Dear Church Family,

I hope you will take the opportunity this coming Sunday to walk through our new preschool wing. As you walk through, please pray for the preschoolers who will be in this space and learn about Jesus. Ask the LORD if there is an offering you might give so we can have it paid in full. Pray for our volunteers and staff who lead this precious age and for the parents who bring them. I’m grateful to be part of a church that embraces the generations!

With an important election coming up, I wanted to share a great story of perseverance in one of God’s servants who made an everlasting difference in our world—

He was DEFEATED ELEVEN TIMES.

Attacked. Threatened with DEATH. Nearly blind.

Addicted to opium just to function. They told him to stop. He spent forty-six years refusing.

His name was William Wilberforce. Born in Hull, 1759.

He could have lived a comfortable life. Wealthy family. Safe seat in Parliament.

Instead he chose to destroy the most powerful economic system in the British Empire.

The slave trade.

He didn’t fight alone. Thomas Clarkson rode 35,000 miles gathering evidence.

Olaudah Equiano, man who had been enslaved himself, gave testimony that no politician could ignore.

Wilberforce took their evidence to Parliament.

They voted no. He came back. They voted no. He came back. Lost by eight votes.

MPs deliberately stayed away so they wouldn’t have to choose a side.

He came back. Again. And again. And again.

By now his eyesight was nearly gone. His body was breaking. He’d been on opium since he was 29.

Twenty years after he started, they voted again.

283 to 16.

The slave trade was abolished.

But he wasn’t finished. Slavery itself was still legal. He fought for another twenty-six years.

In July 1833, lying in bed, barely able to move, he received word. Parliament had voted. Slavery was abolished across the entire British Empire.

Three days later, William Wilberforce died.

He held on just long enough.

They buried him in Westminster Abbey.

Help keep our stories alive.

Press on!

Mark