SVC CAP & Life Skills Prayer Points – Winter 2018/19
As well as reading below you can also download a PDF copy of our Prayer Letter Here, your prayers are incredibly important, highly effective, and greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Please also feel free to pickup a printed copy of the CAP prayer letter on your next visit to Church.
Helen’s prayer requests
• Several clients are working on VERY tight budgets and so it’s hard to stick to paying in. Pray that they can see that it’s worth the hard work and the sooner they get debt free the sooner they will have easier budgets.
• 6 of Helen’s clients are facing their second or even third/fourth Christmas with CAP. Pray that they get debt free in 2019.
• More clients than ever attended the CAP Christmas party and following Laura’s talk several made some form of commitment to God. Pray that the seeds are watered and their faith blossoms.
• Three separate clients who are on long term repayment routes have struggled to pay in as their children push for more than their budgets allow. Pray that they can see the advantage to their family of getting debt free and can knuckle down in 2019 and avoid CAP closing their plans.
• 2018 has been a bumper year for clients attending discovery breaks and making commitments. Pray for their faith to grow and their roots to be in God, supported by the Church.
• Client X is looking to be rehoused away from private landlords, pray that this happens soon to a safe bungalow or flat somewhere as she struggles with stairs.
• Client Y struggles with alcohol dependency and that means it’s hard for CAP to find a suitable route out of debt that avoids losing the home. Pray that Y has the courage to say no, which is particularly difficult at this time of year.
• Client Z lost a teenage son close to Christmas and is really struggling with depression. Pray for comfort and a real faith to blossom even in these hard times.
• Clients A & B are trying to adopt their nieces baby. Pray for favour of the social workers and for their niece to then be able to have appropriate contact.
I am confident that God has led me to the decision to lay down my CAP work so I can support mine & Andy’s parents, and feel He asked me to TRUST HIM and give back to Him a gift he’d given me, with a promise that in due course He will give me something back which will be even more fruitful. But it’s hard, it feels like a bereavement. Please pray for strength for Andy and me (Helen) as we go through this difficult season.
Laura’s prayer requests
Thank you for your continued prayer for the Leigh Debt Centre as we start to wrap up another year! Thank you God for being with us all year!
Specific praise points:
A successful cap client Christmas party which saw lots of clients come and be blessed! A lovely day was had by everyone and we even had a visit from Father Christmas. I did a talk and there was an option to pray a salvation prayer which 4 clients responded with which is amazing.
• Praise God for the amount of people we have seen this year go debt free!
• Personally I would like you to pray for me as I take on my old role of Centre Manager. I will really miss Helen a lot-having been a team for over 5 years. January is looking really busy for me and I just pray I use my time wisely and don’t get too stressed! Pray for Helen too as she adjusts to life without CAP, and of course please continue to pray for her parents.
• Its Christmas time-yay! My favourite time of year. However this can be hard on a lot of my clients. Pray that they learn to budget-still pay into their cap plan. If they have children let them know that it’s not all about expensive presents and to not go into any more debt just for one day.
Client prayers:
• Client A and B – both single men both suffering with alcohol addiction. I am finding more and more with this job that debt is usually just a tiny thing in an array of mental health problems-mainly drugs alcohol and depression. It is sad to see this, pray for both these clients. They both are under a support worker and want to go to rehab. One really suffers with anxiety too, so please pray this will start to lift.
• Client C – Pray she begins to pay in again.
• Client D – has a tendency to apply for little loans here and there, which is totally discouraged by CAP! Pray that she will learn to stick to the rules and learn to budget better.
• Client E – is a lovely lady but with a drug habit, she suffers with bad anxiety too. Please be with her God.
• Client F- friendly client who is really nice-has so much potential too, but again has other issues-mental health, she came to the party and would love to come to church again. Please pray that she does.
Pray for all my other clients that they continue to pay in.
Pray they will be blessed this Christmas. I am really looking forward to giving out the Christmas hampers this year, such a lovely feeling dropping one of those off!
Again thank you for support this year-through prayer/volunteering on visits/financial. We really do appreciate you all! Thanks Laura 🙂
Ally’s prayer requests for Life Skills:
We’ve just finished another successful course with about 15 members, some new, some returners. One member has just been on a Discovery break and come back with a lease of New Life! Another made the most comprehensive budget I have seen yet. Others connected in a group when they normally struggle.
Community:
Please pray for strong friendships to form between members that they would build support between each other, and make some friendships that would develop outside of the meeting times. Pray for travel difficulties- most members rely on buses and don’t always have the money to come.
Dependence:
Please pray that members would develop their independence in making relationships and not become dependent on Ally or their coach for on-going emotional support. Each new course brings with it a host of new needs and the team will eventually be swamped if people do not learn resilience and how to find support in various places.
Anxiety and autism:
A number of members suffer from anxieties, and/or autism. Please pray that they would find coping mechanisms which would help them to find peace and step back from the worries. Not least that they would discover prayer and leaning on God to get them through the hardest times, normally night-time.
Coaching:
Coaching is still our greatest challenge- members start well, like the idea of looking forward to success in an area, are all excited about the ideas that they can take action…. then often don’t complete the agreed action and come to a bit of a halt. Please pray that we would find a way of helping them along that still gives them the responsibility to make the change for themselves. The temptation is to do things for them, but this doesn’t achieve anything in the long run!
Graduates programme:
We are putting together a graduate programme for people who have been on the course more than twice. This will look at some of the themes of Life Skills in more depth, and have some slightly different elements too. Helen Leakey and I are putting it together, and Helen and a coach will run it each week, parallel to the original course. Members will be able to return, eat lunch etc with the newer recruits and sometimes do joint activities. This will mean that the original Life Skills course has its full impact, I was finding that teaching a group where half already knew the ideas was starting to dilute the effect and commitment to those ideas.
Please pray for Helen as she seeks to continue our relationships with the learners, that she would be able to share Jesus and have lots of good ideas of what to include each week in fleshing out the session themes we have identified.
New members:
Please pray for wisdom for me as I accept referrals from secular agencies, how to prioritise which people come on the course if there are too many, when to say someone does not seem suitable. We have gained a good reputation amongst local agencies and I had to turn some away last course. Teaching the numbers of people is not the problem, but the myriad of emotional needs can become overwhelming as we cannot solve everything for people but it is hard not to find yourself trying!
Please pray for:
Sharon McBride, Helen Leakey, Susan and Robin Murray, Simon Edwards, Andy Bolton and me, Ally Murden as we try to minister to needy people spiritually and practically. We all have our own worries/illnesses and other commitments which can distract us and discourage. Pray for our faith and our strength to come from God.
Thank you!