Moments to Remember….Ireland Part 1
First Sunday at Vineyard
After our week of launch and being poured into we arrive at church, our first full day in Ireland, ready to serve. We start setting up chairs, getting coffee, donuts and tea ready for service but as soon as people start pouring in the doors it is easy to see that God is using these people to minister to us as much as we are to them! When the worship team starts to sing, the lead worship singer is using the same words we had just heard at training camp and launch! It was so amazing to hear the same God speaking to us in the same way an ocean away!
Prophesied over by Roger "Go and speak. Joe and you will change the nations"
Prophesy (speaking life) is something that AIM and the World Race really encourage us to seek God in and so does the Encounter School that the Vineyard church has. So when we had some of the students come to lead worship one day, Roger, one of the students had what they call a word for me. It was so cool because the moment right before he turned to me, I was thinking "God I feel kind of forgotten." As soon as I thought that Roger looked at me and told me " Go and speak. People are going to follow you. Joe and you will change a nation because of Him." It was so cool in that moment to hear that God has a plan for us.
Day off one- Dunluce Castle, Bushmills First Fish and Chips, Carrick-a-Rede
Coleraine was only a few miles from the north coast of Ireland and like the rest of the island it was filled with beauty and rich history. So on our first day I got the privilege of planning what our team was going to do. We started by grabbing the bus to Dunluce Castle. Just the drive along the coast was beautiful but the old ruins were AMAZING! After adventuring around the castle grounds we headed to the little town of Bushmills, where we had our first meal of fish and chips for those of you wondering I had chicken and french fries 🙂 but I was told that the fish was wonderful! After our meal we walked to the oldest working whiskey distillery in Ireland. Joe, Adam, Tyler and Payton went on the tour while Cassie, Diane and I bonded in the lounge/gift shop. When they got done we had a while to wait before our bus came so we wondered the old town and did our feedback. (Feedback is what we do everyday to check in on how everyone is doing in our team) When the bus arrived to headed to our final stop, Carrick-a-Rede, which is a rope bridge 40 meters above the ocean. It was really scary but totally awesome! The day was really fun and a great day of bonding as team!
Healing on the Streets
We had a couple days of training by Mark Marks, one of the pastors at Causeway Vineyard. He taught us about why we do healing on the streets, how to approach people without freaking them out and how to share God's love in a real and tangible way. At the end of our training he asked if anyone struggled with back pain and Tyler, a guy on my team, said that he had a really bad back. Mark had Tyler sit in a chair in the middle of the room and had us gather around while he prayed for Tyler's leg to grow so there would be no more pain in his back. And what do you know, Tyler's leg grew! Like 2 inches! It was crazy and awesome!
The next morning we head to the town center and all kneel in the street to pray that God would be there and bring the people that need to be there. Then we wait for people to come and sit in the chairs so we can pray for them and come they did. It was so cool to see what just praying for someone in need can do for their spirit. I prayed for a woman whose husband had just died, a woman with cancer, a woman who had ear problems that caused her dizziness, and many others that God brought to sit in the chairs in Coleraine's town center.
