While working with Discovery Christian Chrurch in Galway, Ireland, we did a lot of different things. When we first arrived, there were other Americans there from Nashville. The Nashville group was from Christ Church Nashville and they were the worship band. (They were amazing, btw..) They had been working with Discovery church for a while and they were there to have a worship leading conference and to distribute CDs.
The first couple of days our ministry was cultural briefing. We would wake up in the morning walk to Megan’s house (a girl from the church who always let us use her house) and have tea coffee and biscuts(cookies) and hear the hearts of the people we would be working with. We learned about how to present our faith on the streets and how Ireland has a lot of scars involving the catholic church and how we can love those people and encourage them that GOD is much bigger than any church and encourage them to seek a personal relationship with God- which has been made possible through Jesus.
Later on that week, our ministry depended on the weather. When it wasn’t raining we would go door to door and drop the praise CDs. There were 10,000 of them!! It was an awesome thing to pray over the CDs and just know that God was going to work through them. I personally have such a connection with music and how it pushes my heart closer to HIM, that I could pray in faith knowing that someone even listening to a second of praises to HIM could plant the seed to forever change their lives.
After we distributed the CDs we helped at the worship conference which was so good for me because we obviously did a lot of worshipping there.
Other parts of our ministry that month were free face painting on the streets of the city which gave us opportunities to talk to parents, free hugs and prayer on the sides of the street, community clean up, street ministering, working at a christian coffee shop that works with Discovery Chrurch, painting houses, and cleaning houses for people in the church.
I really apologise for not blogging the way I should have during the month of september. GOD worked in great ways and I should have given HIM the chance to receive even more glory through my blog. here are a couple stories of how HE worked:
-Nala
One day Stacey Compton and I were walking around doing street ministry and I had felt kind of discouraged because I hadn’t been very bold and I hadn’t felt called to talk to anyone. So her and I just did some prayer walking and walking around. While in one of the shops in the mall we started talking to this girl that worked there named Nala. She was from Ghana. As we talked and told her about the world race we found out she was also a christian. She then encouraged us sooo much.
For most of us on the world race, Africa seems pretty scary. We all know we need to go there but at the same time to think about being in Africa for 3 straight months with the possiblility of never getting to shower and no way to stay connected with family back home, its just a scary thing that we had been talking about because its coming up.
When we talked to Nala, she changed our hearts. She talked to us about how heartbreaking it is that soo many people go to Africa for these beautiful vacations and how just 10minutes outside their resorts children are starving to death and dying of preventable diseases. Her words were heavy on mine and Stacey’s hearts. Our fear to go to Africa turned into passion to go to Afica. We were able to talk to someone who lived there and knew. Nala eyes lit up when she heard we would be going there. You could tell it gave her that little bit of hope that even though she saw soo many people being selfish and living only for themselves in such a poverty stircken place, that God was working. Nala was reminded that God is still sending HIS people out and we were reminded that what we were doing was not about us and that we were blessed to be a part of what God is doing. It reminded me of Matthew 9:37-38.
Jesus says, “the harvest truely is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray to the LORD of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”
We are the laborers. As american christians, we have been equipped with all the tools and more to go out and reap the plentiful harvest that the Lord has prepared. And the thing is that as we go out, we might not see the work that is being done but there is so much more going on in this world than what we can see. Just our going out gives others hope that God is still working and encourages other laborers to go out and be a part of it too. Praise God for how HE sets up divine appointments like the one Stacey and I had with Nala where all 3 of us walked away encouraged!
-Emma
After the majority of the month in tents, Susan (the owner of the christian coffee shop, and a awesome woman of God) let us stay in the hostel/dorm rooms above the coffee shop for a couple nights for free!! It was such a blessing!! It was very expensive for her but she told us almost every night that we were camping and it would rain or anything she would just wake up and worry about us and she knew taking us in was something God was calling her to do.
The campground we were staying at was closing down because of the weather and we really didnt have anywhere else to stay. We knew the last week in Ireland we had to find somewhere and Susan took us in the days before that, then Jimmy( our contact) found us host home around Galway from the church for us to stay in our last week. Because we were with team green light and not 1 whole team could stay together in the host homes our leaders decided to split us up intermixing us with the 2 teams. It was great.
Sarah Gaddy from green light and I were staying at the same host home. Our host were Richard and Emma and they had 3 children-Efrom, Eva, and Edric- all under the age of 10. When we first arrived after church on our last Sunday, we had planned to be on our own for lunch. Instead, Emma had prepared a wonderful lunch. This was just the beginning of her hospitality. Sarah and I were constantly blown away by this wonderful woman of God. Emma didn’t even know us but she gave us a key to her home, fed us waay more than we could ever finish and trusted us to take her children to the park. Our week was full of laughs with Emma and the children. We would wake up with the children and get ready while they got ready for school and we had planned on taking the bus to ministry everyday but Emma wouldnt allow it. She was so sweet she drove us everyday and always told us that if we needed anything to call her and she would come. She took us around to all of her friends to show us off and brag on us for what we were doing. It was crazy. wonderfully crazy. Sarah and I knew we didnt deserve this treatment or praise but it was so encouraging to have someone love on us and be as hospitable as Emma and her family were. After only 2 days of staying in her home Emma said,” I just don’t know what I’m going to do with myself when you girls leave”. At first me and Gaddy were like thats kinda strange that she had become so attached to us so fast but at the same time it felt so great to be loved that. I’m now realizing that when we look to find Jesus in others we really can feel connected and attached that fast because we are brothers and sister in Christ.
One afternoon after our day off at the cliffs of Mohre, Kendra and I walked back together because her host home was only a 5-10 minute walk away from mine. I knew Sarah wouldn’t be home yet because she had worked at the coffee shop that day and I was trying to talk Kendra into coming over to Emma’s with me for a bit. She said no even though I had tried so hard to convince her. As soon as our joking little argument about her coming home with me was over, I turned into my neighborhood and she walked straight.
It was then that I walked into the reality of the spiritual battle Ireland was facing.
After being apart from Kendra for maybe 45 seconds the neighbor across from Emma and Richards house ran out hysterically crying and pacing the sidewalk. Her boyfriends followed her. I didn’t know how to respond in case it was a dispute between the two of them so I sort of kept walking up the carport but also watching in case there was a moment I should jump in and ask if she was okay. I was very worried for the girl. I knew she had to be around my age. As I got up to the door I just stood there and watched. I knew it was none of my business but I also knew I wasn’t being nosey. I was watching because my heart was hurting for the girl no matter what she was crying about. As soon as I started praying for her from the door way I got a sick feeling in my heart that the reasons for her tears were suicide and not a breakup.
Once I saw that the girl was being comforted by her boyfriend, and an ambulance pulled up I decided to stop watching and talk to Emma. I asked Emma if she knew the neighbors and she told me that yes sometimes she would drive the mom to the store. She told me the mom was very sweet but was very weak. I asked her what she meant by that and she said she would drink and that she was always weak and shakey when she saw her.
Throughout that night an ambulance came, then a lot of cops, then a priest, and then lastly a hurse came. It was obvious the woman had died. I still don’t know how, but whether it was intentional suicide or drinking herself to death, it was too early for her to go. Suicide is a very big problem in Ireland. It breaks my heart to see that so many people feel that desperate to escape the pain they are going through that they see suicide as their only option.
If you would keep Ireland in your prayers. It is a country that is often over looked because on the world’s standards it seems perfectly fine, but spiritually there is a huge battle going on.
**
sorry this whole blog is so thrown together as well as the last one. Because I hadn’t blogged in so long I had to throw my whole month together really fast. I’m sure I had a ton of grammer problems and misspelled words and I probably left out a lot of info.. If you have ANY questions or would like to just email me about my trip I would love to hear from you! Just please be patient for me to reply:) my email address is: [email protected]
I loove you all and I thank you for continuing to follow my blog even though I haven’t been a reliable blogger! Bless the LORD!
through HIS love
-Rachel:)
