Well we finally made it to Ireland after a flight from Ukraine to Istanbul, Turkey. Then a 3 hour bus ride from Dublin to Colraine, Ireland. This month we will be working with Vineyard church. Yesterday 4 of us guys went to help clean the church. I got to hangout with "Henry" the vacuum. This little vacuum had a face and the hose was his nose. He took me on a tour of the entire church. After coffee and buttered toast we worked until tea time. At 11 we had coffee and cookies, then they served us beans and pastries with sausage in them for lunch. It was great to be there. The church seats about 1,000 and reminds me so much of my home church Kearney E Free. I am so excited to go to church tomorrow and worship with a full band with drums!!!
From about 2:30 till 8:30 we had a Healing seminar. Mark has been leading a street ministry in which they set out chairs and pray for people as they walk by. He has been doing this for over 20 years I believe. He taught us how to pray with the authority that God has given each one of us. It is such a new experience that many of us have never seen before in our church's back home. He was super excited to know that we will be traveling to India next, because he has so many stories of how God healed people through him and others. He has told us many experiences of how actual legs grew from nothing. How empty eye sockets opened and eyes formed right in front of them. He showed us pictures of how after 10 minutes of prayer a girls scars from cutting herself disappeared. Another guy came from the back of the room with a hunched back, before he even got to the chair he was walking straight and healed! These are just a few examples he shared of God's healing.
Then God showed us all first hand how we can heal others. Several of our teammates got healed last night! One of our teammates legs WAS an inch longer than the other. After just a few minutes his shorter leg GREW to the same length as his other leg! Several others also got healed from back pain.
One guy got his back healed. He barely was able to lift weight before but right after he went to the gym and did a squat with several hundred pounds with no pain! One girl had back pain and felt a little better but not completely healed after prayer. Many times healing is not instantaneous. Sometimes it takes several days or longer. Sometimes we must pray for healing over and over again. Sometimes God doesn't heal. But in the end God's love for us remains the same. Our trust and faith in Him should not be based off of if we are healed or if He heals through us. All I can say is this is CRAZY what God is doing!
So this month our squad is together. All 53 of us are staying in a boy scout club house. We will all be split up in different groups and working with members from our squad that are not on our team. I have been blessed this month to work with the church taking pictures of all the different ministries going on and capturing moments of God working through our team and the church. I am excited to be able to do this because my camera is currently not working and I have just been getting photos through other members on the race, until I decide what to do. Ireland is so beautiful and green, probably because it rains constantly. I am currently preparing to hopefully run a half-marathon towards the end of the month with several others from my team and squad!
Just hanging off a bridge over the highway in Kiev, Ukraine
( no worries, there is a sign with a walkway that would catch me 2 feet below)
Once again please keep us all in your prayers. We have many challenges and things to work on in our ministries and within ourselves.
