A Broken Car

Our car had a major problem a couple of weeks ago, which caused us quite a bit of stress. The oil sump ruptured and our car was no longer drivable. We had to get it taken to a local garage to get it fixed, which again caused us a lot of stress as the worked dragged out over more time then we had hoped.

I ended up spending time going down and waiting to talk to the people in charge. God can be in the most interesting places though; as I was sitting waiting an older guy started to talk to me and asked me where we went when we die, if we go to another planet or something. In that moment of annoyance I had a choice to brush off the conversation with a vague answer, or to actual be real with both myself, and the guy who asked me the question. I decided to actual be real and started to talk to him about what I believe, about both Heaven and that Jesus has made us a way. We talked for only 5 or 10 minutes, but in that time God shifted something in me and the reality of what was happening with our car became very small in comparison to why this guy had asked me the question and the conversation that followed. Our car was still broken, but I knew that no matter what happened or what was going to happen, Jesus is the most important thing in my life. I know exactly where I am going at the end of my life, and a car is just a car.

The Green Land

Myself and Christy got to spend some time in Northern Ireland a couple of weeks ago in which we got to be part of over 48 people coming to know Jesus for the first time! We travelled with a team of 23 to join a team from Ivy Manchester (Phil's sending church) and were hosted by a church in Belfast called Willowfield, who are in the middle of a year of focused reaching out to their local parish community.

Over the week we did a lot of door to door visiting, as this is the main outreach for the church, from which we got to introduce the church to the local area, ask people if they have anything they need prayer for, ask who they know Jesus to be and invite them to other events the church was running. These included a wine and cheese evening, a men's health day, a women’s health day, a men's day out, healing on the streets, a "stars in their eyes evening" which was done to raise money for cancer research. We also spent some time out on the streets of the local area praying and talking to people.

It was a really amazing week, we got to see God touch so many lives during our time in Belfast. We found there to be an incredible welcome in the local area, every door we knocked on and everyone we got to speak to were open and wanting to talk. Over the week at least 48 people made a commitment to Jesus, either through the conversations that we had out in the local community, or at some of the events that people were invited too. We also got to pray for many others both on the door step and in the streets.

On one of the days that we went out I was asked to lead an evangelism session using something that we call treasure hunting. This involves spending some time praying and asking God who he wants us to go and find and what he wants us to say to them. For example, we may feel like God says go and find someone wearing a green coat who is called Jenny and tell her this. I have very rarely found the person or people that I write down on my list, but I like to go out and spend time talking to people about Jesus anyway. I was pretty blown away when after about two hours of being out on the street I sat to talk to someone at a bus stop and found that he was the person that God had talked to me about earlier and I had written on my list. I had given up trying to find this person not long after we headed out, but God knew that I would eventually meet this guy. What I had written on the paper meant a lot to him and I got to pray with him before he had to get his bus.

It sometimes felt like God was bring people to us to hear about Him. On one occasion we were out on the street going from house to house saying hi and a lady came out of one of the houses straight up to one of the team, before we had gotten to her house, and said “I want to know Jesus”. So the member of the team got to talk through with her what this meant and prayed with her in the middle of the street!

The picture below is at the edge of the parish we were working in, and is located on a divide in the city between two opposing groups. It summed up what God was saying to us as a team for the parish and the city of Belfast.

We all came back with stories of how God had said some thing or prompted us to do something and it was significant for the person we were talking with. It was an amazing time for all of us to get to experience something more of who God is and what it means to know him, and do things with him.