When the Road Is Rough and Steep

We all pass through rough times, but one thing we can always rely on, is that the Lord will be with us. Some of you who have been Christians for a long time may now have the song which inspires the headline of this newsletter going round your heads! For those of you who don’t know it, it goes like this:

When the road is rough and steep

Fix your eyes upon Jesus

He alone has power to keep

Fix your eyes upon him.

Jesus is a faithful friend

One on whom you can depend

He is faithful to the end

Fix your eyes upon Him!

What a wonderful promise. If you’re climbing a tough path today, keep walking, one step at a time . . . the view from the top will be worth it! We’re not promised an easy life, but we are promised help, strength, light, peace and joy, and the presence of the Holy Spirit with us on the way. Let’s keep walking. 🙂

At last The City Kid is with us!

Production of this book has, indeed, been a rough, steep road. Even the shipping took three times longer than anticipated, but the books are here – no longer a dream but now a reality! Thank you so much for all your prayers – all we have to do now is get them into the hands of teenagers . . .

We only did a small print run because we used a printer in Croatia for the first time and I didn’t want to take a big risk . . . please pray the books will sell really quickly. If you would like some, please get hold of your copies now (contact me for quantity discounts) so we can plough back into producing more. Imagine a world filled with Christian books! Imagine if everyone bought books for all the young people they know! Imagine the difference it could make in so many lives! Please keep praying with me for this vision to be fulfilled – we know that the Lord is able to do vastly more than we can think or even imagine.

We can’t promise that any of our books will change lives, but that’s not our job – ours is to share the good news. Every single one of us can be a youth worker. If you don’t know any young people to buy for personally, we can send copies of The City Kid to Scripture Union in Uganda on your behalf, or to schools in Kenya where books are enormously treasured for two reasons – to help children rise out of poverty through literacy, as well as to spread the good news of Jesus.

Two more teenage boys have died this month in London from stab wounds.

According to an article in the Guardian, knife crime in the capital has risen by 16% in the past two years, with at least ten young people dying on the streets of London in this way since January. What a tragedy. These lads are someone’s children, grandchildren and brothers. You can read the story of the latest two deaths (a few days ago) here.

If you know anyone in youth ministry in London, please do let them know about this book. I would love to get this book into the hands of non-church teenagers in this country. Every single one should have the opportunity to hear the good news. Pressures on them are immense – if it’s not gangs it’s school work and exam pressure, alcohol and substance abuse, financial difficulties, family breakdown, worldliness and consumerism, peer pressure to fit in, low self-esteem. The City Kid, being loosely based on the parable of the prodigal son, is particularly aimed at reaching those who need to turn their lives around, and need to know who to turn to.

If you do school assemblies for teens, visit young offenders, run a youth club, teach 13s to 18s or have teen neighbours, please consider getting this book into the hands of the young people on your heart. It is a gritty story which holds no punches. The main character, John, enjoys his life in the city to begin with. He has a beautiful girlfriend, enjoys nightclubs, drinking, nights in hotels and his fast car. Gradually the fun turns to misery, though, as he falls into debt and becomes involved in corruption at work. After losing his girlfriend to a rich young politician, he goes to a bar looking to drown his sorrows, but is beaten up, has his car and wallet stolen and left for dead. Subsequently losing his job and home, John sees no way out of his desperation and tries to end his own life, but is miraculously spared. His life begins to turn around after a ‘chance’ meeting with a Christian friend and a visit to a gospel rock concert.

This is a book of hope.

Updated Online Catalogue and Leaflets

I have updated our online catalogue with The City Kid: please do pass it on to anyone you think might be interested. We must keep sowing seeds while we can. Click here for the online Dernier catalogue. Don’t forget the books are all available from your local Christian bookshop as well as from our website.

 

I’ve also had some new leaflets printed. They are A6 and two-sided. Let me know and I’ll send out however many you like. Thank you!

Encouragement from a supporter via email

And now for something completely different! I love it when I open my emails in the morning to find a book order or an encouragement of some sort. Here’s an email I thought I would share with you, as it’s really an encouragement for us all: “To encourage you I would just share with you a picture the Lord gave me. He showed me a little bird perched on his finger, the bird was singing beautifully into Jesus ear. Jesus was smiling and taking great delight in the sound the bird was making. As I looked closer I could see the bird was the little Dernier bird! And, looking closer still, the bird was made up of many pieces like a jigsaw. The pieces represented all the writers and everyone who is a part of Dernier Publishing. Together what they had to say was like music to the Lord’s ear! ‘We love you Lord and we lift our voice to worship you. Oh our hearts rejoice. Take joy our King in what you hear, let it be a sweet sweet sound in your ear.'”

Thank you, Juliet.

Lastly

A bit of personal news. Thank you to all who have been praying for my mum. She passed away quietly on 31^st July. I saw her every day for the last few days of her life, and prayed with her the last time I saw her before she lost consciousness. The photo is of Mum at our wedding five years ago. Her funeral will be next Tuesday. As you can imagine, work has had to take a secondary place in the last few weeks. Please accept my apologies if you have been expecting to hear from me – I am running late with just about everything. Special apologies to those of you who bought copies of The City Kid to review – I meant to email you all to let you know your copy was in the post, but didn’t quite get round to it. I very much look forward to hearing from you.

 

Thank you for partnering with us in the gospel,

 

Janet

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