.

TELEVANGELIST'S $3.6 MILLION JET NOT TAX EXEMPT, TARRANT APPRAISER SAYS

A Kenneth Copeland Ministry jet worth $3.6 million has been denied tax-exempt status by the Tarrant Appraisal District, setting the stage for a battle that could require the minister to reveal his salary if he wants the jet to be tax-free.
Jeffery D. Law, Tarrant chief appraiser, said the jet was denied tax exemption because the ministry failed to disclose salaries of directors as an application requires. Law said the ministry, based in Newark, northwest of Fort Worth, will protest the denial at a hearing Monday morning.
"The application requires that they submit to us a list of salaries," Law said. "They have not given it to us, and as a result we have denied their exemption."
Compensation paid Copeland and other members of his family has been the source of a U.S. senator’s inquiry, but the televangelist has been unwilling to disclose the information publicly.
If the ministry gives the compensation information to the appraisal district, it would be open to public disclosure, Law said.
The jet in question is a 1998 Cessna Bravo 550 that was given to the ministry last year.
The Cessna 550 has a maximum cruising speed of 400 mph and seats nine. Last year, the ministry said it owned five aircraft, including the Cessna 550 and a $17.5 million Citation X. At the time, it was selling a 1973 Cessna 421.
A ministry spokesman said Friday that he was unable to answer questions about the matter because the chief executive officer was out of town.
Seeking tax exemption
In a July affidavit, ministry accountant John Ratliff responded to an appraisal district request for information by stating that the ministry "is operated in a way that does not result in accrual of distributable profits, realization of private gain resulting from payment of compensation in excess of a reasonable allowance for salary or other compensation for services rendered . . . ."
He stated that the ministry, also known as Eagle Mountain International Church, uses its assets only in performing the organization’s religious functions.
However, the ministry said last year that from November 2006 to November 2007, the board approved personal use of aircraft 10 percent of the time.
"Individuals are all charged for personal use of the planes," it said in a statement.
The application for a tax exemption requires organizations to attach a list of salaries and other compensation for services paid in the last year, Law said. It requires a list of any funds distributed to members, shareholders or directors in the last year. In each case the recipient’s name, type of service rendered or reason for payment, and amounts paid must be included.
Members and directors of the ministry include Kenneth Copeland, his wife, Gloria, and several ministers, according to documents provided to the appraisal district.
The tax code requires that salaries be disclosed, but it’s not clear why, Law said. "There’s no mathematical test that we’re supposed to apply regarding salaries" for exempt status, he said. "It just talks about 'reasonableness.’
"When you actually . . . start going through the process of determining . . . is the property exempt or not exempt, there’s not much use of the salary information."
It’s not the first time the ministry has been reluctant to release certain financial information. Last year, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Copeland and other ministers to provide financial information to him as part of an investigation into the reportedly lavish lifestyles of televangelists.
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland have given partial responses to most of his questions but didn’t answer questions about compensation.
But their church has pledged "its cooperation to the IRS should the IRS undertake a church tax inquiry," it said in a statement in July.
The application requires that they submit to us a list of salaries."

SUV'S AT ALTAR , DETROIT CHURCH PRAYS FOR A BAILOUT

DETROIT - With sport-utility vehicles at the altar and auto workers in the pews, one of Detroit's largest churches on Sunday offered up prayers for Congress to bail out the struggling auto industry.
"We have never seen as midnight an hour as we face this week," the Rev. Charles Ellis told several thousand congregants at a rousing service at Detroit's Greater Grace Temple. "This week, lives are hanging above an abyss of uncertainty as both houses of Congress decide whether to extend a helping hand."
Local car dealerships donated three hybrid SUVs to be displayed during the service, one from each of the Big Three. A Ford Escape, Chevy Tahoe from GM and a Chrysler Aspen were parked just in front of the choir and behind the pulpit.
Ellis said he and other Detroit ministers would pray and fast until Congress voted on a bailout for Detroit's embattled automakers. He urged his congregation to do the same.
Other Detroit-area religious leaders -- including Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders convened by Cardinal Adam Maida -- have urged Congress to approve an auto aid package.
But the service dedicated to saving Motown's signature industry at Greater Grace Temple was the highest profile effort to mobilize support yet.
"Everybody can't live on Wall Street. Everybody can't live on Main Street. But all of us have lived on the side street, the working class," Ellis said. "I call it the working class because everything tells me there is no more middle class."
Key Democratic lawmakers and the Bush administration were locked in negotiations over the weekend aimed at offering at least $15 billion in short-term loans to keep General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC from immediate bankruptcy.
Automakers and their political allies contend a collapse by the industry would cost up to 3 million jobs as suppliers, dealers and companies in related industries were hit in turn.
Representing the 150,000 unionized workers at GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co, UAW Vice President General Holiefield said the industry had made its case for emergency funding as strongly as it could.
"We have done all we can do in this union, so I'm going to turn it over to the Lord," Holiefield told the congregation.
Ellis said he started to organize the service last week after hearing from auto workers, retirees and their widows who were all fearful of even harder times.
At one point, Ellis summoned up hundreds of auto workers and retirees in the congregation to come forward toward the vehicles on the altar to be anointed with oil.
"It's all about hope. You can't dictate how people will think, how they will respond, how they will vote," Ellis said after the service. "But you can look to God. We believe he can change the minds and hearts of men and women in power, and that's what we tried to do today."
Michelle McDade, 50, who attended the service, said her late father had worked at GM for 30 years and her mother was now living on his pension.

"I pray in good times and in bad times, but I pray these days because it's something that directly affects our lives. "Politicians forgot autoworkers for ages. You can't just forget them. We're also part of the country."
Founded in 1927 when Detroit was an automotive boomtown, Greater Grace Temple is one the city's largest and most influential black churches.
The church was the site of the 2005 funeral for civil rights figure Rosa Parks.

FAITH BUILDS A CHURCH IN MECCA , CALIF

CALIF, MECCA - When the ceiling began to collapse at Sanctuary of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the impoverished desert town of Mecca, Father Eliseo Lucas sprang into action.With 5,000 parishioners and no money for a new church, he had a huge plastic tent erected in the parking lot.

Unfortunately, it acted like a big greenhouse. People began dropping in the 120-degree heat. A handful of swamp coolers made little difference. And the distribution of fans made from Popsicle sticks taped to paper plates was even less effective."Almost every weekend we called the paramedics because people were fainting inside," Lucas said. "We had 40 volunteers do CPR classes in case something terrible happened."Winter was no better. People shivered as cold winds battered the tent and sandstorms blew dust through the flaps. There were no bathrooms; portable toilets lined the parking lot. The church was a study in hardship and discomfort.
But now the tent is empty. Across the parking lot stands a gleaming new sanctuary outfitted with actual pews, a granite altar, chandeliers, bathrooms, air conditioning and heating. "I am very proud of this community. Even though they are poor, you have no idea how generous they really are," Lucas said, surveying a church that seemed impossibly luxurious compared with the tent. "In these hard economic times, when people think there isn't anything to be thankful for, we now have this."Our Lady of Guadalupe is the poorest Catholic congregation in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and one of the poorest in the state, church officials said. It is made up largely of Latino farmworkers often living in ramshackle trailer parks dotting the eastern Coachella Valley. There is also a large contingent of Purepechas, indigenous people from the Mexican state of Michoacan, who attend.Despite the poverty, Lucas launched an ambitious fundraising effort two years ago for a new church.But in a place where annual incomes often fall under $10,000, where unemployment is rife and where Lucas says the average parishioner drops about $3 a week into the collection plate, the odds were against him.Then the money began trickling in. It arrived in crumpled envelopes: a dollar here, two dollars there, a fistful of change. In one case a woman brought in a bag of dates."She said, 'Father Lucas, I have no money. Sell these dates and use the money to build the church,' " Lucas said. "If she came with a bag of dates, then I will use the dates to build a church."That spirit soon infected others."Even though they say we are the poorest of the poor, we had the discipline to keep it up," said Gilbert Medrano, 40, as he helped hand out boxes of food to a steady stream of members coming through the door."I am an unemployed carpenter but I have given what I could, and some weeks that wasn't very much."In the notorious Duroville trailer park, which the U.S. government is trying to close because of health and safety concerns, Aron Felipe's family regularly contributed."We would give $5 or $10, but we gave every week even if it was very little," said Felipe, 18, who had just finished working in the fields.A few blocks away, Patricia Huente said the church dominated life in the park."I was surprised we could raise so much," she said. "It's a high poverty area, but little by little it became enough. If you give away more, you receive more back."Those who couldn't give money donated time. They worked weekends selling tacos or running garage sales and fiestas as church fundraisers.

"I sometimes worked from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m.," said Ligeia Ochoa, 19. "The church gives a lot to the community, and we want to give back to it."Such devotion is not unusual for Our Lady of Guadalupe, which draws people from as far as Mexicali, Mexico.

"You still see people coming in here, kneeling all the way up to the altar," said Elva Torres, 49, a member from Indio. "That is something you see maybe in Mexico City but not in other churches around here. This place remains closer to our customs and traditions."Torres is a member of the church finance committee and watched the money come in."I think it had a unifying effect on all of us," she said.
The church raised nearly $300,000. Other Catholic parishes chipped in with large additional donations, along with the Diocese of San Bernardino. Ultimately about $1 million was collected.The new church consists of a large dome made of Kevlar-like material, causing some to dub it the "balloon church." In the years ahead, finances permitting, a more traditional wood and stone structure will replace it.Parishioners decorated the inside like any other Catholic church. They made the chandeliers themselves, hammering out metal rings and fitting each with 36 lights. Candlesticks and icons were donated. Altar chairs were bought at a local thrift store."These are things that seem out of place for Mecca -- chandeliers, stained glass, a granite altar top," Lucas said, noting that the granite was also donated.The priest seemed profoundly moved by it all. "We suffered two years of heat and cold, strong winds and dust," he said a few minutes before starting the evening Mass."It was a challenging situ- ation, but the people chose to stay and support the church."Bishop Gerald Barnes, who heads the diocese, came out to bless the church recently."Many of us have moved to a state of despair and hopelessness, and these people could have moved the same way," he said later. "But their community's resilience and trust in God shows."They never lost hope, and what a great blessing that is for those of us facing difficult times."

' GLORIA DEO ' ROCKED DELHI : THANKS FOR YOUR PRAYERS

NEW DELHI - Can music touch one's heart? Can music make a difference ? the answer is a big YES .
' GLORIA DEO ' rocked Delhi. GLORIA DEO the biggest international Christmas concert in India by LIVE JAM was conducted yesterday at pragati maidan. India's famous christian artist's performed there numbers. the stadium was jam packed and all the delhities were dancing to the tunes of the music. The music and the name of our lord was echoing the corners of Delhi and also in pragati maidan. yes delhi is going to change. This concert is going to make a big difference in Delhi.
STEPHEN DEVASSY'S fast moving fingers on the organ, BENNY PRASAD'S unique playing in the unique instrument called BENTAR and his testimony , ANIL KANT'S punjabi folk music's and YESHUA'S rock music was really touching the hearts of those thousands of people.
once more thanks to all people who prayed for this concert and we can boldly say THE PRAYER'S made the difference. Continue to pray for BONNY ANDREWS and his team LIVE JAM so that they may touch thousand's of lives through this music.