church website design - church123.com.

About Us

The Remarkable Story of Seekers International

During the autumn of 1999, while pasturing a group of six country churches in West Wales, I became aware of an intense spiritual burden that I could neither escape nor ignore. The burden? Simply, the awareness of a general, woeful lack, among so many of the basic tenets of the Christian Faith. In order to ease the burden and respond to what I sincerely believed to be the Lord’s prompting, I decided to write a series of basic, elementary Bible Studies. I then placed an advertisement in a national Christian magazine stating that basic Bible Studies were available through correspondence for those who would request them.

Patson KandelaAmong the many responses I received, was one from Patson Kandela, the pastor of a rural evangelical church in Kitwe, Zambia. Patson responded with an avid and ever-increasing enthusiasm to the studies. Christmas 1999, I sent him a booklet containing four sermons I had preached in previous pastorates at Catherine Street, Plymouth and Grange Baptist Church, Birkenhead, Merseyside, on the theme –‘The Realities of Heaven.’ [A worshipper at Birkenhead intimated that the series should be available in print and kindly undertook the task of producing the booklet]. Patson thanked me in his own inimitable way for the booklet – “I thank you for the booklet you sends me. Thank you and the message is victory. I learn more from the sermons things I didn’t know…”

In March 2000, for some unknown reason, the contact with Patson, which I continued for some time to re-establish, was broken.

Three years later, July 24th, 2003, I received a letter that caused me in humility and gratitude to tearfully give thanks and praise to God. No, the letter was not from Patson. The postal address read: ‘G.P.O. Box    , Ibadan, Nigeria. Listed neatly down the left hand side of the page were the names of thirty-six indigenous African men and women. On the right hand side of the page, the letter read:

Dear Brethren,

The peace and the love of Christ be with you all.
We thank you very much for publishing such a wonderful, educative and inspiring leaflet. Someone passed on to us. And we read it again and again before the owner come and collect it back. It is wonderful; it has brought us back from darkness into a glorious light and that light is now shining in our heart. Brother, due to this wonderful messages, we all has totally surrender our lives to Christ, receiving Him as our Lord and Messiah
We want to make a close walk with the Lord and all this require departing from sin, telling people about the Lord Jesus Christ, reading our Bibles, - but we don’t have Bible. That is why we are writing you for Bibles. Please and please kindly in anyway, and send to us all thirty-six Holy Bibles that has the Old and the New Testament and leaflets in one package.
May God bless you richly more and more.

Thanks.

Your Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Brother Obi

It would seem that the booklet had travelled over a thousand miles from Kitwe, Zambia to Ibadan, Nigeria and that thirty-six Africans had read it ‘back-to-back’ as it were, before the owner, - whether it was Patson, we don’t know – ‘come and collect it back.’

It seems that the Lord had evidently used the booklet to lead, convert and bring thirty-six African brothers and sisters into a saving relationship with Him. I have no idea who ‘Brother Obi’ might be, or any of the other converts. I simply thank and praise the Lord that they are now my ‘brothers and sisters in Christ.’

Needless to say, their request for ‘thirty-six Holy Bibles that has the Old and New Testaments and the leaflets’ has been met in full through the generosity of some faithful members of the six churches and personal friends.

Throughout the remaining months of 2003, the request for Bibles and especially ‘the leaflets [Bible Studies] increased claiming more and more of our precious time to fulfil the demand. We quickly realised that the Lord was prompting us to make some difficult and life-changing decisions. Namely, whether to stay in pastorate and how to fund a new ministry that the Lord was leading us into. In February 2004, after a considerable time of prayer and seeking the Lord’s will and guidance, Jenny, my wife, and I, in obedience to the Lord, decided to give the pastorate of six churches twelve months notice of our intention to redirect our ministry. Although disappointed, the churches understood that we were responding to a definite call from the Lord.

On the night of the first anniversary [July 24th,2004] of receiving the letter from Brother Obi informing me of the thirty-six converts, I had a vivid, poignant, significant dream. In the dream, I emerged from a dense wood on to a main road. My trouser legs up to the knee were covered with mud. As I stamped my feet on the hard road, the mud which seemed to have dried mysteriously fell freely from my trousers. I looked up, and across the road stood what appeared to be a large college campus. Suddenly, I found myself in the college auditorium. As I made my way down the left hand side of the packed auditorium, who should be sitting near the rostrum but the late Rev. Dr. Glenn E. Tyler, Th.D., Litt.D., D.D. President of International Seminary, Florida, my alma mater. Seeing me approach the rostrum he said, “I understand, Gwynne, that you are the guest preacher here this evening. May I be so bold as to ask what your text might be?” Of course, I was pleased and delighted that he should be there. I replied, “Luke 4:5, - “When he had finished speaking he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.’ Dr. Tyler remarked, “That’s a powerful text, Gwynne. I pray that the Lord will anoint you and bless the message for the saving of souls.” The significance of the dream lay in the fact that it came exactly twelve months to the day of receiving Brother Obi’s letter.

Some of the 36 Converts

In the meantime, we were informed by ‘Brother Obi Kenneth’ that the number of converts had now [December 2004] grown to two hundred and sixteen. For which we give thanks and praise to God

In order that we might fund the new ministry, we were prompted by colleagues in the U.K., and the U.S to establish ‘Seekers International’ – an independent, evangelical, correspondence seminary, offering certificate, diploma and degree courses to lay-persons, Christian workers, and pastors. Students, through pre-approved credits earned at Seekers International are given a valuable opportunity to gain a theological certificate, diploma or degree through the transfer of such credits to degree courses at accredited U.S. seminaries and theological universities. In response to God’s leading, Seekers International will donate a percentage [10%] of all tuition fees to supply Bibles and Basic Bible Study courses to indigenous Christians in Nigeria, Zambia and Kenya, Africa.

A month after giving the group of churches twelve months notice of my intention to conclude my ministry with them, I received a letter inviting me to consider becoming the pastor of another pastorate of two churches in Mid-Wales. This was followed by a telephone call, one Thursday lunchtime, from one of their deacons inviting my wife and me to visit with them on a Saturday. At this time, we were seeking confirmation that our decision to redirect our ministry was truly of the Lord. I asked the deacon concerned if we could have until the middle of the following week to prayerfully seek the Lord’s will. The very next morning, Friday, I received a letter from ‘Brother Obi’ in Ibadan, Nigeria, stressing the great need for more Bibles and studies. The first confirmation had been given.

Having reached the qualifying age to be housed by the Baptist Union of Great Britain, we were invited to search for an appropriate property. Our search led us to Northampton. It was not until later that we realised that its location was central to the U.K., and a mere five minutes from the M1 Motorway. This gave us our second confirmation.

The third confirmation came when two of our new neighbours in Tennyson Close informed us that they were publishers and would be only too pleased to assist in any way.

We are confident that Seekers International is in the will of God and we go forward in faith and in obedience to His leading.