Atlantic Productions
6 July 2019 • WAR CRY • TELEVISION 3
BORN TO BE
WILD
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UNTING for crocodiles, speedboating down a mighty river, exploring coral reefs and hanging out with orphan orangutans are all on the itinerary in Judi Dench’s Wild Borneo Adventure, which concludes on ITV on Tuesday (9 July). During the two-part series, Dame Judi discovers more about one of the richest rainforest ecosystems on the planet, where new species are still being discovered. Guided by conservationists and experts, she meets a winged mammal called the kubong, a diligent dung beetle, and a snake she nicknames James Bond. She expresses unbridled delight about the diversity that surrounds her. In last week’s episode, the actress flew by helicopter 125 miles into the heart of the rainforest. She was awestruck by the views below, remarking: ‘It is spectacular. I never imagined it would be quite so overpowering to look at. It’s like flying over broccoli!’ Later Judi was winched up one of the rainforest’s tallest trees, which soars to a height of more than 100 metres. It provided her with a view of the canopy, which sustains up to 30 per cent of rainforest life. Being in the jungle also stirred another of Judi’s senses. She heard its symphony, which croaked into life at dusk
Meeting an orphaned baby orangutan
Judi Dench flies high in jungle adventure, writes Emily Bright Judi is hoisted up to the rainforest canopy
with cicadas, grasshoppers and crickets. She was struck by the sheer scale of the insect kingdom, learning that as many as 80,000 species coexist within the Borneo rainforest. Throughout her journey, Judi is astonished at the rich ecosystem she encounters. ‘The jungle is beyond my wildest dreams,’ she says. ‘Around every corner there’s an extraordinary creature.’ Whether we see an orangutan swinging from rainforest trees or simply admire a butterfly in our back garden, there is beauty to behold wherever we look. Over many thousands of years, humankind has delighted in the world on which all life in its diversity depends.
She expresses delight about the diversity that surrounds her One Bible poet expressed joy when reflecting on the beauty of nature by praising God for his abundant provision. The writer enthused: ‘How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures’ (Psalm 104:24 New International Version). The writer believed that the richness of life derived from a magnificent and mighty God and that all life depended on him. Many other people have expressed their irrepressible joy that they could encounter such a God in their everyday existence, knowing he would sustain them through whatever they faced. We may feel that our springs of strength have dried up, or that we are falling prey to our circumstances. However, God offers us a rich abundance of life and love, if we’re willing to walk towards him. He can strengthen us with his peace, love and guidance. We may feel that our lives are rooted in past mistakes, broken relationships or difficulties, but we have a tremendous chance to grow closer to God.
8 INTERVIEW • WAR CRY • 6 July 2019
G loria hallelujah! 6 July 2019 • WAR CRY • INTERVIEW 9
GLORIA GAYNOR tells Philip Halcrow about the faith that has led her to record an album of gospel songs
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T first in the song, Gloria Gaynor is singing about being afraid – perhaps even petrified. She evokes the sense of being hurt and thinking that you can’t go on living in the same way. But the song is, in the end, about weathering the storm. She reassures listeners that ‘no matter how bad it feels’, they can know that ‘God is able’, and she encourages them to lay their troubles ‘at his feet’. The sentiments of that song, ‘Joy Comes in the Morning’, are on repeat throughout her new album, Testimony, a collection of gospel songs. It is 40 years since Gloria Gaynor reached No 1 in the US and UK singles charts with ‘I Will Survive’. But, although the disco of that million-seller and the gospel of her latest release may sound poles apart, Gloria says that the music on both is linked. The title Testimony suggests a story of faith, and Gloria sees ‘I Will Survive’ as being part
I really feel that ‘I Will Survive’ was a tap on the shoulder from God of a key moment in the development of her relationship with God. She even references the era in some extra words she has added to the Christian classic ‘Amazing Grace’, which appears on the album. ‘There was a time,’ she sings, ‘when I was broken,/ Didn’t know which way to turn./ I was paralysed, wondering why,/ Hanging on to hope by a thread.’ Gloria explains: ‘“Amazing Grace” tells my
story. It refers to the time when I had fallen onstage at the Beacon Theater and the next morning woke up paralysed from the waist down. That was a wake-up call.’ The story of what happened next has gone down in pop history. Her future with her record company was looking bleak. Then a song that had been planned as a B-side – and which she recorded while wearing a back brace – became a huge hit, outstripping the variable chart successes she had achieved with disco reworkings of songs such as the Jackson 5’s ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’ and the Four Tops’ ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’. Looking back, Gloria reflects: ‘I really feel that “I Will Survive” was a tap on the shoulder from God, saying: “I’m here and I’m going to help you through this time of hospitalisation, surgery, paralysis. I’m going to help you in the hope that you will recognise my presence in your life and begin to follow me.”’ It was not the last time that Gloria would feel God urging her to recognise his presence. Nor was it the first time that she had thought about God. ‘Years after I became serious about my faith and was baptised, thinking it was for the first time, I found an old baptism certificate from when I was 16 years old,’ she says. ‘And the memories came flooding back of how I had gone to my mother and told her that I wanted to dedicate my life to God. None of my family had been baptised and none of them went to church regularly except my grandmother. But I decided I wanted to go to church and to dedicate my life to God.’ When Gloria tells the story of what may have prompted her to go to church, she does
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10 INTERVIEW • WAR CRY • 6 July 2019
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so with interjections of laughter. It was, she recalls, a ‘silly incident’. Gloria saw a copy of a periodical that printed ‘sensationalised stories, 99 per cent of which were made up – and I read an article that said that the Earth was going to collide with the Moon. As a teenager, I believed it. ‘After that, it seemed to me that the Moon was getting bigger every night. When I saw it getting bigger and bigger, I thought: “Oh no! It’s going to happen.” ‘One night I woke up to go to the bathroom,
let them die in their sleep rather than wake them up and make them suffer with me. ‘So I decided just to go to bed and pray that the Lord would take us to Heaven when we died. ‘Of course, I woke up the next morning, the sun was shining and everything was fine. Later that day, I learnt that the crashing noise I’d heard was the first international jet flying out from the relatively new Newark airport – we were in the flight path. The flight had been delayed by the fog that I had seen, and the fog had been so red because the bar across the street from my house had forgotten to turn off its neon sign. ‘Looking back, I think it’s amazing how all those elements came together to feed the Gloria sings in imagination of a teenager – and all started by a ridiculous article. Miami last year ‘But I decided that I needed to get in touch with God in case something terrible did happen.’ Gloria began attending church and was baptised. In time, though, she felt that her church was not teaching her how to connect faith with her everyday life. ‘So I drifted away from it,’ she says. Although she could say goodbye to her church, God was not going to let her go. First
and on my way back to my bedroom I looked out the window and saw this red, thick fog that came right up to the building. I couldn’t see the ground or the neighbours’ window. I was thinking: “It’s happening! The Moon is colliding with the Earth!” ‘To make it worse, I heard this horrible, crashing noise, which I’d never heard before. I thought: “It’s happening and the buildings around are falling!” I was going to tell my family, but then I thought that if they were going to die, I should
Our lives were just performing and partying came the ‘tap on the shoulder’, when her cry for help after her accident was followed by the arrival of her hit about survival. It was followed up by another powerful experience. ‘My husband and I had gone out to California to do some shows for “I Will Survive”,’ she remembers. ‘Our lives at the time were just performing and partying. I was insecure and was trying to get in with the in-crowd and be a part of all that foolishness. ‘We were in our hotel suite with a group of acquaintances who we partied with. I don’t remember who they were. And I honestly don’t know what but, ever since, I have thought that something evil was about to happen and that I was going to be involved in it. ‘I remember the Holy Spirit grabbing me by the collar, as you might grab a little child that is playing with fire. And he said: “That is enough.” ‘I was visibly shaken. I ran to the bathroom, saying: “Oh my God!” And I realised that it was indeed my God that was pulling
6 July 2019 • WAR CRY • INTERVIEW 11 PA
There can’t be anyone whose love for us is greater me away from that group of people. ‘I never went back to those kinds of parties again. It felt to me as if God was saying to the Devil: “This one is mine. You can’t have her. She dedicated her life to me. She forgot, but I haven’t.”’ Gloria slowly started to return to her faith. ‘Someone had given me a Bible, but I had never read it. I blew the dust off it and began to study it. Eventually I started to go to church, and my life was completely turned around.’ Bible passages struck a chord with her. She remembers: ‘The one that shook me to the core was Isaiah 7:14, which says: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel.” Immanuel means “God with us”. When I realised that meant Jesus was God in the flesh and that he had come to show us the way, to guide us and be part of our lives, I was floored. I was amazed to think that he would do that out of love for us. And if he did that for us, how could we not let him guide our life? ‘There can’t be anyone whose love for us is greater and who so much wants what’s best for us. ‘So since then, back in 1982, God has been my guide in everything that I’ve done – which is not to say that I haven’t stepped away from his guidance from time to time and done what was comfortable. I have done that too many times. And when I have looked back, I’ve said to God: “What was I thinking? I’m so sorry.” I was sorry not because I had betrayed God, but because I’d been so stupid not to have walked in the path that’s best for me.’ Gloria’s desire to celebrate her relationship with God has sent her to a genre of music that she has known for years. She remembers listening to gospel music throughout her childhood, and enjoyed recordings by acts such as Sam Cooke, Shirley Caesar and the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. Alongside new compositions, Testimony includes gospel standards ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord’ – and Gloria took an old-school approach to recording many of the tracks. ‘Much of the album was recorded with everybody in the studio at the same time, which isn’t done very much any more,’ she says. ‘It generates a spontaneous creativity that can only happen when people are together, inspiring
Gloria arriving in London the year after ‘I Will Survive’ went to No 1 one another.’ Gloria is glad finally to have fulfilled her longstanding desire to record an album of gospel music. She values the genre as a way of ‘imparting the love, the mercy and the grace of God and showing how much better life can be if we are surrounded by it. ‘I wanted to get back to the idea of gospel as reflecting a faith that can be at the centre of your being. ‘And that,’ she testifies, ‘is why I sing the new words to “Amazing Grace” – I wanted to show what amazing grace means to me and how it applies to my life.’
l Testimony is released on Gaither Music Group
12 INNER LIFE • WAR CRY • 6 July 2019
Prayerlink THE War Cry invites readers to send in requests for prayer, including the first names of individuals and details of their circumstances. Send your requests to Prayerlink, War Cry, 101 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6BN. Mark your envelope ‘Confidential’.
Becoming a Christian There is no set formula to becoming a Christian, but many people have found saying this prayer to be a helpful first step to a relationship with God Lord Jesus Christ, I am truly sorry for the things I have done wrong in my life. Please forgive me. I now turn from everything that I know is wrong. Thank you that you died on the cross for me so that I could be forgiven and set free. Thank you that you offer me forgiveness and the gift of your Holy Spirit. Please come into my life by your Holy Spirit to be with me for ever. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Amen
Lamentations
Nigel Bovey gives chapter and verse on each book in the Scriptures
S the book that bears his name testiA fies, the prophet Jeremiah had an unenviable God-given duty. He had to
warn the nation of Judah of its impending doom and explain that it was facing God’s punishment because of its spiritual unfaithfulness. The phrase ‘the word of the Lord’ dominates the Book of Jeremiah. By contrast, according to tradition, the Book of Lamentations is Jeremiah’s personal response to the fall of Jerusalem. Before it fell in 587BC, the city had been under siege for the better part of two years (see 2 Kings 25:1 and 2). Here, Jeremiah, in five separate laments, graphically recounts the realities. In the first, the once-bustling Jerusalem lies wasted, deserted, despised and desolate. Looted of its treasures, its citizens trade their dwindling possessions for food. The city is abandoned by allies and by God – all because of Judah’s intransigent sinfulness. In the second lament, God appears as an enemy. He has destroyed the nation, levelling her fortifications and abandoning the Temple. The onlooking world rejoices, while God is seemingly untouched by the grief and suffering of his people. The third lament is Jeremiah’s description of the personal effect that being God’s spokesman had on him. Mentally traumatised and physically emaciated, he is the butt of public rebuke. Consequently, he is bitter,
restless and cynical. But he is not totally disillusioned. He writes: ‘Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his
The once-bustling Jerusalem lies wasted, deserted, despised and desolate compassions never fail’ (3:21 and 22). It is a glimmer of light in the depths of his darkness. Restoration is possible. Jeremiah’s fourth lament contrasts Jerusalem’s present desolation with its earlier glory. Men are a shadow of their former selves. Children beg for food. The once wealthy are now destitute. Mothers are desperate, cooking their own children for food. In the fifth and final lament, Jerusalem is populated by widows and orphans. Leaders are tortured. Boys are put to hard labour. Women and girls are raped. Jeremiah prays for God’s mercy and restoration.
Key verse
w ‘Though he brings grief, he will sho g compassion, so great is his unfailin 2 3:3 love’ (Lamentations New International Version)
Extract from Why Jesus? by Nicky Gumbel published by Alpha International, 2011. Used by kind permission of Alpha International
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