Sowing in Ireland

This months ministry has certainly been the most random and unorthodox ministry to me so far. Funny that it should take place in the only 1st world country on our route and in a country that is so steep in religion, or religious conflict I should say. Though its certainly a reminder of what a stark contrast there is between 1st world countries versus 2nd and 3rd world countries in their thirst for the gospel. It seems to me that 1st world living distracts and dilutes one’s desire for God by way of materialism, secularism, and personal achievement. But I digress…

I had already mentioned in the previous blog my role as general contractor, which I’m happy to say has gone well. My crew of 4 guys have stripped and insulated 3 bedrooms while staying at our contacts home. Not bad for little to no carpentry experience! (Grandpa would be proud) The ministry that our contact, Jim and his wife Kathy, are most involved in are “street ministry” and to the gypsies/travelers of Ireland. Ok, so what does street ministry consist of you ask? Well…I found out the first day we were handed a stack of Christian tracks, dropped off on the busiest pedestrian street in Dublin, and told to go hand them out!� Are you kidding me?… Was I skeptical? Did I think I would be “that guy”? Did it seem inefficient and impersonal? Did I generally avoid those guys back in the states? Yea…but like all things World Race-ish, I gave it a go. Responses? To my surprise, it was rather easy to get people to take one by simply saying “thank you” when you handed it to them with a smile, but even more astonishing was that when I looked back after handing them out almost every person would read through the pamphlet and not just throw it in their bag or worst, on the street or in the trash. Maybe they were just being polite, but honestly to me many of them looked rather interested. Were they just trying to figure out if it was Protestant or Catholic?…either way, they received and read the gospel message whether for the first time or 100th. Some people struck up good conversations which often led to prayer or at least got people thinking about things they otherwise would not have. We’ve done “tracking” along beachside board walks but mostly in the city center at least once a week. Other times, we would do prayer walks around the city. Not totally unfamiliar with this, but again not my first choice of ministry. In groups of 2 or 3, we’d scatter throughout Dublin, pray in front of political buildings, religious centers, or with random strangers. Usually the first response (and rightly so) was “so, are you guys Jehovah’s Witnesses or something?” After explaining to them who we are and what we’re about, they pretty much alway accepted our offer to pray with them. Yes, in the middle of the street in broad daylight.

One of my favorite ministry days was spent at a drug rehab home where most of the guests were struggling through alcoholism or heroine addiction. At this home, called Betel, men of all ages came to when they had no where else to go or had hit rock bottom. There was currently about 7 or 8 guys there at the time we arrived who work as a gardening service and sell used furniture to support themselves while living at Betel. During the day, my team did work around their home to help fix it up including painting, cleaning out sheds, digging up fresh potatoes and my favorite- moving a 15ft high mountain of scrap wood piece by piece. In the evening, we had dinner with all the guys after they returned from their day of gardening. Our team also put on a mini-worship service for the guys and staff. It was a really powerful time of songs and sharing. I gave a brief testimony and a word of encouragement from Colossians which seemed to go over well from the responses I got afterwards. Pretty sweet!

So as you can tell, we’ve been all over the place this month, as opposed to last month where we stayed in one place and ran a camp. (and I haven’t even mentioned the super random ministry one-nighters) Its definitely provided good variety, but the thought that kept running through my head was that it seemed to much of quantity than quality. This month really hasn’t been about relationship building (outside of my teammates who are amazing), and so it made me wonder what kind of impact I was having.

One day though, one of our contacts who did street paintings to attract pedestrians and then share the gospel with them, put it all back in to perspective for me. I was reminded of the idea of sowing and reaping. I was reminded that the Body of Christ is larger than just my team and certainly larger than just me. There are well-meaning Christians all over the world who are doing their part to spread the Love of God to people everywhere. From just the last 2 months alone, I have been on the back-end of people who have been loved on, prayed for, and ministered to previously and their hearts were ripe to receiving more of God through me.