The day started off rocky, to say the least. I woke up on my mattress on the floor groggy, with a severely painful sore throat, and a swollen red eye, random! I had just spent the past 30 hours traveling from DC to Dublin, followed by a bus ride to Belfast and then another bus ride to the northern shore of Northern Ireland (we missed one of those busses, by the way) and was probably jet lagged, fatigued, and exhausted.
As I woke up and stumbled through our “mansion” for the month I got ready and looked in the mirror at my gross puffy eye. I seriously considered staying back from ministry because of how sick I was. It took a lot of will power to NOT use my limited supply of Cipro antibiotics on the very first day of the race and starting ministry.
It was my turn for dish clean up. Thankfully they gave me the job of just drying the dishes because I don’t think my fatigued throat and eye could handle much else.
As we rolled into the church where we are serving I was blown away at how similar it was to the East Lansing, Michigan church I attend at home. It cheered me up. Not to mention I got to serve at the refreshment table which included having access to endless cups of AMAZING tea.
This church is remarkable in regards to what they are doing with the CHILDREN! I’m not even a children person, I wouldn’t say I would exactly volunteer to work with kids but what they are doing with them is amazing. The entire service was focused just on the prophetic words and visions of what the children had done on Destiny Island (which is their version of Vacation Bible School). The kids went out onto the streets and performed healings. We’re talking 7 and 8 year-olds, folks! This kinda thing doesn’t exactly happen all the time.
As I was sipping my tea they asked if anyone needed healing or prayer that they would send the children forward to pray for you. Caleb stepped forward and that encouraged me so I stepped forward as well. Two gorgeous little girls came up to me and prayed for me to be healed by name and laid hands on me.
By the time the next service rolled around that we served at, I was feeling perfectly fine. I have pictures from when I first arrived where you can visibly see that something is wrong with my left eye, that it was swollen and puffy. I was feeling so well at the end of it all that when the time came to hike about 2 miles to a castle with our host dinner family, I was able to do it all and not feel tired, achey, or sore at all. You can see in the photos that I am fine, my eye is healed.
What this church is doing is incredible, and that word doesn’t even do it justice. I was physically healed by two 7 year-olds.
God is good.
This is only the first day on the race of ministry.
God is working through children these days in a small sea side town in Northern Ireland.
Believe.
